Mara Michelle - A Woman In Art
About Mara
Photographer
“For me, every photograph is a portrait; the clothes are just a vehicle for what I want to say. You're photographing a relationship with the person you're shooting; there's an exchange, and that's what that picture is.” Peter Lindbergh (*1944-†2019)
Mara learned the art of portrait photography from camera expert Olaf Bergmann, who has since become her closest confidant and best friend.
With her photo book Backstage Heroes, she created a photographic milestone by capturing emotional moments of cosplayers in black and white—without any retouching or post-production. Her work presented an entirely new perspective, focusing on authenticity rather than perfection.
Every year, she can be found at the Film & Comic Convention in Dortmund, and she gladly picks up her camera for selected projects:
"As a photographer, I don't like being the center of attention. I much prefer working behind the scenes—backstage at a theatre production or a fashion show. That's where the real moments happen: when people are under pressure, excited, focused or overwhelmed. That's my world and I capture it as it is, without any retouching or editing. I also don't want to spend hours selecting images afterward, so I take only a few photographs. I'd rather create one photograph that unfolds into a thousand moments when you look at it than a thousand photographs of a single moment."
Dancer
“I am not interested in how people move, but in what moves them.” Pina Bausch (*1940-†2009)
For many years, Mara's body felt frozen. Traumatic experiences had left it tense, rigid and unable to move freely. Returning to ballet at the age of 33 was a tremendous challenge.
Qualifying as a fitness instructor helped her understand how the body works, but her mind still struggled to feel safe. Then, at the beginning of 2026, everything changed.
She started taking jazz dance classes, attended several workshops led by Tanztheater Wuppertal and gradually stopped seeing movement as merely a functional act:
"For most of my life, I felt disconnected from my body. I had no real access to my emotions and couldn't tell whether what I was feeling belonged to the present or was rooted in the past. Today, I see every movement as an experience in itself. I explore my feelings and emotions and translate them into physical expression. When I asked my teacher what the difference between modern dance and contemporary dance is, he said: 'Contemporary is always the present. It gives you answers to today's questions. Who knows what questions we'll be asking a hundred years from now?'"
Artist
Born in 1991 with German-Filipino roots, Mara grew up in Remscheid before moving to Wuppertal as a young adult. Her childhood was marked by hardship, emotional pain and experiences that left a lasting impact. It was only through receiving diagnoses later in life, that she found a path that gave her life a new sense of meaning:
"I always wondered why I was different and why no one seemed to understand the way I experienced the world. It wasn't until I was diagnosed with ASD and ADHD that I realized my hightened sensitivity and ability to perceive details are not weaknesses, but essential parts of my artistic expression…
There's a line in John Wick: Chapter 3 that resonates with me… 'Art is pain. Life is suffering.' I believe there is truth in that. I first had to learn how to express my own pain and grief through my own existence - yes, suffering can give rise to profound art! And then there is also the constant struggle with social interaction, being around groups of people and the overwhelming noise that I am exposed to every day…
Today, I know that dance is the only language through which I can truly communicate without being misunderstood. Along this journey, I discovered that art is not something we simply create—it is something we embody.… it lives in the way we speak, the way we dress, the intention with which we step into the world, the way we perceive life, the way we interpret the things that we experience us and the inspiration we carry home with us every day.”
FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK…