Melissa Pasut has been dancing since the age of 7 and has been performing and teaching for over 20 years. She currently works as a lecturer at Liverpool Hope University, and she is studying for her PhD in dance at Coventry University for which she was awarded an AHRC Midlands4cities doctoral studentship in 2024. She founded her own dance company Anoikis in 2002 and has received Arts Council of Wales funding for her projects. Her academic and professional research is examining the pointe shoe through the practices and philosophy of butoh, an avant-garde dance form founded in post-war Japan by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno.