Melanie Aceto is a modern dancer and choreographer who earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in dance from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.  She has worked with New York based contemporary choreographers including Barry Blumenfeld, Ellis Wood, Monica Bill Barnes, Hilary Easton and Guta Hedewig.  Her own work has been performed in Toronto, New York (REVERB, Cool NY and D.U.M.B.O Dance Festivals, American Dance Guild, Uptown Performance Series, Underexposed Festival and Hatch), Kentucky, New Jersey, Florida, in Ohio as part of the Heidelberg New Music Festival and at Wittenberg University, in Rochester, NY as part of the ImageMovementSound Festival, among others.

Her creative interests are in contemporary choreography exploring the integration of other art forms including visual art, poetry and live music.  Recent projects include a solo for vocalist to a score by Luciano Berio and a work for solo flutist to a score by Ian Clarke.  Melanie has worked with contemporary composers Marc Mellits, Ping Jin, Evan Johnson and extensively with Mark Olivieri on projects including the ImageMovementSound festival, the Heidelberg New Music Festival and the Vision of Sound Concert of Live Music and Dance; a series of collaborative concerts with the Society for New Music, featuring original contemporary music and choreography.

Selected by the Center for the Moving Image at the University at Buffalo to participate in a film/dance project funded by the Liberace Foundation, Melanie's newest group work is for nine with music by Marc Mellits.  This work was recently set on Momentum Dance Company in Guatemala City, Guatemala.  Melanie was a 2007 Research Fellow at Jacob's Pillow International Dance Festival investigating choreographic components of master works.

Melanie teaches modern technique, choreography, improvisation, and contemporary partnering and directs UB's Zodiaque Studio Dance Ensemble.