Melissa Eveleigh
Artistic Director and Founder
Physical and applied theatre practitioner, trainer and communication specialist
Originally from the UK, Melissa is an award-winning theatre-maker, facilitator and trainer and has been training performers and creating multidisciplinary performance in Africa and South Asia for the last 20 years. Trained in Jacques Lecoq pedagogy at the London International School for Performing Arts (LISPA), Melissa’s practice is rooted in the body working with physical theatre, contemporary dance and movement therapy. Melissa’s career began in Malawi where she founded a leading arts organisation, Nanzikambe Arts. She then moved to Zimbabwe to work with renowned Tumbuka Dance Company and developed the successful Arts Lab programme to nurture young talent. Her work in both Malawi and Zimbabwe toured the Southern African region and to Europe and won awards for innovation and outstanding contribution to human rights.
Inspired by work and encounters with some of the UK’s physical theatre greats, David Glass, Amit Lehav and Nancy Meckler, Melissa is committed to nurturing the evolution of creative pedagogy and forms to incorporate vast cultural knowledge in the Global South. Melissa is founder of Arts for Action which has recently been creating innovative and healing performance projects with Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh.