Melaina Muth is a performing artist from Brookfield Illinois. She is a senior in the Contemporary Dance B.F.A. program at Indiana University Bloomington, and she has experience in dance, music, theatre, and film.
Full bio below!
Melaina has been the Co-President since 2023 and Choreographer for Di:verse Dance Crew since 2022, and was the Captain of the non-profit, Ballroom Dance Club at Indiana University from 2022 to 2024.
She has participated in the Camille A. Brown “City of Rain” residency and Meira Goldberg’s “Pulso” (flamenco) residency. Melaina has choreographed in the most recent 2023 production and performed in the 2021 production of the Junior Choreographic Performance Project and performed in the 2022 and 2023 Senior Capstone Show: New Moves/New Directions.
She has also performed guitar as part of Robert Burden’s “Zapateado Palmas” and arranged music for Robert Burden’s house class and his piece “House of Love” that premiered at the 2022 New Moves production. On top of this she has edited music for a multitude of sets, choreographed and taught choreography, and performed for both Di:verse Dance Crew and the Ballroom Dance Club at IU.
Before attending Indiana University, Melaina trained at Joffrey Academy in Chicago and Principle Dance. She also attended the Alvin Ailey Summer Intensive in 2019.
Melaina has competed at various locally hosted collegiate ballroom competitions as well as Ohio Star Ball and USA Dance Nationals and has received coaching from the Fort Wayne Ballroom Company.
During these times she worked with Chris Spalding, Kelly Barlett, Ryan Galloway, Clarence Angelo, Lalah Ayan, Beatrice Capote, Elizabeth Shea, Robert Burden, and Baba Stafford C. Berry, Jr. She has been dancing for nineteen years and has studied a multitude of styles including: contemporary, modern, hip hop, ballet, ballroom, jazz, Afro-Cuban, and tap.
Many of her other recent works involved digital media and dance film of both original choreography and dance covers. Post-college she plans on pursuing a career in choreography, dance film, and hip hop, ballroom dance.
When it comes to creating…
“As a choreographer, my focus is on highlighting the musicality of the music and how it can be used to tell the story of the piece in its entirety. I am inspired by music, but also by the way in which many dance techniques can be combined to create new meanings and new contexts. I am of the mindset that movement should be a conversation between the music and a dancer’s intention and connection to the those around them. One of my goals as a choreographer is to illustrate how different people deal with life, relationships, and emotions. Being able to push myself and others past the point of comfortability while maintaining the natural authenticity of the movement is a central pillar of my work.
For a piece I choreographed in 2023 called “Ambivalence,” I focused on the different emotional relationships people can have with one another and conveyed it through multiple different dance forms and musical scores. The piece guided the audience through a night where a friend group fell apart and transitioned from positive to negative emotions regarding each other. It included elements of contemporary, ballroom (specifically waltz and rumba) and hip hop. One of the exercises I used to create the piece had the dancers fill in the blank to create a phrase together that would then be used as the main phrase of the dance. I also had the dancers create their own phrases and modify the tempo and pattern of the phrases to create duets. In addition to this, I incorporated many pedestrian movements and chances for the dancers to act and react to various stimuli and emotional concepts that allowed them to communicate the plot through body language and not dance movements.
To a great degree, I believe that movement has the capability to express what words cannot and allows us as individuals to communicate one’s thoughts, feelings and wishes. The relationship between music and dance is paramount in regards to this style of expression as it can enhance the different types of atmosphere and tone created and further engage the audience in the thematic and emotionally engaging moments within a piece.”