Born in Italy, Veronica Melis trained in dance, music, and theatre, and holds three professional diplomas for dancers and actors and a degree in performing arts at the University of Bologna. Over the course of her career, she has accumulated more than 20 years of experience as a creator and 30 years as a performer.
As a performer, she has collaborated with numerous dance, theatre and circus companies, including Abbondanza-Bertoni (Romanzo d’infanzia, Alcesti), Teatro Valdoca (Fuoco Centrale), Le Fils D’Adrien Danse (Les cousins), Cheval Cabré (La maison de Bernarda), Cas Public (Barbebleue) and Daniele Finzi Pasca (Donka, a letter to Chekhov), performing in six languages on a world tour. As a creator-choreographer and director, she has created some twenty projects that integrate different disciplines in a hybrid, poetic and “tragicomic” form. Her work is internationally appreciated and critics hail her as a “total artist.”
After moving to Canada in 2004, Veronica participated in several films (Hot Dog), television series (Les Maitres du Suspense, La planète des femmes, Lien Fatal 2) and has supervised the acting movement for directors such as Brigitte Haentjens (Woyzeck, L’opéra des quat’sous), René-Daniel Dubois (Les femmes de Bonne humeur), Hugo Bélanger (Hansel and Gretel). Alongside Marie-Josée Gauthier and Luzio Altobelli, she founded the MAG Creation Collective in 2008 and began directing and creating various shows in the world of contemporary circus, including fHealing, Hommage à Magritte, Pierre et le loup, Circo Minimo, Hybride, Rosso di sera, Mi ricordo and Un bel di’ Vedremo.
Since 2009, Veronica’s work has been recognized and funded by the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des Arts de Montréal.
Parallel to her performance career, Veronica has been an artistic advisor at the National Circus School of Montreal for twelve years, a lecturer in universities, and a member of numerous interdisciplinary artistic juries and research committees in dramaturgy, theatre, circus arts and dance. Since 2019, she has also been a member of the Circus Arts, Street Arts Commission of the Conseil des arts de Montreal. Since end of 2020 she’s back to Italy