Whether or not they’re making work for the display screen or the stage, Price n’ Mayor—Austin and Marideth Telenko—are pure storytellers. Their idiosyncratic mixture of road types and musical theater dance is as eloquent as it’s magnetic. The pair have leveraged their star energy, initially constructed through witty dance movies on social media, to choreograph for faculty dance groups, TV reveals, and music movies. Notably, they simply concluded the profitable run of their very own off-Broadway present, 11 to Midnight. The manufacturing drew expertise from throughout the dance world, with performers together with Heather Morris, Nia Sioux, and Melissa Becraft.
We’re used to seeing dance within the background,” says Marideth. “Our present makes dancers the celebs.”
Giving dancers their due has been the Telenkos’ precedence for the reason that 2020 launch of their wildly well-liked social channels, which now boast a mixed follower rely of over 10 million. (Their deal with, Price n’ Mayor, got here from Siri’s comedic misinterpretation of their nicknames for one another: “Price” as a substitute of “Aust,” “Mayor” for “Mar.”) By sharing bite-sized bits of their singular, synchronized choreography, they’ve cultivated a fiercely loyal viewers within the dance world and past. And so they typically use their platform to spotlight the presents of their proficient dance buddies.
Discovering Their Path
Rising up in North Carolina, Marideth educated in foundational road types like popping, waacking, and home. She started doing musical theater in highschool and studied dance and choreography in school on the College of North Carolina at Charlotte. Austin’s introduction to bounce was a triple-threat class at his native studio in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. He fell in love immediately: “I keep in mind strolling out and asking my mother to enroll in all the opposite types,” he says. He participated in group theater productions all through his childhood, increasing into road types in his teenagers.
In 2019, each Marideth and Austin have been navigating the New York Metropolis audition circuit. “It was exhausting to search out work that felt like me,” says Marideth, including that she typically felt “too business” for musical theater auditions and “too theater” for business auditions. She met Austin via a gig at Six Flags Nice Journey in New Jersey. After the season ended, they stayed linked via the dance scene, deepening their friendship and finally turning into a pair.
When the world shut down for the COVID-19 pandemic, the newly courting pair went to North Carolina to stick with Marideth’s mother and father. With additional time on their fingers, they started posting their dances on TikTok within the hopes of accelerating their visibility in a aggressive trade. “It was that you just needed to undergo brokers, casting administrators, and producers to even get into the room for an opportunity to share your artistry,” says Marideth. “Now, you are able to do it in 10 minutes.”
Within the audition room, their distinctive mix of economic and musical theater dance had but to discover a dwelling—however on TikTok, that they had full inventive management, permitting them to carve out their very own area of interest. Though Marideth couldn’t have predicted their speedy success on-line, “I knew we have been utilizing it as a way to pave a brand new method via the trade,” she says.
From the Display screen to the Stage
In lower than a decade, that path has led to speak present appearances, social media partnerships, collaborations with musical artists, a card sport, and choreographer credit for the musical Waitress at Ogunquit Playhouse in 2024. Waitress was an inflection level for the Telenkos: their first time choreographing a musical. It proved to be a pure match. In response to the present’s director, Abbey O’Brien (whom the Telenkos seek advice from as “Nana”), their strategy was fearless. “They’re very desirous to tackle new challenges, however they’re additionally desirous to convey their dynamic into the equation,” she says. “They boost the custom.”
In some methods, 11 to Midnight is an extension of the house the Telenkos created for themselves on social media. Mixing intricate choreography and bodily comedy, the present follows a pair (performed by the Telenkos) and their buddies via the electrical closing hour of New 12 months’s Eve. Taking every part they realized from Waitress—stage course, lighting, storytelling—the Telenkos dove headlong into the problem of choreographing their very own first present. “This present is probably the most ‘us’ factor that we’ve ever made,” says Marideth. “It’s an ideal mixture of heartfelt storytelling and street-style motion.”
One of the vital fulfilling elements of 11 to Midnight, the Telenkos say, was how the manufacturing helped their forged develop artistically. “Seeing them soar onstage and what that does for them is basically unbelievable,” says Marideth. In the course of the inventive course of, the pair allowed room for every performer’s expertise to shine: the choreography was designed as a fluid framework for rotating forged members to play with, relatively than set in stone. “We give them the blueprint, however we received’t beautify the home for them,” Austin says. “That’s what they bring about to the routine.”
A Look Behind the Curtain
The Telenkos’ magnetism is rooted of their authenticity, which has remained fixed via their mounting success. “Their character and the issues that matter to them by no means modified,” says Theresa Stone, choreographer of the Telenkos’ first gig at Six Flags. They exist comfortably on the junction of road model and musical theater dance, and on-line and offline content material. “They lead with their real want to create and discover,” Stone says, not with what they suppose audiences need to see.
This X issue has helped the Telenkos construct a devoted fan base that follows the pair from challenge to challenge. They typically ask this group to weigh in on their work, via feedback, polls, and even a committee for the creation of 11 to Midnight. “Folks really feel so deeply linked to 11 to Midnight as a result of they’ve been concerned and acquired into it for therefore lengthy,” says Marideth, including that exhibiting followers the messy, chaotic aspect of their dancemaking provides the ultimate product extra which means. For instance, the Telenkos polled their viewers for opinions on props, choreography, and extra. “We’re virtually beta-testing issues,” says Marideth. “It’s like a spotlight group for sharing your concepts.” After performances of 11 to Midnight, followers gathered on the stage door to speak to the Telenkos about bits of choreography they acknowledged from social media. “It’s nice to get onstage and do the sparkly factor each evening, however how way more are you able to recognize it when you’ve seen us within the trenches?” Marideth says.
The behind-the-scenes entry the Telenkos provide is uncommon within the dance trade, the place processes like choreography, casting, and rehearsal typically occur behind closed doorways. Transparency is a part of their mission to demystify the inventive course of. “If we are able to encourage somebody on the market with an inside look, that’s an enormous a part of it,” says Austin. For Marideth, it’s about exhibiting aspiring choreographers that making “dangerous” work is an unavoidable a part of the method, not a failure.
Seeking to the long run, the Telenkos say they’ll proceed to create work of their one-of-a-kind model. “We love the intersection of motion, storytelling, and letting dance dwell within the highlight,” says Marideth. “We’ll simply hold creating issues that align with that imaginative and prescient.”
TikTok Evolution
As social media has advanced, so has the Telenkos’ relationship to it. Within the early 2020s, in the beginning of their profession, posting was their inventive lifeline. Now, their power is funneled into different initiatives, permitting them to pivot to way of life and behind-the-scenes content material on-line.
“I now not depend on social media as my sole inventive outlet,” says Marideth. In actual fact, the duo has to steadiness their choreographic output on-line and in individual to keep away from burnout. Austin says that, now, social media enhances their real-world initiatives: “We’re all the time speaking about how we are able to get [the two] to work collectively.”
The label “TikTok choreographers” used to trouble the Telenkos, carrying with it connotations of amateurism. However, finally, they embraced it. “TikTok is superior, and we share choreography on there that we work exhausting on and are happy with,” says Marideth. “We are able to drop the stigma round being a dancer on the web.”
The publish Price n’ Mayor Make Work That Feels Like Them—From Viral TikTok Clips to Full-Scale Musical Theater Productions appeared first on Dance Journal.