Telling stories is at the core of Mark Travis Rivera’s purpose in life. He is an award-winning creative entrepreneur and the Chief Executive Officer + Founder of The Professional Storyteller.
As a writer, Rivera’s bylines include The Bergen Record, Herald News, The Star-Ledger, Fox News Latino, and The Huffington Post. He was also a contributing author in the anthology, Crisis and Care: Queer Activist Responses to a Global Pandemic (PM Press, 2022), edited by Adrian Shanker. His debut collection, Drafts: An Imperfect Collection of Writing, was published in August 2017. He was also a contributing writer for Imagining: A Gibney Journal, where he shared his experience as a disabled choreographer and dancer.
As a stubborn and determined 17-year-old, Rivera founded marked dance project (2009-2019), becoming the youngest person in the United States to create and lead an integrated dance company for disabled and non-disabled dancers. Inspired by his desire to dance as a person with cerebral palsy, he would go on to help disabled and non-disabled dancers alike find their voice as artists. As a Puerto Rican queer man, he was also one of just a handful of artistic directors of color in the disability dance field in the United States. As an independent disabled choreographer, Mark is determined to build a bridge between the main dance field and disability dance.
As a speaker, he has addressed audiences at various institutions of higher learning, including Harvard, MIT, Rutgers, and NYU. As a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant and facilitator, he has spoken to corporate audiences virtually in the UK, Canada, Mexico, Latin America, Israel, China, and India, just to name a few. His TEDx Talk, “Embracing Yourself, Embracing Your Potential,” was a smash in 2014 at Bergen Community College.
A first-generation high school and college graduate, Rivera earned his bachelor’s degree in women’s & gender studies with a minor in public relations from William Paterson University of New Jersey. In 2013, Rivera received the Student Government Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his commitment to the William Paterson community. That same year, he was honored with the Campus Pride National Voice & Action Award for his work with the LGBTQ community. More recently, he won the Audre Lorde Award for Social Justice from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Lavender Legacy Award from William Paterson.
Mark also serves as Board Secretary for the Board of Directors at AXIS Dance Company, the nation’s leading integrated dance company. He formerly served as the Community Engagement Manager and apprentice. He is represented as a speaker by Hummingbird Humanity and their Speaks Bureau and is a member of the WE CREATE SPACE global collective of LGBTQ+ leaders. He was raised a Jersey boy, lived in New York City and the Bay Area, but now calls Atlanta, GA, home.