Research Statement
My creative research grows out of everyday life—moments I live, scenes I inhabit and observe. Often, while something is unfolding, I’m asking: what feels choreographic about this? What’s being performed here, consciously or not? I get drawn into the layers that aren’t immediately visible—the felt, the unspoken, the unseen—and I start imagining how to remake the moment, to surface what’s usually hidden. I work this way because it helps me process and connect with the world; by paying close attention, I find meaning in the messiness and beauty of what’s around me. I create work in choreography, dance-theater, storytelling, and music composition; my research spans solo works, as well as collaborations with dance artists, theater artists, filmmakers, writers, composers, and media designers. Movement and the body are central to my work. My embodied creative process often leads to theatrical and musical forms of expression—ranging from intricate movement sequences to the creation of personas through non-traditional dance forms such as monologue, dialogue, and song, resulting in dance-theater works in traditional and non-traditional spaces, and in mediated formats such as film/video. These performance practices and outcomes, when developed together, influence and amplify each other in richly layered modalities. I immerse myself in multiplicity, finding that I can better understand human interplay by witnessing how different perspectives relate to one another.
I create performances that spark self-reflection and connection, inviting audiences to engage not just intellectually, but through their bodies and lived experiences. Drawing from autobiographical stories, my work foregrounds what is deeply human—the comic, the tragic, the unjust, the mundane, the tender—and often explores how these emotions coexist in a single moment. Humor plays a key role in my work; I use wit and lightness as portals into more difficult terrain, allowing audiences to access complexity with openness and empathy. Storytelling, both physical and verbal, is central to how I explore identity, memory, and connection. My choreography often blends improvisation with set material, making space for the unexpected and honoring what arises in real time. Through repetition, embodied voice, and physical nuance, I build textured worlds that summon curiosity and personal resonance. Between 2019 and 2025, I developed a body of dance-theater works shaped by these inquiries—each one a site for exploring how performance can hold contradiction while fostering recognition.
In the performance field, commissions by professional companies represent one of the most highly regarded forms of peer-reviewed recognition, reflecting both artistic merit and disciplinary impact. During this period, I was commissioned to create three evening-length productions, each premiering at nationally recognized venues. My first work, the bough breaks (2021) is a choreographic work of autofiction, where lived experience blurs with the imagined and the personal opens into collective narratives. It premiered virtually in May 2021, produced by The Englert Theatre (Iowa City, IA) and was later presented by signs and symbols (NY, NY). I partnered with the Women’s Resource and Action Center and United Action for Youth, donating 20% of ticket sales to each organization. This solo work centers my transition into motherhood, drawing from the physical, emotional, and repetitive rhythms of caring for a child. With the child absent from the frame but with an implied presence, the performance traces the visceral, exaggerated intricacies of a mother in motion—always alone, never alone. Rooted in pregnancy and motherhood, this work explores broader themes of bodily autonomy and visibility; I use my story to explore social issues of reproductive rights and the care of pregnant and postpartum people. For example, during early postpartum, I found myself inhabiting a body I no longer fully recognized—charged with fatigue, joy, terror, and exhilaration, all at once. I realized how little attention I had paid to the mothers and parents who came before me, as if they came into clear focus once I was one of them. This phenomenon is what charged me to create this work; I wanted other mothers and parents to feel seen and understood through my performance. After the virtual run, viewers reached out with messages of resonance and gratitude, which led the venue to extend the run, making the show available to a larger audience. One viewer wrote, “The insanity of motherhood, the rawness of it, the tension between what we do and how we feel while we do it, the willingness to put so much of our authenticity in the closet to appeal to society at large and keep the status quo... yes.” I revel in this feedback, as it reflects the intended outcome of my performance research: connection and self-contemplation.
Secondly, Unfinished Business (2022), a duet co-created and performed with theater artist Kurt Chiang, further developed my methods of choreographic autofiction, but in collaboration. The process period of this work was supported by an Embodied Research Grant from Lucky Plush Productions ($6,350), and Performance Subvention funding from University of Iowa ($2,500). After the work was presented by The Englert Theatre, Lucky Plush Productions produced three sold-out shows at the national venue Links Hall (Chicago, IL) with a production budget of $27,500.
Performance Response Journal reviewer Clara Nizard explains, “Myers and Chiang remind us that dance-theater is alive and well, retaining its emphasis on embodied collaborations between people, between speech and movement, between humor and tenderness, and between what occurs on stage and what lies just beyond its four white walls.” Unfinished Business weaves movement and text—both scripted and improvised—into choreographed scenes and conversations that explore how we define ourselves as artists. The work grapples with themes of longing, desire, memory, and loss, exploring where dissatisfaction resides in the body and how it manifests in the world. Kurt and I perform the humor of how often hope and disappointment show up together, tangled in the same words and gestures. We share our mishaps and successes as aspiring artists in our fields to lay the groundwork for the audience’s personal reflection of what it means to “fail” and “succeed.” In the Chicago Reader, Kerry Reid captures our intent: “What both Chiang and Myers hope audiences take away from Unfinished Business is an appreciation for their own journeys… where the ‘busyness’ of life often obscures what we think we should be doing, or how we define success.”
