Melissa Ugolini

BIO­GRA­PHY

Chan­ge has been the con­text and the con­stant in Me­lis­sa’s ar­tis­tic and per­so­nal ex­pe­ri­ence. Ori­gi­nal­ly from Pe­sa­ro (Ita­ly) Me­lis­sa mo­ved through dif­fe­rent geo­gra­phies, laye­ring her ar­tis­tic iden­ti­ty and de­epe­ning the growth that de­ri­ves from en­coun­ters and cul­tu­ral ex­ch­an­ges through mo­ve­ment.

Af­ter gra­dua­ting in 2011 from Nort­hern School of Con­tem­pora­ry Dance in Leeds (UK) Me­lis­sa has then pur­sued a fruit­ful ca­re­er in Dance and Per­forming Arts both as a free-lan­cer and full-time com­pa­ny mem­ber.

Bet­ween 2012 and 2017 she li­ved and worked in Is­tan­bul (Tur­key), an ex­pe­ri­ence that wi­den­ed her per­spec­tive on the in­ter­na­tio­nal so­cio-po­li­ti­cal land­s­cape and hel­ped her ques­ti­on eu­ro­centric framing with a cri­ti­cal eye.

Me­lis­sa worked tou­ring in­ter­na­tio­nal­ly as a dan­cer and rehe­ar­sal di­rec­tor for many ye­ars, with most re­le­vant col­la­bo­ra­ti­ons in­clu­ding Aa­kash Ode­dra (UK/IN), Cie7273 (CH), Art of Spec­tra (SE) and the Akram Khan Com­pa­ny (UK). Her pro­fes­sio­nal ex­pe­ri­en­ces mer­ged into a mo­ve­ment prac­tice that Me­lis­sa sha­red through work­shops around Eu­ro­pe, Tur­key, In­dia and Iran.
In 2020 Me­lis­sa mo­ved to Ger­ma­ny whe­re she worked with thea­t­re di­rec­tor Falk Rich­ter and cho­reo­gra­pher Anouk Van Dijk at the Münch­ner Kam­mer­spie­le (DE), whilst con­ti­nuing her free-lan­ce ac­tivi­ty through col­la­bo­ra­ti­ons with fel­low ar­tists like Gi­zem Aksu and Ro­s­a­na Ri­bei­ro|Sel­va, and in­sti­tu­ti­ons like Tanz­fa­brik Schu­le in Ber­lin amongst others.

Me­lis­sa’s ar­tis­tic and pe­dago­gi­cal re­se­arch re­vol­ves around Mind­ful­ness and is in­spi­red by her re­la­ti­ons­hip to Na­tu­re and sustai­na­bi­li­ty, which in­forms her ex­plo­ra­ti­on of bio­me­cha­nics and hu­man ana­to­my. How to co­exist, un­der­stand and in­ter­act with one ano­t­her through mo­ve­ment are pil­lar-the­mes of her pe­dago­gi­cal prac­tice, born from a strong de­si­re to ope­ra­te out­si­de the tra­di­tio­nal dance in­dus­try con­text and ex­plo­re the po­ten­ti­al of de­aling with dance and mo­ve­ment in so­ci­al work and com­mu­ni­ty con­texts.
Out­si­de the stu­dio Me­lis­sa is a hard­core mu­sic fan, prac­tices sin­ging and play­ing gui­tar when no one is watching and oc­ca­sio­nal­ly ons­ta­ge.

She is cur­r­ent­ly ba­sed both in Ber­lin and in Frank­furt am Main, whe­re she is a stu­dent of the MA CoDE Pro­gram­me at the Hoch­schu­le für Mu­sik und Dar­stel­len­de Kunst.