David – A champion from Sullana

His triumphs permitted him to dance in the Northern Marinera National Contest.

 

An Exclusive by FACTORTIERRA

 

 

SULLANA, Peru – It’s Sunday night, February 5^th, 2012, there is a rain warning, and David Rivera Córdova, 19, must go out to dance again. “Ever when I go to dance in a contest, I think to do the things well and to get in the three first places,” he confesses.

 

The decissive dancers batch is announced and the Accountability student remembers in a fraction of second that he must not highlight alone but complementing to his couple – the marinera is a dance of two. The roll sounds, the walk begins, and his mother in the tribune holds the breathing.

 

After many years, a devaluated Sullana’s Feria de Reyes re-launched one of its most missed contests – the marinera and tonderofestival. The second one is purely African-Piura-native but the marinera has an entire story that comes from the own Spain and that, after a stop in Chile, is one of the most representative dances of Peruvian folklore.

 

The variant that is danced in Peruvian Northern is now a kind of national cult, as much as it’s the only live cultural broadcast that competes for ratings with movies and sports, achieving to overcome them. It’s about the Northern Marinera has a little of drama and romance combined with power and skill. “It’s more than sports, it’s a different emotion,” David affirms.

 

Gens on the stage

He was not born here but Chulucanas. Still a baby, he was brough to live in Lima and he had to come back at 7 years old. Blood of artists runs through his body: an uncle had an orchestra, his cousins sing and dance, and a niece already had adopted the hard discipline of flirting and brushing the floor with the feet and revolving the air with the handkerchief.

 

Davie, as he’s friendly nicknamed, made his return to Chulucanas entering the marinera. “I learned the basics – when I started to dance it, I didn’t want to leave it.” His mother, Luz María Córdova Panta, 48, is his first fan. “she likes marinera muchly – I wouldn’t get anything I have if she didn’t owe it to me.”

 

He also sang but he left it when he changed his voice despite this is appropriate for high tones, complicated for any male. He left to dance when he was a teenager more because of group pressure than a lack of time, until he retook it three years before. He ever got the first places.

 

Learn the benefits of marinera in physical terms, on ChulucanasGym.

 

Nationwide summoned

The band in the contest began to play the second part of the theme and David has seconds to recover power in a very simulated way. A bit of tireness means losing points in his score, the visual and mental disconnection to his partner means the same.

 

“The marinera is motivation above everything, it’s wanting and wanting,” Tradición Norteña Academy’s coach Luis Mori Rojas explains. To achieve that efficiency level, David Rivera rehearses 2 to 2½ hours three times a week. When a competition is coming up, he does it everyday.

 

Because of his discipline, he’s could be selected to join the Malteser choreographic ballet that performed in the 52^nd Northern Marinera National Contest, happened in January 2012 in Trujillo, Peru. His choreography represented the encounter of Spaniards and Quechuans and the imposition of the Catholic faith.

 

David joined the ballet like other people coming from different parts of Peru, because of the call of a Piura City-based friend. He was the only dancer from Sullana. “It was something I never have felt.” He had to move to Trujillo for two weeks and work hard directed by Jardy Mori (not related to his coach in Sullana).

 

“The simple fact to be behind the tunnel, to be there at the time you have to enter, the lot of public, it feels exciting.” Despite its display, the ballet got the fourth place. “The truth is we deserved quite more – our choreography was complicated.” Instead, what he danced, literally, nobody won’t take him out.

 

More than applauses

The last accords sounded and that rain-warning night just remained the final results, much stressed. “When you win, when they cheer on you, the people supporting you, that excites you.” Going to Trujillo was easy because Malteser provided the full logistics but contesting by his own is another tale. “I repress to attend some contests because I don’t have any sponsor,” David claims.

 

No one in Tradición Norteña has a sponsorship to represent Sullana when going far, like Lima or Tarapoto City. “We do it by passion,” Luis Mori underlines. The highest grace that David has could receive is the flexibility in schedules by former Chimboté’s Los Angeles University, where he studied, for rehearsals and travels to contest, previous permission.

 

Many times, Tradición Norteña has to organize fundraising activities or passing the hat, and they are not ever successful. “Sometimes Davie gets disappointed,” Mr Mori points out, but that does not disencourage David wwwhose actual satisfaction is seeing how more people decide to dance, from the youngest to the senior.

 

That’s why he goes to win. And regarding, the time to know the judges decision has come. The results are announced at least. His heart beats faster, his coach whispers his own anxiety, and his mother, Luz María, stretches her punches.

 

David and his partner have just won the first place of Young Category. “I feel too happy,” he reaches to say. And from this moment on, going ahead just remains. “I’ll continue dancing marinera.”

 

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