Artist Profile

Keone and Mari Madrid: The Storytellers Who Changed Choreography Forever

From a San Diego dance studio to Disney, BTS, Broadway, and billions of views — Keone and Mari Madrid built a creative empire by never separating movement from meaning.

By Dance Mogul Magazine  |  Artist Profile

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Who Are Keone and Mari Madrid?

In a commercial dance landscape that often rewards spectacle over substance, Keone and Mari Madrid have built their entire career on a single radical idea: choreography should tell a story. They are an award-winning choreographer and director team, a married couple, and parents who have permeated far beyond the dance world and into theatre, music, film, and online platforms. Their work has been viewed billions of times across YouTube and social media. Their client list reads like a map of contemporary pop culture: Justin Bieber, BTS, Billie Eilish, Ed Sheeran, Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, and Omar Apollo. Their creative footprint stretches from Disney animated films to Broadway musicals, from K-pop training camps to sold-out immersive theatre experiences.

But what makes the Madrids extraordinary is not the scale of their resume. It is the philosophy beneath it. Every piece they create — whether a three-minute music video or a two-hour stage production — begins with a question: what does this movement mean? In an industry where choreography is often treated as decoration, the Madrids treat it as language. And that distinction has made them two of the most influential dance artists of their generation.

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The San Diego Roots

Keone Madrid was born on June 30, 1988, in San Diego, California, to Richard Edra Madrid and Luana C. Diaz. He is of Filipino descent and grew up alongside his sisters, Kaila and Charina. He discovered dance at the age of fifteen — relatively late by competition standards — and began training in his hometown, performing with crews including Future Shock San Diego, Culture Shock San Diego, and Formality. His movement vocabulary was distinctive from the start: rhythmic, narrative, deeply musical, drawing from hip-hop, animation, and a gestural style that would later become his signature.

Keone's early breakthrough came not through a traditional audition but through the internet. One of his students uploaded a video of his choreography, and it went viral. That video opened doors to professional work and signaled something the industry had not yet fully understood: that YouTube was becoming the most powerful audition stage in the world.

Mariel Martin — known universally as Mari — met Keone at a dance workshop in March 2008. Their introduction was not smooth. Keone had inadvertently offended her during a class in Asia, and when they later crossed paths at a workshop in the United States, she was cold. But Keone reached out through MySpace, and when he asked her to choreograph for his competition team FSSD, their creative and personal lives merged with extraordinary speed. As Keone has recounted, it took four days of spending time together to become a couple and say "I love you." They married in June 2012, and their daughter Numah was born in 2019.

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Choreo Cookies and the Competition Years

Before the Madrids became an international brand, they were competitors. For eight years, they danced with and choreographed for Choreo Cookies, the dominant San Diego-based competition team that became one of the most respected crews in the American dance circuit. This period was foundational. Competition dancing taught them how to build pieces under pressure, how to structure narrative within strict time limits, and how to create work that connected with both judges and audiences. It also built the community around them — the network of dancers who would later become their collaborators, assistants, and cast members for projects far larger than any competition stage could hold.

In 2016, Keone officially joined the Kinjaz, the internationally celebrated dance crew, becoming their thirty-sixth member and making his debut at the 2017 Arena dance competition with choreography to "Betta Watch Yoself" by Problem. His connection to the Kinjaz through childhood friend Vinh Nguyen added another layer to his already expansive creative network.

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The Commercial Breakthrough: Justin Bieber, BTS, and Billions of Views

The Madrids' commercial breakthrough came through a series of projects that demonstrated their unique ability to merge storytelling with pop culture scale. Their choreography for Justin Bieber's "Love Yourself" music video — in which both Keone and Mari starred — became one of the most-watched dance videos on the internet and earned nominations for best choreography at the MTV Video Music Awards and the UK Video Music Awards.

Their relationship with BTS, the South Korean pop group that became the biggest musical act of the 2020s, spanned over a decade. Keone choreographed for multiple BTS projects, including V's "Singularity" (which earned a Best Choreography award) and, after ten years of collaboration, was hired to choreograph a majority of the choreography for Jungkook's "Standing Next to You" — a full-circle moment that reflected the depth and durability of their creative partnership.

Other commercial credits include choreography for Billie Eilish (including her Coachella performance and "Where Do We Go" tour), Ed Sheeran, Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamar (the haunting "Never Catch Me" video that remains one of the most artistically acclaimed music videos of the decade), appearances on World of Dance, So You Think You Can Dance, and Dancing with the Stars, and campaigns for Nike, Timberland, and Beats By Dre. Altogether, their videos on YouTube have amassed more than two billion views.

