Melissa Monteros is a pedagogue, choreographer and performer. In 1991, she was appointed an associate professor at the School of Creative and Performing Art, University of Calgary, where she has acted as the Chair of Dance several times.
Monteros holds an MFA in Dance from the University of California, Losa Angeles, and a BFA from the University of Utah. She is the Artistic Director of the W&M Physical Theatre, which she co-founded with Wojciech Mochniej. From 1994 through 2000, she collaborated with Mochniej within the frame of the Gdańsk Dance Theatre (since 2000 the W&M Physical Theatre). She has collaborated with, and performed for, a number of eminent choreographers and artists in the USA and Europe. She has been a guest teacher at numerous top universities and festivals in Europe, Canada and the USA. As a recipient of the Fulbright grant she taught and worked in Poland and acted as the artistic advisor with the Silesian Dance Theatre.
Monteros is a recipient of the Mayor of the City of Gdańsk prize for her artistic career and outstanding contributions to the development of contemporary dance in Gdańsk. Her lecture on the establishment of the Gdańsk Dance Theatre was published in the Report on Contemporary Dance which she contributed for the Congress on Polish Culture in 2009.
Monteros is a multiple recipient of grants from the Canada Council, Alberta Foundation for the Arts, International Collaborations / University of Calgary, and many other international organizations. Her solo choreographies and collaborations with Mochniej have been presented in Austria, Estonia, Finland, France, Poland, Germany, Italy, Canada and the United States. Monteross long-standing interest in film choreography continues to inspire her research on new perspectives for dance.
Monteross choreographic language and style are characteristically rough and naturalistically organic, combined with the individual expression of performers. Monteros works with both the body and the voice, striving to combine dance, rituals and theatre.
