Mara is a Wollongong based independent contemporary dance choreographer. She has a Bachelor's in Dance Performance from Queensland University of Technology. In 2023 she completed a Masters of Dance Research for Professional Practitioners through Rambert School in the UK. This included a written thesis, deconstructing her choreography through a scholarly lens.

Mara has always loved creating movement, and did so in many different contexts as a child and teen. In her third year at QUT she completed her first fully realised choreographic work, Are You Seeing Me? (2017). Since then, she's completed five other works: The Parting Glass (2017), My Battery is Low (2019), Joy Box (2020), Ankle Deep Water (2022), and Let Them Be Messy (2023).