ABOUT
I am an Outsider Dance Artist...
Neurodivergent, disabled, and with dual-heritage, Melissa originates from the poverty line of the South Wales valleys. Her DanceArt practice has been shaped in response to decades of systemic discrimination, gatekeeping, bodyshaming and psychological abuse in the mainstream dance industry. It is rooted as much in her eclectic spectrum of phenomenological interests - feminism, the Occult, the art and practices of Ithell Colquhoun, mental health and the Human Condition - as it is in the physicalities of Butoh, contemporary and modern dance and Mixed Martial Arts.
In 2024, Melissa was awarded a Developing Your Creative Practice grant from Arts Council England to further develop her anti-patriarchal dancemaking. She was commissioned by Thamesmead Festival in 2023 to create and perform The Tree of Life: Emergence (later showcased by Creative Rework), and her weaponry and dance expertise was put to good use as a member of the choreographic team for Trigger Theatre’s Platinum Jubilee production of The Hatchling. More recently, she choreographed Alchemists, a community dance piece inspired by Isadora Duncan for the Dancing To The Music Of Time group, which will form part of Protein Dance’s En Route production in Summer 2024.
Since 2011, Melissa has created and shown works across the UK and Budapest, including Consquence Of Feeling at Theatre Deli Sheffield (2014) and Nothing Special for the 2017 SzólóDuó Festival. She co-created a performance evening, Classically Undone, in collaboration with Eten Cafe in 2015 and is an active choreographer and dancer at The Playground Rambert and The Playing Fields at Trinity Laban.
As a dancer, she has worked with, among others: BBC TV/Phoenix Dance Theatre, Budapest Dance Theatre, InverseDance, Megan Mazarick, Ofelia Jarl Ortega, Ranbu Collective and West Green House Opera. Her decade-long teaching practice spans Classical Pilates, creative improvisation and inclusive dance. She is currently engaged as a freelance Dance Artist for Trinity Laban on its current Dance For Wellbeing Programme and runs regular DanceArt Creative Labs for professional dancers in London.