Melanie Lane (Australia)

Melanie is an Australian choreographer and performer of European/Javanese heritage working between Naarm (Melbourne) and Ngunnawal/Ngambri country (Canberra). She is one of Australia’s leading choreographic voices with commissions from Australasian Dance Collective, Dance North, Chunky Move, Sydney Dance Company, Schauspiel Leipzig and West Australian Ballet (among others). Melanie won the prestigious Keir Choreographic Award in 2018 and the 2017 Leipziger Bewegungskunstpreis in Germany. Lane has been nominated for both Green Room and Helpmann awards as both a choreographer and a dancer including the Shirley McKechnie award for choreography (2020).

As a mentor and artistic capacity building facilitator, Melanie shares creative practices with young artists and artists with intellectual disability (QL2, e.motion21, The Chameleon Collective).

In 2022, Melanie was Artist in Residence for Digital Innovation at the University of Canberra x Belco Arts, transposing choreographic languages through robotics and animation. She is the 2023/24 Choreographer in Residence at Chunky Move, Resident Artist at The Substation Melbourne and Associate artist at QL2 Canberra. She was the 2015 Resident Director at Lucy Guerin Inc and is currently a 2023/24 Australia Council for the Arts Fellow. Melanie is Chair of the Board at Dancehouse, Melbourne.

@melahhnee, @thestellarcompany

Image Credits: Creswick Collective