Mari Madrid

Mariel Madrid, known professionally as Mari Madrid, is a choreographer, dancer, and director whose narrative-driven work has bridged online dance film, theatrical storytelling, and movement education. She developed as a dancer within California's hip-hop crew and workshop networks, working with Funkanometry SF and later Choreo Cookies in San Diego—communities centered on collective choreography, precision, and peer-led training. In 2008, she met Keone Madrid at an Urban Legends workshop; they married in 2012 and became a recognized creative partnership, with both credited as choreographers, performers, and co-authors across teaching, film, and direction.

Mari's performances are marked by precise facial focus, gesture, articulation, and timing that make small actions legible on camera and in live space. Her work with Keone Madrid built a large online following by carrying narrative through the body rather than relying on text or exposition. Their international workshops helped circulate this approach through studio culture and dance training networks.

The pair expanded into longer-form storytelling with projects including *RUTH*, a digital dance-book format, and *Beyond Babel*, a co-created dance-theatre work inspired by *Romeo and Juliet* and contemporary political divisions. Co-created with producers Josh and Lyndsay Aviner, *Beyond Babel* premiered in San Diego in 2018 and reached Off-Broadway in 2020, where it received two Drama Desk Award nominations. Mari has continued identifying publicly as a director, choreographer, dancer, and mother, building a career that insists on movement authorship across film, theatre, and live performance.