We are artists that collide with living spaces. Melissa Diane is a movement driven performance company that works collaboratively with artists, spaces and neighborhoods in a boundary-lessened environment. Two dancers flaying and falling against the garage doors of a bodega in South Philly, two wide-eyed women weaving through the audiences’ feet in a living room in Brooklyn: We question performance traditions. Melissa Diane wants to see places through a new lens creating characters who tell open-ended stories about honesty and depletion. The audience is welcomed into this world; welcomed to create their own version of this loose-ended story, to walk about the space or to stand in the light and have their own performance. We make art and this is where we want to show it.
Jacelyn Biondo (co-founder/co-director) mostly prefers stoops to stages, loves punctuation as part of titles, and is completely intrigued by all aspects of psyche and soma and their lifelong relationship. She is inspired by bookshelves that are overflowing, the unconventional and the super conventional and is currently exploring overlapping roles and their cohabitation. Jacelyn graduated from California Institute of the Arts with a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography and Photography and Media. In Los Angeles, she performed with local choreographer Elizabeth Hoefner for 2 years prior to her move to Philadelphia. She received her MA in Dance/Movement therapy at Drexel University. Locally, she has worked with Myra Bazell, Jeb Kreager, and with Austrian choreographer Willi Dorner and was a member of Reactionaries from 2005-2006. Jacelyn currently works as a Dance/Movement Therapist, as she believes everyone would feel better if they danced it out.
Kristen Shahverdian (co-founder/co-director) is fascinated by the intersection between people and places. She loves to perform in both intimate spaces and onstage and is exploring the different experiences of both as a performer and audience member. She wants to use dance as a way to connect with people and communities. Her passion is for improvisation in performance and as a way to create dynamic, unpredictable movement patterns. She currently dances with Kosoko Performance Group and has previously danced with The Bald Mermaids, Reactionaries, Willi Dorner, and Jacek Luminski. Kristen holds her BA in History and Dance from Hamilton College and her MFA from Temple University. She has taught at Temple University and Rowan University and she is a certified Pilates instructor in Center City Philadelphia.
