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. Melanie engages regularly across projects in Indonesia as choreographer, collaborator, performer and mentor.
Alongside commissions with WA Ballet, Sydney Dance Company, Australasian Dance Collective, DanceNorth, Chunky Move, Schauspiel Leipzig and HAU Berlin, her collaborations extend to artists, like Marrugeku/Bhenji Ra, Clark, Adena Jacobs, Amos Gebhardt, Leyla Stevens, Monica Lim and Rianto.
Her choreographic work for theatre and opera includes English National Opera's »Salome« (London, 2018) and Burgtheater's »Trojan Women« (Vienna, 2022) both 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).
In 2022, Melanie was Artist in Residence for Digital Innovation at the University of Canberra x Belco Arts. Melanie is 2023/24 Choreographer in Residence at Chunky Move, Resident Artist at The Substation, 2015 resident director at Lucy Guerin Inc., Associate Artist at QL2 and is a current 2023/24 Australia Council for the Arts Fellow.