Marie Osterman
Performer, Director, Teaching Artist
Theatre Education
After receiving their BA in acting and directing from UCLA, Marie discovered a love for theatre education, and has worked in Los Angeles and San Diego for the last 6 years as a teaching artist at public schools, private schools, non profit organizations, summer camps, and youth detention centers. They firmly believe in the joy and power of theatremaking as a vehicle to build confidence, community, and empathy. From nature appreciation movement workshops for the outdoor preschool she was a lead teacher at, to using Theatre of the Oppressed exercises to devise social theatre tableaus with high schoolers, Marie strives to weave creative expression, play, and social-justice engagement into all of their teaching work.
They're currently working as a teaching artist for Unusual Suspects Theatre Company, an organization focused on social theatre, devising, and improv as tools to empower high risk youth (ages k-19). They are also a teaching artist at the long-standing 24th STreeT Theatre, teaching improvisational theatre for kids grades k-6. They are also currently working with Project Nongenue to develop an outreach program geared towards empowering young girls through empowered theatremaking.
Movement & Contact Improvisation
Marie has been in love with contact improvisation since she was 15, when she first was lucky enough to study with Anya Cloud in San Diego. Since then, Marie has become a teacher and passionate member of the Contact Improvisation community, having studied with community leaders in San Diego, Los Angeles, Germany, and Tbilisi. Their own teaching in Contact Improv focuses on accessibility, community-building, emergent strategy, and chaos.
Marie’s movement pedagogy draws from teachings and influences of Nita Little, Konstantinos Mihos, Anna Halprin, Augusto Boal, Dorte Bjerre Jensen, and Mary Peterson.
Marie has taught movement (with a focus in contact improvisation and liberated movement) to youth groups ages 6-19 at the La Jolla Playhouse, Santa Monica Dance Home, Canyon Crest Academy, and various youth dance studios in San Diego.
Teaching Statement
Marie has built their movement teaching practice around movers of all ages and experiences, believing that movement is not just useful for theatremaking and creativity, but vital to every aspect of the developing mind and body. Their classes are made to be accessible to all bodies, ages, and experiences, meeting the participants where they’re at and empowering them to listen to their body’s individual goals. While they have worked with all ages and level of professional, Marie is most passionate about teaching young artists, specializing in ages 11-18. Marie helps students discover and cultivate their own movement practice through introducing them to a combination of embodied, process-oriented practices such as contact improvisation, movement liberation, viewpoints, and devised theatre. In the immediacy and freedom of improvised work, it can bring attention to our personal narratives and internal obstacles that we may face in our daily lives. This kind of brave space can invite more creative solutions and truthful observations about our relationships to ourselves, others and our environment. Through building ensemble, liberating our own movements, and sharing the dance, Marie aims to cultivate a container where students may arrive to take on these obstacles in an embodied context, and emerge with openness, connection and a more grounded creative power.
recent workshops
check out some of my recent offerings for movement classes around LA!
