Mary Tisa earned a B.A. in English and Dance from The George Washington University, where she received a four year Presidential Arts Scholarship in Dance and the Nancy Diers Johnston Award for Outstanding Choreography.  While at University, she performed with Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co. as a performing apprentice.  She spent thirteen years as a dance artist in Chicago, where she performed as a company member with the Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre, Corpo Dance Company, and Chicago Dance Crash, in which she was voted as the 2007 CDC’s Favorite Dancer of the Year; and as a performing apprentice with Inaside Chicago Dance.  She set choreography on Inaside Chicago Dance, Core Project, The Dance Foundation, Still Inspired, Dance in the Parks, Wright College, and various student dance companies and High School Orchesis programs throughout Chicagoland. 

 

Her choreography was selected to be a participant in the THE A.W.A.R.D. SHOW! 2010: Chicago, audience selected as the 2010 winner of the Inaside Choreographic Sponsorship Evening, and twice chosen to be part of “Going Dutch,” a festival celebrating female choreographers.  She has also had the opportunity to serve as Co-Artistic director of Jay-son Tisa Dance Company, which presented a full length evening of work called “Resurface” in the winter of 2017.  In the fall of 2016 she relocated to Seattle where she is excited to bring her passion of dance to a new community of artists.