Mackian Bauman (he/they) is a California-born director, choreographer, performer, and coach residing in Brooklyn, the traditional Land of the Lenape. As a theater-maker, Mackian’s work blends physical composition, narrative (real and imagined), clowning, and camp into vignette-driven mosaics investigating authenticity in the individual—how we lose it, how shame takes over, and how to find it again— hoping to inspire his audiences to live more unapologetically.
As a director of plays, Mackian’s work is embodied, surreal, funny, and poetic. As with his personal work, the abstracted body is highlighted. Stagecraft is always transparent: characters move sets, objects transform beyond their intended purpose, and illusion is never attempted. The raw look bleeds into the action on stage. The stupid is divine and failure is encouraged. In the rehearsal room, traditional creative hierarchy is de-prioritized and replaced with a devising, ensemble-driven mindset. Ultimately, Mackian strives for his directing/facilitating/guiding to be in service of the creative process and to the power of mimesis, so his audiences may be awakened.
His work has been presented at Movement Research @ Judson Church, Yale University-Marquand, NYU, MITU 580, Triskelion Arts, Gibney Dance Show/Share, Dixon Place, and more, collaborating with directors Joshua William Gelb, Candis C. Jones, and the like.
He is a member of Julia Crockett & Group with which he has performed at National Sawdust, 99 Scott, Men’s NYFW: BODE, and elsewhere.
Mackian is also a coach with the Movement Department at the Terry Knickerbocker Studio in Industry City, Brooklyn, specializing in the Llyod Williamson Technique. Most recently, he consulted on For All Mankind (Apple TV).