ABOUT MARY
BACKGROUND
Mary Staub grew up bi-culturally (U.S.-Swiss) in Switzerland and spent her childhood as a competitive gymnast and exploring. She discovered dance at Sarah Lawrence College, NY, while studying Latin American literature and pre-med sciences. Her wideranging interests led her into journalism in New York City for numerous years, working as freelance writer, writing teacher and studying modern dance, dance theater, and yoga. These interests naturally led to a career as community-based and academic ESL instructor.
After 14 years in New York, Mary now lives in Switzerland, where she continues to explore dance, teach English, write, and engage in a variety of creative pursuits.
DANCE
Mary is trained in numerous traditional modern dance styles, primarily the techniques of Jose Limon and Isadora Duncan. Other major styles include Cunningham, dance theater, contact improvisation and decades of yoga studies. Notable teachers and mentors include Alan Danielson, Jim May, Lori Belilove, Viola Davis, and Mary Anthony.
Mary has also explored various other styles, ranging from flamenco to tango, salsa and swing. She was an active capoerista for many years in New York, Spain, and Switzerland.
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PERFORMANCE
While in New York, Mary performed with modern dance and dance theater companies including Movita Dance Theatre, Racoco Productions, and the Isadora Duncan Dance Company under Lori Belilove. In Switzerland, she's performed in works by Parwin Hadinia, as part of Anne-Sophie Fenner's tanzcontinuum as well as in site-specific performances on a freelance basis.
WRITING
As a freelance journalist and author, Mary has written about dance for numerous New York-based (New York Sun, Dancer Magazine, Encore Magazine, among them) and German-language publications (Ballet Tanz, Basler Zeitung). Her aim was and is to make dance accessible to her readers.
Besides dance, Mary writes stories about local news, happenings, people and places. She particularly enjoys uncovering he extraordinary in the ordinary.
In a similar vein, she recently dabbled in outdoor guidebook (biking NYC) writing.
TEACHING DANCE & MOVEMENT
Mary teaches traditional (Limon/Duncan-based) modern dance in dance studio as well as community-based settings.
In community-based settings, Mary also teaches movement-based workshops that help build strength, flexibility, creativity and confidence in individuals of wide-ranging populations (ie non-dance backgrounds). These workshop help build community through co-creative movement activities that are scaffolded and adapted for all abilities.
TEACHING ENGLISH & WRITING
Mary teaches English in a variety of contexts, currently at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) at the Institute of Applied Media Studies, where she uses her journalistic expertise to teach media-related English. She also teaches at the University of St. Gallen, where her classes aim to prepare students for success in both professional and academic contexts.
She particularly enjoys developing materials to cater to learners with interests in media, the arts and culture. In all of these courses, her expertise in and passion for these subjects matters feed into the materials and topics she brings to her students.
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She used to teach ESOL in New York, academic ESL for international students, journalistic writing for undergraduates at NYU, among other things.
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In Switzerland, she also teaches German as another language DaZ/DaF on occasion.