mara poliak is a dancer, artist, writer, collaborator, and teacher living in Oakland, California on unceded Ohlone land. Their performance, practices, and pedagogy center the commons, human and non-human lineages, queer solidarities in decolonizing and liberation work, and the body as a complete site of knowing. Long-term collaborators include Layton Lachman, Margit Galanter, Frances Rosario, Chani Bockwinkel, Abby Crain, and the Cave Coast Collective. mara is a founding member of SALTA, a collective that hosted a free monthly mobile performance series for four years, and now organizes a yearly residency with a group of interdisciplinary artists in rural Northern California.
Talk_performance_2016_CounterPulse Photo by Robbie Sweeney. Snake Talk was created and performed by mara poliak, Layton Lachman and Abby Crain, with sound design by Samuel Hertz and lighting design by Elizabeth Ardent. Snake Talk premiered at CounterPulse Theater, (San Francisco, CA) in 2016, and toured to Performance Works NW (Portland OR), Ponderosa Tanzland (Stolzenhagen, Germany) ACUD Macht Neu (Berlin, Germany), Quarter Block Party (Cork, Ireland), and Links Hall (Chicago, IL).