Melanie acknowledges and pays respect to the Traditional Custodians and their Elders, past and present, of the lands and waters on which she lives and works – the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people as well as the Bunurong Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation.
Melanie Lane is an Australian choreographer and performer of Javanese/European cultural heritage. She works across visual arts, theatre, music and film. Her work interrogates physical and cultural histories to explore current social mythologies and extrapolates these into surreal futures that are confounded, broken and reconfigured. These independent works have been presented globally at festivals and theatres in Europe, Indonesia, United States and Australia. Drawing on her European and Indonesian heritage Lane moves between cultural landscapes and influences.
Alongside commissions with WA Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Australasian Dance Collective, DanceNorth, Chunky Move, Schauspiel Leipzig and HAU Berlin, her collaborations extend to artists; Adena Jacobs, Amos Gebhardt, Leyla Stevens, Bhenji Ra, Clark, Monica Lim and Rianto.
Her choreographic work for theatre and opera includes English National Opera’s Salome, Burgtheater’s Trojan Women and Nosferatu directed by Adena Jacobs.
Melanie won the prestigious Keir Choreographic Award in 2018 and the 2017 Leipziger Bewegungskunstpreis in Germany, and 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).
Melanie was 2023/24 Choreographer in Residence at Chunky Move, Resident Artist at The Substation, 2015 resident director at Lucy Guerin Inc. and Associate Artist at QL2.
In 2024, Melanie launched her project Corps Conspirators. This initiative, supported by Creative Victoria and led by Melanie Lane, is a project exploring collaborative choreographic practices, multi-artform experimentation and transcultural experience.