Melanie Maria (Haarlem, 1993)

performance artist, director/choreographer

Melanie Maria (1993, Haarlem) is a performance artist. In 2010 she started to study at the Dance Teacher/Maker department at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, where she developed as a choreographer and director. Thus, her interests grow beyond her skills and creating performance art at the dance academy inspired her to study Fine Art (now: Base for Experiment, Art & Research) at ArtEZ University of the Arts Arnhem. Here she graduated in 2019 with her 9-hour durational performance Never learnt to share, which was also awarded with the 2^nd price of the VKC Award 2019. After graduation Melanie Maria was invited to create several performances for Nothing To Sell, a one-week exhibition in Museo d’Arte Contemporanea in Rome, Italy, and in 2020 her installation It still remains and her artistry got awarded with the Jan Naaijkensprijs 2020.

It is all about the Other. The Other as seen as the spectator, the artwork, the space/surroundings, the performer, the artist. Is the Other the individual? What is the individual and who is the collective? We share. We share our desires, our fears, our grief. Where do we share of how do we interfere with our collective inner selves? How do we relate to one and another and how do we relate in the space and its momentum.

In her work, Melanie Maria presents herself as a director. She directs the elements with and within the moment. Causing the performer, the surrounding, the space and the material come together in an honest way. “Working, thus creating, in the moment envelops a certain spontaneity which causes a pure poetic feeling. While creating I dive within my own narratives through the desires and melancholy of the elements. This can be the performer, the space and/or the material. I encounter my work as a research. As if I am walking in a maze, finding my way to the end or back to the beginning.”
            ‘The Other’ is an important ingredient in the work of Melanie Maria. This all started during her time at the dance academy where she focused on creating performances with the audience as participant. During her residency at Fondazione Pistoletto Cittadellarte in Biella, Italy, in 2019 she re-examined this idea by creating performances in the public space. Here, she researched the tension within performers, their surroundings and most important: the spectator as passer-by. This given, where the spectator is asked for a certain commitment is something fertile Melanie Maria loves to research. She sees this moment in relation to the tension build-up in a theatre play, solely the spectator becomes the director and it is in their committing decision if they stay or if they leave.

In 2020 Melanie Maria became herself “The Other”, due to being pregnant of her first born and becoming in a Mother in November of that same here. Since then, Maria comes accross shocking prejudices about The Artist Mother. Since then she is busy with researching those ‘traditional thinkings’ in the artworld, writes manifests and works together with Vrouwenmantel Art Research Group.