Multidisciplinary artist, Mélanie Demers founded in Montreal her dance company, MAYDAY, in 2007, exploring the powerful link between the poetical and the political. Her body of works have all been created from this perspective. With each new creation, she deepened her engagement with cross-genre works and hybrid forms. Her fascination with the interplay between word and gesture crystallized with WOULD (2015), which won the CALQ Prize for best choreography. In 2016, Mélanie Demers began a new creation cycle with Animal Triste and Icône Pop; both works toured internationally. In 2017, Mélanie Demers was invited alongside Laïla Diallo to work as a guest choreographer at the Skånes Dansteater in Malmö (Sweden) for the creation of Something About Wilderness.

After the ambitious and international project Danse Mutante hit the stage, La Goddam Voie Lactée (2021), Confession Publique (2021) and Cabaret Noir (2022) are entering in the spotlight in various prestigious venues and festivals. In 2021, Mélanie Demers received the GRAND PRIX de la danse de Montréal which recognizes the unique mark she left on her era. The next year, she was awarded the CALQ Prize for best choreography for Confession Publique and Angélique Willkie received the best performance Prize for the same work at the ceremony of Les Prix de la danse de Montréal 2022.

In 2023, she turned towards theater, directing the play Déclarations by acclaimed playwright Jordan Tannahill at Théâtre Prospero. In April 2023, Mélanie Demers is a finalist for the Prix Jovette-Marchessault. Her expertise in movement has led her to coach directors and to teach at Canada's leading theater schools. Mélanie Demers appears on radio and television programs, giving audiences regular opportunities to catch up with her. In 2024, Mélanie Demers co-created and went on stage at Espace GO in Affaires intérieures. She also won the NAC Award as part of the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards.

To date, she choreographed thirty works and was presented in some forty cities across Europe, America, Africa and Asia.

For the choreographer and artistic director of MAYDAY, Mélanie Demers, the stage is a platform for performers to reflect as a group, a space for calling into question the role of the artist and the genre of theatre, and where our collective and individual fates are pondered. She does not subject audiences to accusatory harangues, nor does she wallow in a mood of sterile resignation: she simply draws our attention to the dark side of the human condition. Her works are at once a cry for help and a call for change.

MAYDAY's Website