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Teaching Artist Review
About the Artist
Melli Hoppe is a dancer based in Michigan City, Indiana. She has been a teaching artist for Arts for Learning since 1996. She is a Nationally Credentialed Teaching Artist with Young Audiences Arts for Learning and a certified Wolf Trap Teaching Artist.
Melli has a B.A. in Dance from Columbia College in Chicago, MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in Vermont, received a Teaching Artist Certificate from Teachers College at Columbia University, and has completed over 100 hours of training in student-empowering, healing-centered, and culturally responsive practices from Responsive Arts in School Education (RAISE) through Young Audiences Arts for Learning.
Melli taught site-specific theatre and stage movement at Butler University and taught dance at Indiana University (IUPUI), Butler University, Broad Ripple High School and Shortridge Middle School in Indianapolis.
She was the Artistic Director of Susurrus, an Indianapolis-based not-for-profit performance group, for twenty years, and has choreographed for dance and theater productions internationally.
She introduces students to the fundamentals of choreography to create dances based on the academic curriculum such as math, history, language arts, and social-emotional learning.
"Dance makes the curriculum come alive" she says. "Students learn group problem-solving skills and build self-esteem when they work in small groups to create their own dances. I strive to reach kinesthetic learners by integrating dance with other subject areas and to make sure students enjoy dancing and have a strong sense of accomplishment as they work together with their peers”
Melli has a B.A. in Dance from Columbia College in Chicago, MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College in Vermont, received a Teaching Artist Certificate from Teachers College at Columbia University, and has completed over 100 hours of training in student-empowering, healing-centered, and culturally responsive practices from Responsive Arts in School Education (RAISE) through Young Audiences Arts for Learning.
Melli taught site-specific theatre and stage movement at Butler University and taught dance at Indiana University (IUPUI), Butler University, Broad Ripple High School and Shortridge Middle School in Indianapolis.
She was the Artistic Director of Susurrus, an Indianapolis-based not-for-profit performance group, for twenty years, and has choreographed for dance and theater productions internationally.
She introduces students to the fundamentals of choreography to create dances based on the academic curriculum such as math, history, language arts, and social-emotional learning.
"Dance makes the curriculum come alive" she says. "Students learn group problem-solving skills and build self-esteem when they work in small groups to create their own dances. I strive to reach kinesthetic learners by integrating dance with other subject areas and to make sure students enjoy dancing and have a strong sense of accomplishment as they work together with their peers”
