Melissa began her training as a dancer at Raskin Dance Studio at age 9. At age 18 she was hired as a backup dancer to Aretha Franklin for a charity ball in New York City. During her time in college she was a rehearsal coach with Hard Drive Productions for Celebrity Cruise Lines, and began to learn the art of silks. Melissa’s dancing has taken her worldwide, beginning in New York where she danced and toured with Push Factory Dance Company, Contemporary Dance Company, and assisted with A Few Good Men Dancin’. She was also an assistant to Jeff Amsden, as well as an assistant to choreographers for Broadway Bears and taught at Broadway Dance Center. Melissa’s teaching and performing has taken her around the world from New York through Ireland and Australia.

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Through the study of pedagogy, kinesiology, and being a “movement educator” while instructing and choreographing at Raskin Dance Studio, Melissa found a renewed love for the body through massage therapy. She has now spent the last five years focusing on releasing the everyday tension, emotional, and physical injuries through the healing power of touch and breath.

Melissa had been suffering with back pain for years and turned to practicing yoga for relief, however a few years ago one of her closest friends began losing flexibility, range of motion, and experiencing extreme pain in her right hip. Melissa was determined to find a way to help alleviate her friend’s pain other than just massage. Having had the silk training in the past, Melissa came across AntiGravity® Yoga and signed up to return to New York and become certified to instruct aerial yoga.

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The last six years Melissa has worked with the hammock and the techniques taught by AntiGravity Fitness®  to release stress, improve flexibility, decompress the spine, and lengthen & tone the body. Through one on one private sessions, performances with Voci Dance Company, and now in a class setting at Studio Zero G; Melissa has realized that AntiGravity® Yoga is a great new way to heal and condition the body using breath, meditation/prayer, and visualizations while most importantly having FUN.

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“Be Still, and Know that I am God.”

                                                   -Psalms 46:10