Melanie Yost is currently a senior at Alma College studying to get her Bachelor of Arts degrees in both Marketing and Dance.
Melanie has been dancing since she was 3 years old at Academy of Performing Arts and was a member of the Francis Performing Arts Company at age 10. At the age of 7, Melanie was taking 2 ballet technique classes a week and by the time she was in high school she studied under the direction of Samantha Shelton twice a week on top of her schedule at APA. In conjunction with Samantha Shelton and Kathy Francis, Melanie has studied under Kathy Thibodeaux, Birute Barodicaite, Hazel Sabas, Lynn Bowman, Jenifer Sarver, Nic Gareiss, Ariane Dolan and many more that have made an impact on Melanie’s technique and dance pedagogy.
Melanie has also attended summer ballet intensives at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, weekend-long classes with River North Dance Chicago and Lou Conte Dance Studio. This past year Melanie was able to take a weekend-long intensive with Surfscape Contemporary Dance Theatre in Florida.
Melanie is a part of the Alma College Dance Company where she has had the opportunity to perform featured roles in ballets including The Nutcracker, Paquita, The Sleeping Beauty, Raymonda and several contemporary ballet pieces. Melanie has also had the pleasure to dance in choreographic works by Yuka Oba from the Grand Rapids Ballet, David Campos of Escola Ballet in Spain and several more that Alma College Dance Company has hosted. She is also a part of the dance honorary, Pi Delta Chi, as treasurer and will be directing the Student Choreographers’ Concert (SCC) in January 2016 as her senior thesis. Melanie will also be choreographing a tap piece for SCC and last year was able to present her work from SCC 2015 for Alma College’s Honors Day.
Melanie feels at home when performing and has a newfound passion for teaching and choreographing, and is honored to be apart of the teaching staff.