An artist, musician, performer and business manager, Maria Bodmann earned her BFA and MFA in Multidisciplinary Art and Music from California Institute of the Arts. She studied music at the Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin, Germany, and was a Fulbright Scholar in Gamelan at the Indonesian Academy of Performing Arts (ASTI) and shadow theater in the village of Sukawati, Bali.

The Dept of Cultural Affairs, City of Los Angeles, has awarded numerous grants, including the prestigious COLA grant, to Maria to produce and present traditional Wayang Kulit and creative performances and residencies. Other awards include support from the Brody Arts Fund, California Community Foundation, California Council for the Humanities, and the Durfee Foundation and Puppeteers of America. Maria's shadows are featured in Disney's “Camp Nowhere” and MGM's “Wild Bill”, as well as theme parks in Singapore and Jakarta.

Maria is a faculty member of the California State Summer School for the Arts, and past president of the Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry. With her company, Bali & Beyond, her featured credits include the Getty Museum, LACMA, the Huntington, Eastman School of Music, Cincinnati Conservatory, Oberlin, University of Calgary, Swarthmore, USC, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, New West Symphony, Ventura Chamber Music Festival, National Geographic, Paramount's Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Hollywood Bowl, and many more.

Maria's specialty is shadow theater. As a shadow artist she tells stories, sings, plays gamelan music, makes shadow figures of all kinds and choreographs traditional, contemporary and experimental shadow performances. Maria also manages Bali & Beyond. Her responsibilities include performing, teaching, booking programs, advertising, and graphic design. As an artist in residence, she has been awarded funds to share her talent and expertise with the Sunland-Tujunga community through McGroarty Arts Center.

The Art & Craft of Shadow Theater embraces the mission and overall goal of McGroarty Arts Center which is to provide affordable art instruction for children and adults in visual and performing arts. The culmination performance, written and performed by the workshop students, is on Sunday, March 27^th from 2:00 – 4:00 pm, also at McGroarty Arts Center.