Mary is an intermedia dance maker, performer, theatre technician, and 3rd year MFA in Dance student at The Ohio State University. Originally from Curtis, Nebraska, her research explores the intersections between contemporary dance making, physical theatre, and playscript analysis techniques. She holds a BA in Theatre with a minor in Dance from the University of Nebraska at Kearney where she specialized in technical theatre including lighting design, stage management, and directing. Mary's undergraduate research project Losing Eden; or Wherever you are... won UNK's Undergraduate Award of Excellence. 

In her creative work, Mary identifies how established narratives, stories, and myths can draw parallels and resonate with the lived experiences of women and queer performers today and offer opportunities to express agency throughout the creative process. Through a textual analysis based practice, she examines how utilizing narrative in dance lends itself to the expression or exclusion of female and queer agency through movement qualities and physical touch between dancers, particularly through a collaborative choreographic process where dancers are empowered to make their own decisions as to how that narrative plays out. She integrates intimacy coordination, a practice typically used in theatre and film to choreograph intimate moments between performers, as a tool to communicate personal boundaries when choreographing physical contact or emotionally charged content. With the support of the Career Accelerator Fund, she has participated in various workshops through Theatrical Intimacy Education and continues to identify how this practice may translate from theatre to dance and aid in breaking down the typical choreographer/dancer power dynamics.

In her time at OSU, Mary has done extensive work in lighting design and stage management in Sullivant Hall's Barnett Theatre and is currently serving as a Graduate Research Associate in the ACCAD Motion Lab. Through this position she supports choreographers, performers, and instructors as they explore the expanding avenues of intermedia technology in art and performance. She continues to embrace technologies such as video, projections, and motion capture in her creative practice as an evolution of her journey as both a theatre and dance maker.