Right Here, my third evening length work, began as student research on climate change and collective action in collaboration with composer Lex Leto and the arts and climate nonprofit The Lena Project. In my academic role at the University of Iowa, I create original, research-based works in collaboration with my students. These projects sit at the intersection of teaching, service, and research, integrating technique, theory, and composition. Rather than acting as sole author, I invite students to contribute their artistic voices—fostering creative agency, shared ownership, and essential professional skills of team building and creative problem-solving. During the making of Right Here, our research on microplastics deeply impacted the students, revealing the tension between plastic’s convenience and its harm. To address our findings, we created a section, Fluffy Plastic Land, where dancers wore trench coats made of plastic bags, designed by theater student Jay Huff, and moved through vivid, image-rich choreography. Dancers tossed and pulled plastic bags across the littered stage with lightness and upward reverie, while other dancers rolled heavily on top of the cluttered floor. The section climaxed with dancers pulling plastic from their mouths—confronting the audience with the issue’s absurdity and urgency.
After the student premiere of Right Here at Space Place Theater (Iowa City, IA), I received process and production funding from Lucky Plush Productions ($36,500) and Performance Subvention funding from University of Iowa ($2,500) to remount this production at Links Hall (Chicago, IL). I expanded the work by re-designing new elements of improvisation, text, and singing in collaboration with professional artists. The sold-out show was honored to be selected as one of New City Stage’s 'Dance Top 5'—a curated list from the publication’s selective review platform.
Right Here mirrors personal and collective dilemmas, inviting audiences to see themselves in the work. It encourages reflection on consumption and climate care—without prescribing solutions or blame—highlighting our deep interconnection with each other and the planet. One section, titled “Stuck,” explores the tension of procrastination and the lack of motivation often felt in the face of necessary change. A performer expresses a desire to act—saying she wants to—but feels too locked and stuck to move forward. The scene shifts subtly as she acknowledges, I might, marking a small but significant turn. This moment captures a recurring dilemma I experience in art-making and in life: the dissonance between what I feel in my body and the behavior I carry out in the same moment. There is often a gap between what is deeply felt and what is actually done. This work continues to circle around that tension— approaching it from multiple perspectives, in search of understanding, connection, and possibly action. Audience members and reviewers deeply related to this section, noting how the predicament echoed across many areas of life. Reflecting on the work in Performance Response Journal, reviewer Tuli Bera writes, “I laughed and uncomfortably smiled because of how many moments resonated with me. It was also a serious reminder that as humans with incredible amounts of thought power, we have a great responsibility. It’s thrilling to dream and solutionize—yet how is it coming into action, or worse, inaction?”
I cherish live performance because of the reciprocity it demands; both performer and viewer bring presence, attention, and commitment. In my film work, I strategize to preserve this by highlighting the subtlety of breath and movement, keeping the body’s essence felt despite mediation. Between October 2020 and June 2021, I produced a dance film titled this time, made up of nine episodic and site-specific choreographies. Each short dance was shaped by the conditions of its specific time and place, grounded in what felt connective and curious. The project became a way to sustain creative engagement during a time of global uncertainty. In July 2022, the collaborators returned to Iowa City to create a long-form duet in response to the original filmed episodes. The new work reflects shared past experiences while exploring present desires—revisiting familiar ground with renewed energy. The film and dance work developed from it, were presented by signs and symbols (NY, NY).
I choreographed and performed in three additional short films. My Life is Wind, directed by internationally acclaimed Anahita Ghazvinizadeh, features me as Hilda—a mother and choreographer volunteering at a refugee center. My choreography marks a pivotal moment, prompting the lead character, Miriam, to confront a traumatic memory. The film premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and screened at five international festivals. Downriver, directed by Heidi Wiren Kébé, highlights abstract movement worlds with improvised singing. This work was exhibited by Stanley Museum of Art (Iowa City, IA). What You Dare to Open at the Threshold, a work created and performed by award-winning poet Donika Kelly, was presented virtually by University of Iowa Department of Dance in collaboration with the International Writer’s Program.
As a touring artist, I was invited to perform a solo piece, water in my ear (2024), at the national program Death’s Door Dance Festival (Door County, WI). I created this work in response to the passing of my mother, leading me to experience deep grief for the first time. I now feel grief is an invisible constant - something that is always present but shifting with each breath. It feels like grief is held and released simultaneously; it feels like waves. I was deeply moved by how many audience members opened up about their own grief—grateful, it seemed, for the space to name a loss that so often remains hidden or unspoken.
Collaborative performance is a key focal point of my creative research. I've been a devising ensemble member of nationally celebrated dance-theater company Lucky Plush Productions since 2012. From 2019-2022, I performed in Rink Life, one of eight projects awarded the 2018 New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Theater Project Production and Touring Award, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Rink Life premiered at Steppenwolf’s 1700 Theater in Chicago, where it sold out for two weekends, before touring eight national venues. Artistic Director Julia Rhoads describes my work with the company: “Melinda has impeccable comic timing and delights in following impulses. She takes great care in crafting circumstances that support her success as an improviser. And while always poised to respond to live performance, she remains a trustworthy and supportable partner onstage.”
As an alumna of the world-renowned Trisha Brown Dance Company (NY,NY), I was honored to re-stage four early repertory works at the University of Chicago. This fall, I will set Foray Forêt at the University of Iowa, culminating in a special performance titled Dancing with Bob: Rauschenberg, Brown & Cunningham Onstage, presented by the Hancher Auditorium.
Looking ahead, I’m excited to sustain my creative momentum through several upcoming projects. I’ll re-mount and expand the bough breaks into a live solo performance premiering at The Englert Theatre in June 2026. I’ll also continue developing and performing in Lucky Plush Productions’ FACING, with a workshop performance at Door Kinetic Arts Festival in September 2025 and national touring in 2026. In collaboration with artist Tony Orrico, I’ll co-create and perform Four Hand Draw, a choreographic drawing project at Museo Picasso Málaga in February 2026.