Mary Power Bio
MpowerDance Project Director Producer Choreographer
MpowerDance Project, a member of the San Francisco non-profit dance community through Independent Arts and Media, has been making dance since 1992. Our choreography is sourced from Butoh, Contemporary Dance (Modern, Ballet), African, Flamenco and other mind-body systems: Pilates, Gyrotonic, Yoga, Martial Arts and body leverage for partnering/TRX. Our Project offers interdisciplinary performance works, dance training, process and performance opportunities, collaborations with dancers, artists, writers and film makers, musicians, and connects community experience through dance art performance and dance film media. Artistic Director, Mary Power, holds a Masters of Arts in Exercise Science and Kinesiology with an extensive background in Sports/Dancemedicine.
While in grad school at SFSU, Mary Power won several scientific awards in Biomedical Research:
*The Graduate Achievement Award 1999
San Francisco State University
*RIMI Biomedical Research Competition 1999
Second Place In Clinical Sciences & Nutrition
*California State University Research Competition 1999
Third Place In Clinical Sciences And Nutrition
*California State University Research Competition 1997
First Place In Clinical Sciences And Nutrition
From 2009-2020, Mary successfully ran Nob Hill Pilates and Gyrotonic Studio for athletes and dancers until the 2020 COVID pandemic shuttered its doors. That following year, author Mary Power published a new choreography book, Visionary Dance Oracle, A Book of the Soul (2021). She continues to teach mind-body arts including Pilates, Gyrotonic, TRX, Contemporary Dance, Martial Arts.
In 2024, MpowerDance taught a Butoh workshop at Joe Goode Studio in San Francisco, and at the Performing Arts Center at the University of Texas San Antonio. For her Butoh performances at the art exhibit Mementomorium at Space C7 San Antonio, Mary Power made original ceramic art, graphic art for the exhibition, and, she made costumes for the two fifteen minute Butoh dance pieces she choreographed and performed in for the opening.
From 2021-2022, Mary curated a yearlong art exhibit, MOTHERpeaceMOTHERwar, at the San Francisco Theosophical Society (SFTS). The MpowerDance Project collaborative effort involved ten local artists, featuring two works of installation art, photography, dance performance, spoken word and live music. Mary not only contributed an installation art piece for the show, but choreographed and performed two different twenty-minute dance pieces at the opening and closing of the exhibition.
Also in 2021, Mary Power authored a choreography book called, Visionary Dance Oracle, A Book of the Soul.
Director’s Statement
Our project maintains high artistic content production that comments on human-centric views and promotes dance art performance. We are committed to diversity, inclusion and social awareness. Mpowerdance Project supports collaboration with dancers, artists, writers, musicians, and technicians who align with our project’s work. We are made of disparate artists and survivors (women, cancer, war, child abuse, climate refugees, racial and gender injustice). We inspire and connect diverse audiences, both locally (San Francisco) and globally, through the GDP/Global Dance Project, an annual choreographic offering. We build toward sustainability in all relationship, promoting professionalism and friendship with respect among ourselves, other humans, other species and to nature itself.
