Interview with Dancer/Choreographer Melody Mennite Walsh

What does it take for a woman to become a ballet choreographer in America? Longitudinal research from Dance Data Project® reveals that the percentage of works created has actually dropped slightly over the past several years, with women choreographing around 30% of all works presented^[1]. DDP’s Global Resident Choreographers Report reveals that the percentage of resident choreographers who are women has increased in the United States but has yet to reach parity. Globally, women remain far behind. Beyond the numbers, the paths that men and women take are different. Anecdotal evidence suggests that women start their choreographic careers much later than men and receive far less institutional support. Tiler Peck is one of the most celebrated dancers of her generation, yet she just started working as a choreographer and had to work beyond the studios of her home company (New York City Ballet) to begin. Her first piece was created for the Vail Dance Festival in 2018. She then created pieces for several other companies, including BalletX, Boston Ballet, and Cincinnati Ballet, before creating her first, critically acclaimed, piece for NYCB in 2024. Compare this to the trajectory of Justin Peck (no relation), who made his first work for the main company at the age of 22, while still a member of the Corps de Ballet, and is now serving as Resident Choreographer and Advisor to the company. These two artists may serve as outliers to the main conversation but are illustrative of the different paths that choreographers of different genders take. I wanted to talk to women in the field to gain more insight into the challenges and triumphs of embarking on a second dance career. I was lucky enough to interview former Houston Ballet Principal Dancer and current extremely busy choreographer, Melody Mennite Walsh.

Ms. Mennite is originally from Santa Cruz, California. She started dancing as a tot but doesn’t claim that it is part of her blood.

I’m a first-generation Italian American. So being a dancer was kind of like very not the norm for the family that I came from. But I started tap when I was three, and then I was always on stage, singing and playing instruments, before I got into dance. So I think I just feel comfortable on stage.

I moved to Houston when I was 16 because I started going to summer programs at the Houston Ballet Academy. I got my first contract when I was 17. I had a really long career at Houston Ballet. I was hired by Ben Stevenson. Stanton Welch took over about three or four years into my time in the company. I experienced two very, very different artistic directors, personalities,  leadership styles, and motivations. I had a really lucky, fortunate, and successful career.

I feel it’s a privilege to be in that position and feel fulfilled in that way.

For many dancers, that would be the end of the very successful story, principal dancer for over 20 years. But Ms. Mennite is much more than “just” a dancer. She is a powerful voice for women in the dance sector. She is a somatic healer and Black Belt practitioner of Chinese martial arts. She is a teacher. She is a choreographer. She is someone who is taking her experiences, both blessed and cursed, and using them to actively shift the sector towards fairness, health, and equity.

One of the first things that drew me to Ms. Mennite is her outspokenness on social media. She is a passionate advocate for women and for civility in ballet, speaking out forcefully and eloquently about harmful and abusive practices. When asked about her coaching and what initially inspired her to study to become a somatic healer, she started by calling out the literal domination and control of dancers’ bodies. She listed the numerous ways that this culture of ownership affects dancers’ physical and emotional well-being.

A lot of things that I got into were started by things that happened in my personal life that were really, really hard.

There are myriad practices of directors, choreographers, and teachers that diminish dancers’ bodies and assert a position of ownership over them, specifically in ballet companies. Fat talks, weigh-ins, casting based on dancers complying with requests of weight loss, the lack of consent practices when it comes to physical touch, and the manipulation of a dancer’s body in the processes of training all contribute to a cultural normalization where a dancer’s pain or exhaustion is dismissed as “ an excuse” or lack of drive rather than as a somatic warning that there is potential for injury.

Ms. Mennite studies internal martial arts. Unlike martial arts grounded in fighting and external strength, internal martial arts are connected to Chinese medicine and emphasize practices, principles, and movements that generate and optimize the circulation of qi through the body. Practices cultivate relaxation, intention, stillness, and natural movement, supporting whole-body power and awareness. As you progress, you can build to more physically demanding situations.

I didn’t know this when I started it. Kung Fu and any sort of martial style were developed with a holistic foundation. So it’s not just fighting. It’s actually about being healthy and strong, as whole a human as possible. The internal martial arts do the same movements, but instead of fighting other people, we focus on how the postures help the body and the internal organs, and the flow of energy.

I’ve been studying this program for four years. Part A is more like the psychology route: human behavior. How do we show up and stand up to systems in a way that respects people and keeps them as safe as possible? That was precipitated more by my personal life. But then I very, very quickly saw how the crossover was happening constantly in my professional life as well. I just was so conditioned to normalize it that I didn’t really see it. Yeah, sorry, I’m gonna close that down.

Ms. Mennite sees the subjectivity around hiring and casting as another factor in devaluing dancers.

The artistic evaluation process of ballet companies is one of the places where most emotional and psychological harm occurs, simply because it is so incompetent and unaccountable within the organization’s structure. It follows NO normal evaluation process; there is no rubric, other than some companies putting some feedback in writing.