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Beyond Babel: Where Dance Meets Theatre

In 2018, Keone and Mari co-created, directed, choreographed, and starred in Beyond Babel — an immersive theatrical production inspired by Romeo and Juliet, told entirely through the style they had spent their careers developing. The show premiered in San Diego at a custom-built immersive theater space near Downtown, and later transferred to New York, where it became a New York Times pick and was nominated for two Drama Desk Awards. Beyond Babel was not a dance recital with a narrative wrapper. It was a full theatrical experience — with set design, lighting, costumes, and audience integration — that proved choreography could carry an entire evening of live performance without a single line of dialogue.

The success of Beyond Babel opened the door to Broadway. The Madrids were brought on to direct and choreograph the Britney Spears jukebox musical Once Upon a One More Time and to choreograph The Karate Kid — The Musical, which received its world premiere in St. Louis in 2022 to sold-out houses and rave reviews. In 2026, The Karate Kid embarked on a major UK tour — opening at New Wimbledon Theatre in April and visiting eleven cities across England, Scotland, and Wales — before its planned West End and Broadway transfers. The choreographic demands of martial arts storytelling on a musical stage represent a new frontier for the Madrids' approach, and by all accounts, they have risen to the challenge.

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Disney, Film, and the Academy Award Shortlist

In 2021, Disney released "Us Again" — an animated short film told entirely through music and dance, with Keone and Mari providing the choreographic and creative direction. The film, which explored the joy and loss of movement through an elderly couple who rediscover their love of dance during a magical rainstorm, was shortlisted for an Academy Award and won the NAACP Image Award for Animated Short Film. It now streams on Disney+ and stands as one of the most beautiful examples of animation and choreography working in complete synthesis.

The Madrids have also directed and written two short films — Lolo and Roboto — which received awards at numerous film festivals and played at Oscar-qualifying festivals. Their expanding filmography reflects a broader creative ambition: to use every available medium to tell stories through movement.

Most recently, Keone has served as creative director and choreographer for Omar Apollo's critically acclaimed album and tour God Said No, and as creative director for Full Circle Boys, a new American boy band — demonstrating that his range now extends from independent art films to commercial pop infrastructure.

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The Movement School: Teaching the Next Generation

The Madrids' commitment to dance education is not an afterthought — it is central to their identity. They operate a school in California built on a holistic approach to training that goes beyond teaching choreography. Their curriculum includes meditation, nutrition, mental health, stretching, exercise, and creative development. The space doubles as a film studio with professional lighting for virtual classes, a model they expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic to reach students who would never have had access to their teaching in person.

Their leadership style in the studio mirrors their creative philosophy: community-first, pressure-free, emotionally safe. Collaborators describe auditions run by the Madrids as environments where no one is made to feel anxious, where the process begins with conversation rather than competition, and where the goal is to find artists who align with a vision rather than simply execute steps. In a dance industry where auditions can be dehumanizing, this approach is quietly revolutionary.

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Cultural Responsibility and the Retirement of "Urban"

In May 2020, following the murder of George Floyd, Keone and Mari took public inventory of their own lives and the ways they might unknowingly contribute to systemic racism. They made a formal statement that they would no longer call their genre of dance "urban," acknowledging the harmful racial implications of the term. It was a significant moment — not because it solved a systemic problem, but because it demonstrated that influence comes with responsibility, and that artists at the highest level of the commercial dance world have a role to play in shaping the language and culture of their profession.

This kind of intentionality — the willingness to examine not just what they create but the framework around it — is what makes the Madrids essential figures in the evolution of contemporary dance culture.

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Why Keone and Mari Madrid Matter to the Global Dance Community

The Madrids matter because they have proven that dance choreography is not a support function — it is a primary art form. They have directed Disney films, created Broadway shows, built billion-view video catalogs, trained the next generation, and raised a family while doing all of it. They represent the possibility of a career in dance that does not require choosing between artistic integrity and commercial success, between family life and creative ambition, between teaching and performing.

For the global community that Dance Mogul Magazine serves — dancers, educators, parents, students, and cultural leaders — the Madrids are a blueprint. Their story proves that a Filipino-American choreographer from San Diego and a Filipina-American dancer from the workshop circuit can build one of the most influential creative practices in the world, not by conforming to industry standards but by insisting that the industry rise to meet their own.

That is the kind of legacy Dance Mogul Magazine exists to celebrate — and the kind of story we believe every dancer deserves to read.

Read more profiles: Chris Brown's Choreographers Spotlight  |  Megan Thee Stallion's Dance Director Spotlight: JaQuel Knight

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Dance Mogul Magazine • Inspiring Self-Empowerment • dancemogul.com