“Embodying Handel’s Rhythms” | Melinda Sullivan, Lucy Graham Director of Dance | Boston Early Music Festival

“Embodying Handel’s Rhythms”

Description: BEMF Dance Director Melinda Sullivan offers an introductory Baroque dance workshop for all levels and abilities. The class begins with a seated warm-up, then moves into Baroque stances and step combinations. Participants will focus on Handel’s gavotte and menuet rhythms. Please wear sneakers or low dance shoes.

MELINDA SULLIVAN is the Lucy Graham Director of Dance at the Boston Early Music Festival. She most recently choreographed Caccini’s Alcina for BEMF. Sullivan danced in her first BEMF production—Henry Purcell’s King Arthur—in 1995. She returned to dance and assist the late choreographer Lucy Graham in all subsequent BEMF opera productions over the next twelve years. In 2008, Sullivan assumed the role of BEMF Ballet Mistress, training dancers and singers in Baroque and Renaissance style and technique. Her first choreography for BEMF was Dido and Aeneas in 2010, following a featured role as the Silent Mover in the 2009 BEMF production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea. Since then she has choreographed extensively for BEMF, including productions and revivals of Charpentier’s La Couronne de Fleurs and La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, and Pergolesi’s La serva padrona and Livietta e Tracollo.

A graduate of Boston Conservatory, Ms. Sullivan quickly established herself as a dynamic performer in Boston’s dance scene. Her initial studies in Renaissance dance were with distinguished historian and teacher of dance, Dr. Ingrid Brainard, and led to performances with the Ken Pierce Baroque Dance Company. At the same time she created a unique movement and dance program for singers at New England Conservatory, where she taught for twenty-five years. She also taught for ten years at Boston University Opera Institute. Since 2008, Sullivan has been Resident Choreographer at Central City Opera. Her recent choreographies have been for Boston Lyric Opera and Odyssey Opera. Upcoming choreographies include Carousel, Rigoletto, and Dido and Aeneas for Central City Opera.