Marianne attained a Masters degree and PhD in History from the University of Auckland, and a MA Performing Arts from Middlesex University, London. She held the Keith Sinclair Scholarship in History at the University of Auckland. She is the author of two books; Performing Indigenous Culture on Stage and Screen: A Harmony of Frenzy (Palgrave Macmillan) and Limbs Dance Company: Dance for All People (DANZ). Her articles and chapters have appeared in several peer-reviewed journals including Dance Research, Theatre Journal, the New Zealand Journal of History and the Melbourne Historical Journal, and in edited collections including Staging the Other in Nineteenth-Century British Drama (Peter Lang) and Music, Dance and the Archive (Sydney University Press). Recent essays have been published in The Spinoff (The Sunday Essay), Fear and Courage, and Trolley, a literary magazine of the New York State Writers Institute. Marianne has danced and taught professionally in the United States and New Zealand, including with Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians, Limbs Dance Company, Douglas Wright and Dancers and the Foster Group.
When not writing, dancing or teaching Marianne works as an archivist for several performing arts organizations in Aotearoa and the USA.
During her residency Marianne is working on the first biography of one of New Zealand’s most significant, but forgotten male dance artists, Thomas O’Carroll/Jan Caryll, the ‘first male ballet student in New Zealand’. The book is an explorarion of his dancing life challenges and highlights several aspects of New Zealand history, including early 20th century masculinity, developments in cultural expression and emergent styles of dance, both nationally and internationally.