Melissa Figueiredo

Melissa Figueiredo is a Brazilian artist based in Berlin. She has been working professionally since 2011 as a dancer, director and teacher. She has experience with research, creation, improvisation, video and writing. She graduated from the FUNCEB Dance School and holds a magisterium degree in dance from the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) in Salvador,n Brazil. She went through different technical training in Ballet, Brazilian traditional dances, Flying Low and Passing Through with David Zambrano and different approaches of improvisation. Since 2020, Figueiredo has collaborated with the artist Edivaldo Ernesto and works as a guest of the company Sasha Waltz and Guests in Berlin, performing “IN C”, “SYMPHONIE XXMM” and “Dialogue project - Ludwigsburg”. Figueiredo works as a co-director and founding member of the collective Nii/Colaboratório where directs creative projects with an emphasis on physicality, visual narrative, and sci-fi. Figueiredo performed works by the choreographers: Pietro Marullo (Italy-Belgium), Victor Navarro (Spain) Vladimir Rodriguez (Colombia-France), Ania Catharine (EUA), Gustavo Oliveira (Portugal), Alana Falcão & Leonardo França (Brazil), Herman Diephuis (Netherlands) and others. In 2021, she created the dance solo “29 Portraits” which was presented at the video project SXLX.series, Frankfurt Sommerwerft Theater Festival, at the Broken Knee Festival in Berlin. She is currently collaborating with the artist Giuliana Corsi in the project “Ephemeroptera” which had its premiere in August 2023 at the Tanz im August Festival in Berlin as part of the programme series “Interconnecting Dance & Ecology”. As a teacher, she taught in different international projects and schools the dance workshop “Corpo Disponível” gathering information on the practice of yoga, floorwork and improvisation. In 2023, she assisted Edivaldo Ernesto during teaching and choreographic commission at Amsterdam University of the Arts (Netherlands) – for the bachelor programme Expanded Contemporary Dance (ECD).