She continued,

The evaluation process is not the only problem. There are ongoing “micro” moments of this that happen in the studio each day that are also culturally acceptable- any deviation of perfection being seen as a moral failure of a dancer and therefore a reflection on their overall value as indicated by open criticism of dancers “attitude” if they are not entirely submissive and without question, public humiliation via harsh critique (sometimes in the form of being spoken to in an unprofessional tone of voice “yelled at” in front of peers) when dancers make mistakes, being ignored or taken out of roles without any type of communication- as retaliation for something about them that is disliked by an authority figure, retaliatory action for ambiguous or unnamed “failures” by dancers is very common. It comes in the form of casting, how one is spoken to or ignored, being fired with no warning, or even, at times, in overt physical abuse or demanding that a dancer repeat something so many times that they become injured, which is both psychological and physical harm in direct response to an abuse of power.

This critique of the system, coming from someone who is, by every measure, highly successful, should raise alarms. But Ms. Mennite is not single-dimensional. She is clear on what was harmful but also identifies support and success. Ms. Mennite is a mother and navigated the ballet system during a time when it was not accepted. Supporting women in the dance field who have made that choice is essential to her advocacy. We discussed innovative funding models that support them. For example, DDP President Elizabeth “Liza” Yntema is one of those attempting to shift the paradigm and is leading by example. She underwrote two years of childcare and related expenses for Atlanta Ballet­ resident choreographer Claudia Schreier, freeing her to create work while maintaining a family life. I asked Ms. Mennite about the support she received as a young mother, even while a member of the corps de ballet.

You know, not everything is so black and white. I’m very vocal about the fact that I came out of the environment at Houston Ballet, where I saw a ton of harm. I’m very vocal about what I disagree with there. However, I will say that one of the things that I experienced, especially as a younger mother, was some of these benefits that you’re talking about. Because Stanton [Welch, Artistic Director] is from a ballet family. I was able to negotiate in my contract that half of my son’s flight was paid for every time we went on tour. It was a family-oriented environment when my son was young, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. I did get to experience the support of a company that kind of thinks outside the box.

Now, what I will say is that what I think is actually more difficult is to change the culture around it. What do we think is okay and professional in a studio?  How do we make it supportive for mothers? This means that we need a community around us. Ms. Mennite has been working as a choreographer for over ten years. In 2015, she co-founded REACH, a choreographic project supporting arts education, and following the success of the project, was invited, with her colleagues, to choreograph a piece for Houston Ballet. Since then, her career has flourished. She has created 16 commissioned works for companies including Ballet Arkansas, the Houston Ballet Academy, Kingwood Dance Theatre, Kansas City Ballet, Contingent Ballet, Houston Chamber Orchestra Festival, and Houston Ballet, among others. She was the choreographer, lead actor, and dancer in the award-winning film Self Sabotage, which was the short film category winner for the Festivus Film Festival in 2012. She is a singer-songwriter and does extra-curricular activities like horseback riding and roller skating. All of these various facets have contributed to her worldview and belief that dance is a part of life, but not the entirety of one’s identity.

Ms. Mennite is premiering a new work on June 6, 2026, with Artistic Ventures in Dance (AVID), a Colorado-based cooperative company with annual NYC programming, at Gibney 280 in New York. Mennite has been an AVID collaborator since its inaugural season. Her ballet, The Wolff, is a reimagined and kinetic retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. Following the performance, guests are invited to a speakeasy-themed dance party featuring dancing, light bites, mingling with the artists, and a costume contest judged by The Wolff costume designer, FERN.

What if the wolf was never the villain? When creating ‘The Wolff’, I kept asking myself that question. Wolves bring balance to ecosystems and are deeply respected in many cultures, yet our stories often cast them as the antagonist.
ㅤ
In this retelling, the wolf isn’t the villain. He exists as he does in nature—connected to the forest and the elements—serving instead as a guide, reminding us of balance with the natural world.

I asked the Artistic Director of AVID, Emily Speed, to sum up working with Ms. Mennite.

One of the most rewarding parts of leading AVID is creating space for artists to evolve and take creative risks. Melody has inspired audiences as a performer since our very first season, and now with The Wolff, she invites us into her imagination as a choreographer. Supporting female creators is not simply important; it is essential. Melody’s dedication to AVID, her generosity as an artist, and her fearless creativity make this collaboration especially meaningful. I look forward to our continued collaboration as creatives, and I am honored to support her work through AVID.

Following this premiere, Ms. Mennite will be creating a new work for Cincinnati Ballet.  Follow her dance life here and her choreography here on Instagram.

^[1] The new report is set to publish in June and this statistic could shift slightly.

---

 Written by Nancy Dobbs Owen for LA Dance Chronicle.

Featured image: Melody Mennite Walsh – Photo by Ashkan Royale.