How Ivan & Taye Marić Are Building M.FAM with Werk
"Your mindset is your most important move."
Ivan and Taye Marić met performing at the Latin Grammys, fell in love, and built a global movement together. Two of the industry's most decorated dancers, thirty combined years on the world's biggest stages, and a shared conviction that the next generation deserves an even better mentorship than they had. M.FAM starts where most programs don't – with the mind. They're building a global pack of dancers who are as strong in their mentality as they are in their movement.
"If you wanna travel fast, go alone. If you wanna travel far, travel together. That's the goal with M.FAM."
– Ivan Marić, Co-Founder, M.FAM
Two Journeys, One Stage
Before there was M.FAM, there were two separate stories: one starting in Phoenix, Arizona, one starting in Rotterdam, the Netherlands – and the universe seemed determined to put them in the same room.
Taye Marić
Taylor started dancing at 8, booked her first professional job at 11 as Kat Graham's mini me on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and never stopped. She's danced for J.Lo, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, and The Weeknd, and performed at the Super Bowl with Rihanna – all while earning a degree summa cum laude on the side.
Ivan Marić
Ivan came to dance at 13 in Rotterdam, skeptically. His mom suggested it to burn off energy. He tried it, fell in love with hip hop, turned professional at 16, spent years as a dancer and assistant choreographer across TV shows and tours in Europe, then made the move to LA in 2018. He pitched his agency with an actual deck, landed Bloc Talent, and danced for every artist on his list.
They met at the 2021 Latin Grammys through a mutual friend. "I fell in love first," Ivan says. Taye doesn't dispute it. Three years later, they're married and building a global community together.
Hard-Won Lessons: The M.FAM Dos & Don'ts
Thirty combined years in the industry will teach you things you can't read in a textbook. Here's what Ivan and Taye have actually learned.
DO
Be a good human – to everyone.
From the stage hand to the creative director, talk to everybody. "Everybody knows everybody, and you never know who's talking to each other," Ivan says. Good energy doesn't just feel nicer – it builds a better workplace, and it follows you from job to job.
DO
Go the extra mile. There's no traffic there.
Show up early. Go over your steps at home. Help the dancer next to you who's struggling. Bring water to people when it's not your job. "The extra mile is where you gain the most for your personal growth," Ivan says. "And no one's gonna outwork me, whether I have the steps or I don't."
DO
Know your worth – but don't let it become your ego.
"You book the job as a star. You keep the job as a team player." Taye has said this in class, and it bears repeating. The moment your worth starts becoming ego is the moment you lose the room.
DO
Be open to feedback – even when you're right.
"Being right will lose you your job sometimes," Ivan says. Receive the note, improve, and move on. The artist or director may have ten things going on that you can't see. Your job isn't to be correct. It's to be adaptable.
DO
Be authentic. Full stop.
"People can read through a superficial persona," Taye says. "Just be you – because if you are yourself, you're going to end up in the room you're supposed to be in, as opposed to one you catfish your way into." You pull into your orbit what fits your actual journey. Trust that.
DON'T
Compare your journey to someone else's.
Ivan tells a story about an audition he didn't book for one of his dream gigs. Disappointed, he was walking out when a dancer pulled him aside and said: the way you dance with so much joy made me not want to give up.
"At that moment I realized – I wasn't there to book the job. I was there to ignite something in that person. Which is way bigger than booking the job. That's why I wanted to dance in the first place."
The Philosophy: Mind First, Then Everything Else
M.FAM, short for Marić Family. is built on a premise: you can be the best dancer in the room and still be a prisoner of your own mind.
"We're building good people as well as good dancers. It's about unlocking what's already in someone. Elevating and amplifying the gift that they have."
– Taylor
Ivan frames it as a video game:
"I'm trying to reach level one hundred – but there is no level one hundred. I just want to keep getting better. It's all part of the hero's journey."
Before anyone runs a single combo in an M.FAM class, Ivan and Taye tell the room: "You are not only allowed, but expected to make 300 mistakes today."
The goal isn't a clean performance. The goal is a real process – one where people fall, get back up, and leave feeling pushed and completely safe at the same time.
APEX: For Those Who Dare to Ascend
APEX, M.FAM's intensive training program, is where the M.FAM philosophy becomes a curriculum.
It launched with a three-day dance intensive: hard pushing, rapid growth, and on the final day, a panel of industry professionals including agents, choreographers, entrepreneurs, and working dancers. The kind of access most emerging dancers spend years trying to find in one room.
"We're condensing what will eventually become our full mentorship program into three days, pushing you to the best version of yourself at rapid-fire speed."
From there, APEX The Pack expands into an ongoing mentorship. Career strategy, technique-specific tools, visa guidance for international dancers, creative direction, the business side of being a choreographer – all of it, from two people who lived every part of it firsthand.
"I didn't have as many mentors when I was coming up. My process could have been different, maybe faster. I want to help the next generation not necessarily avoid those mistakes – but be guided through them.
Using Werk to Keep the Pack Connected – Globally
M.FAM teaches across countries, continents, and time zones. For a long time, staying connected after class meant pointing people to Instagram and hoping for the best.
"I always found it heartbreaking – someone would take my class at Millennium, and they'd be heading back to their home country the next day. They'd ask how to stay in touch and I'd say – follow me on Instagram. But that's so distant. You just become another face in thousands of followers."
With Werk, that changes. Students can sign up for your email list through a QR code, and stay connected to every class, workshop, and program Ivan and Taye put out no matter where in the world either party happens to be.
Their full master schedule lives in one place. Their pack can find them whether they're teaching in LA or landing in Europe for a week.
"Here's my QR code. Here's my Werk page. Here's everything you need in one spot," Taye says. "Nobody has to blow up my phone with questions."
And every new student who signs up becomes part of an ongoing conversation – reachable, connected, and genuinely part of the community rather than a follower who might catch a post if the algorithm cooperates.
Werk: A Platform Built for Creatives
Building M.FAM and APEX isn't just a creative challenge – it's an operational one. A multi-tiered mentorship program requires payment structures, program pages, promotional materials, and the kind of organized infrastructure that most dancers never trained for. That's exactly where Werk comes in.
"As a creative, you have an idea – it's rough, it's sketchy, it's somewhere in your head," Ivan says. "Werk is the platform where you actually refine those things. All the techy stuff that I would miss or avoid – it's already there." Instead of cobbling together a half-dozen different tools, Ivan and Taye can focus on what they actually came to do: the choreography, the mentorship, the community.
– Taylor Marić
"Werk gives us the opportunity to focus on the stuff we love. Werk takes away the distractions, so we can actually build our brand – not just manage it."
– Ivan Marić
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Ivan and Taye are two of thousands of dancers and creators building their businesses as Werk Members.
If you're ready to do the same, join Werk today.
