Before, Mireia Ridaura used to dance.
He danced daily, often at the dance academy that bore his name. Mireia Ridaura lived dance like a prophet, she spread it around her: in the last days of confinement, when we could finally go out for a little while, she put on dance sessions in the community garden.
On the basketball court, the neighbors put on their masks and tights and, respecting the distance between them, followed in Mireia Ridaura’s footsteps. From above, the neighborhood watched the scene.
Then, health and stress took their toll on Mireia Ridaura: the embers remained from that inner fire. Disappointed, she had to close the academy and leave dance.
(…)
Days ago, Mireia Ridaura took her seat in the sixth row of the Victoria Theater and prepared to watch Ser, Sergio Bernal’s show: Beyoncé, Vivaldi, Swan Lake and the soleá por bulerías, all together on stage, with fourteen musicians and four dancers.
–When Sergio Bernal became the swan and in the end died on stage, practically naked, with ballet underwear and worn-out slippers, the inner flame was lit in me, the need to dance again –Mireia Ridaura tells me–. And in the middle of the work, I burst into tears. And at the end of the show, I decided that it couldn’t end like that.
He tells me that he sneaked backstage, immersed himself in the labyrinthine passageways of the theater and, somewhere, found Sergio Bernal. She says she went up to the artist and gave him a hug and thanked him.
-Because? –Bernal asked him.
–For what you have done for me through your show.
Mireia Ridaura says that she told him who she was, what dance had been for her, and Sergio Bernal, surrounded by his collaborators as he was, took her by the hand and took her aside. In a discreet corner, like a psychologist, like a father or like a lover, he prepared to listen to Mireia Ridaura.
In that kind of confessional, they spent a quarter of an hour there, maybe more, and Mireia Ridaura told the dancer that she was tired, and the dancer, looking into her eyes, sweaty and congested, told her that she had to keep going, fight to recover. their joy even in illness, and after a while they both said goodbye and, upon going outside, Mireia Ridaura ran into the line of admirers and selfie hunters waiting for Sergio Bernal. And for a moment, she said to herself:
–If I haven’t asked for my photo with him!
And he laughed inside, forgetting was not important, because everything else doesn’t matter when you feel comforted.
