melissa miller
Staff
(Pronoun: She, Her)
Melissa began dance training at The American Academy of Dance in Paris under Meredith Hudson and at Le Centre de Jazz Rick Odums in France. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Modern Dance from Belhaven University, where she trained in Vaganova, Limon, Horton, and Graham techniques under Britta Wynne, Ravenna Tucker, Aaron Chen, and Caleb Mitchell. She received additional training in New York City from The Jose Limon Dance Foundation as part of their Professional Studies Program under Risa Steinberg, Jim May, and Carla Maxwell and is a Masters of Fine Arts candidate at Hollins University in Virginia with supportive studies in Plovdiv, Bulgaria with theater company Meteor.
In New York, she performed with the Isadora Duncan Dance Foundation with Lori Belilove, Live Arts Opera by Nancy L'Heritier, Community Dance Project NYC, and The Physical Plant with Karesia Batan. She was a teaching artist for The House of the Roses, a volunteer dance company providing after-school movement classes to children living in homeless shelters throughout New York City.
Upon relocating to Tennessee she worked in partnership with the Hunter Museum of American Art, and Ballet Esprit, performing and staging original work as part of their special exhibits in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. Her work was also seen at Abandoned Arts 2019, The Female Future 2019, The Road 2019 and 2020, and on a dance on film commissioned by the non-profit First Things First in 2021. During her time in Tennessee she also worked with Duncan Dance South under Meg Brooker; performing a full-length work at the Parthenon in Nashville, a collection of original works by Isadora Duncan and Florence Noyes at the Hunter Museum of American Art, and at the Murfreesboro Art Festival. She taught classes at the Chattanooga Dance Theatre and Ballet Esprit. She performed original work in partnership with Carolyn Dorfman Dance’s Legacy evening in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2023, and had the honor of curating and facilitating the first undergraduate dance course at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia in the fall of 2022 as an adjunct professor.
Melissa currently lives in St. Louis with her family and puppy.