: With over 25 years of experience in the dance and theatre industry, Melissa’s work has been described by critics and reviewers as ‘beautiful, fluid and potent movement.’ ‘a gift for story-telling, masterful, impressive and relevant’. She has a career that spans work as an independent artist here and in the UK; Melissa has worked with and for the British Arts Council, Dance East, Henri Oguike, Bare Bones Birmingham with strong ties to dance in education; professional touring works and dance in development.

Melissa has served on the board of the Regional Arts Development Fund for four years and continues to do speaking engagements as an advocacy for the Arts. In collaboration with Creative Spaces, Sunshine Coast Council and The Events Centre, Melissa instigated to the first Artist in Residency for Dance and Theatre Makers in the Region.

The last four years has seen Melissa conceive and facilitate large scale but bespoke Youth Dance Projects of high production value with casts of approximately 100 in site specific locations and as of August 2019 the Queensland Curriculum Authority of Australia has selected an excerpt of ‘Vincent’(one of Melissa’s Professional and award winning touring works) as one of only two assessment works for Yr12 students across the state.

In September of 2019, Melissa, along with Chloe Lanham launched Proscenium Arts, an online digital choreographic platform which was selected by The Refinery as a finalist for their Arts Incubator Enterprise.

As an Australia Day Award Nominee, Melissa now works under the banner of LJ Projects which as of January 2020 has received Seed Funding for the next three years from RADF and Arts Qld.