What’s Under There is an interactive performance that reflects popular culture and beliefs about the female experience, balanced with the thoughts, feelings, dreams and aspirations of real women.

What's Under There draws the audience in as a collaborator, making each viewer decide whether to be supportive, critical or complicit with the choices, decisions and behaviors of the women performing. Shifting from beautiful to disturbing to humorous, this work reveals our fascination with many ways we allow ourselves to be manipulated and demonstrates ways we can break away from our roles and reclaim our stereotypes.

What's Under There has been shown at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (2012) and as part of Material Witness, an exhibition presented by the Women's Caucus for Art, GA at Agnes Scott College's Dalton Gallery (2013).

Performed by Zoetic Dance Ensemble.Choreography by Amanda Thompson, Mallory Baxley and Melanie Lynch-Blanchard.Sound design by Mallory Baxley. Music by Hilary Hahn, Hauschka, Beyonce Knowles, RuPaul, Bessie Smith, Dusty Springfield and Connie Frances. Production design by Alan Reese. Photography by John Ramspott. Film by Nina Dolgin.

Preludes is the result of a performance collaboration with composer Benjamin Warsaw that plays with dance, music and how each element informs the other. 

Preludes was presented as part of Armstrong University's Piano in the Arts education and performance series, 2014 and in GURL, 2012.

Occupied offers audiences a glimpse at unexpected activities, environments and opportunities present in seemingly vacant spaces. The performance challenges the viewer’s ideas and convictions about perspective, proportion, value and our tendency to discard or alter places and things that have outlived their intended use.

Occupied was presented the unfinished lower level space at Castleberry Point in the Castleberry Hill Arts District of Atlanta for Flux Night 2011.

Choreography by Melanie Lynch Blanchard and Onur Topal Sumer with Crossover Movement Arts. Music by Emrah Kotan. Film by Felipe Barral, The G Channel. Photography by Leah Roth and John Ramspott. Production design by Alan Reese.

Undone is an evening length dance/theater performance featuring live music and movement based on our human need to resolve things that by their nature can never be completed.

Dancers, actors, and musicians shift from moments of improvisation and invention to structured arrangements, offering a time and place to this varied and wonderfully random story of enduring love, life and legacy. Presented at Fabrefaction Theatre, Atlanta, 2011.

Choreography by Amanda Thompson, Christina Noel Reaves, Mallory Baxley and Melanie Lynch Blanchard, with performers contributing their stories, experiences and insights. Music by Klimchak and Joanie Ferguson. Costumes were designed and created by Joanna Futral. Production design was by Liz Waldman. Photography by John Ramspott.

Catch & Release was a public art work commissioned by Flux Projects for the Fountain of Rings in Centennial Olympic Park in 2011. The work was developed through a collaborative process which was informed and inspired by the public setting. 

Through contemporary dance, Catch & Release offers a thoughtful and accessible interpretation of human interaction with this vital resource and its power to create, sustain and destroy.

Choreography by Melanie Lynch Blanchard, Amanda Thompson, Ellen McCollister, Amber Thompson. Costumes by Lisa Polunin. Photography by Tara Lynne Pixley.

CLICK is a multi-media contemporary dance work that explores iconic moments in the lives of women and our incredible abilities to adapt to the various phases of our lives with the love, support and camaraderie of other women.

CLICK features personal stories told through film and movement to highlight these phases: finding love, commitment, work, family, birth, death, and all the related challenges, triumphs and experiences. These experiences often become defining moments that inform our future, shape our present, determine our relationships and have a lasting impact on our lives.

CLICK was presented in 2010 for Flux Night, and as part of educational residencies at the University of Georgia (2011) and Brenau University (2010). Choreography by Melanie Lynch Blanchard. Filmwork for CLICK was created by Ross Brandt and Onur Topal Sumer. Photography by Leah Roth.

Photography by Leah Roth.

Sometimes girls just wanna have fun, and come together to make something unplanned and unexpected. I have been fortunate to work with willing, trusting, fearless and creative people who are always up for a new challenge and a good time.

The photography featured here is by Leah Roth. Leah is a dear friend and ever-willing collaborator who is always up for a fun time with the dancers. Leah captures the inventiveness and spontaneity of the dancers and is truly an amazing artist. Thank you Leah!

I usually lead the creative (aka: run the asylum), offering guidance to draw the ideas to the forefront, telling a story or suggesting an image, informing the movement, affirming their decisions to touch, push, pull, move, connect, whatever comes up. Leah and I collaborate with ease and are always open to each other's suggestions. 

Part of directing the shoots has been making sure nobody falls out of a tree or drowns or gets arrested. I've helped dancers change in my car, layered on bug spray, lifted them onto window sills, whatever it takes.

We usually emerge unscathed... the only tragic situation I can recall is when Christian's ass set off a tap at Ri"Ra Pub, causing beer to spill all over the floor for the duration of the shoot. Heartbreaking...

Sometimes this experience manifests in stage work, sometimes in visual pieces, sometimes it only survives in our imaginations. And great memories.