Born: 1973 (circa), United States (assumed)
Died: NA
Country most active: United States
Also known as: NA
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women founder Allison Tyra’s book The View from the Hill: Women Who Made Their Mark After 40.
“On the surface, it may seem like Melanie George suddenly arrived in 2020,” Dance Magazine wrote in 2021 of the then-48-year-old. She is a dance educator, choreographer, dramaturg, and scholar, but she is also an activist working to deconstruct the hierarchies of dance.
In particular, she founded the Jazz Is…Dance Project in 2012 to raise the visibility of jazz and its roots as a fundamentally African American art form. “I am most inspired by her unwavering commitment to the truthful preservation and development of jazz and the lineages of free and unabashedly Black creativity it comes from,” says Alejandra Duqué-Cifuentes, Executive Director of Dance/NYC. George also joined Jacob’s Pillow in 2019 as a scholar in residence, becoming an associate curator the following year, and has facilitated digital events for organizations like the Guggenheim. “A lot of my career, I have been walking into situations that are a leap of faith grounded in improvisation grounded in jazz identity,” George has said. “People ask, ‘Hey would you want to do this?’ Even though I’ve never done it before, I’m willing to try.”
As a teacher, her resume includes directing American University’s dance program from 2008 to 2016, engagements at institutions like Harvard University, Yale School of Drama, and The Juilliard School, and joining the dance faculty at Rutgers in 2023. She has also been the U.S.’s only full-time institutional dramaturg for dance and has worked extensively with different companies as a dramaturg as well as a choreographer.
In addition to her academic publications, George was featured in the 2020 documentary Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance. George told Dance Magazine, “The Uprooted film drew a lot of interest to Jazz is… along with many amazing, beautiful artists who are leading a charge to bring jazz back to its roots. What is exciting is that jazz-dance artists who are siloed are coming together. Collective is the only way forward.”