Melissa Rochelle Younker (she/her) is a freelance dance artist currently based in Paris, France. Her multifaceted dedication to dance blends performance, choreography, costume design, film, and education to craft and collaborate in transportive experiences and productions.

Originally from Southern California, Melissa received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from California State University, Long Beach in 2014. From 2014 to 2020, she danced full-time with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, performing nationally and internationally, and collaborating on new and repertory works by over a dozen choreographers. In 2018, Melissa traveled to East Asia as a cultural ambassador through DanceMotion USA℠, a program of the US Department of State and BAM ® (Brooklyn Academy of Music).

Melissa values thoughtful, process-oriented interdisciplinary work, sustainable practices in art-making, and creating deeply from a place of discovery. She is a founding member of Heartland Collective, a non-hierarchical, multidisciplinary arts group with collaborators in dance, visual art, music, and performance. As a freelance dancer, she has worked with project-based movement groups And Artists, Brolly Arts, Keith Johnson/Dancers, Oriantheatre Dance Company(Paris), The Woods Dance Project, among others. Melissa is a passionate educator whose teaching spans all-levels movement classes, community workshops, contemporary/modern dance training, and academic courses across platforms such as Dance Church®, Dance Class for Humans, Spectrum Dance Workshops (Kraków), the University of Utah School of Dance, and more. From 2020 to 2025, she was Artistic Director of Utah Valley University’s Contemporary Dance Ensemble where she was honored with the 2023 School of the Arts Dean’s Award of Excellence for Adjunct Faculty. Additionally, she serves on the board of 801 Salon, a grassroots arts initiative that supports accessible pop-up art events.

Mel thrives in interdisciplinary environments where experimentation and play spark unexpected discoveries, and where collaboration fuels meaningful creative exchange. She has toured to Croatia, France, Mongolia, Poland, South Korea and throughout the USA as a dance and teaching artist. Her independent projects and durational performances have been presented in California, Michigan, New York and Utah, in addition to official selections in film festivals in London, Utah and Virginia. Melissa continues to explore how movement facilitates empathy, imagination, and togetherness –  sharing her curiosities and exchanging ideas with a sense of wonder.