Manuel Meza is an international working performer, choreographer and teacher who has been trained at the prestigious Art Universities California Institute of the Arts for their Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and obtained their Master of Arts from the Folkwang Universität der Künste in Choreography and Composition. They have worked with YuanYuan Wang of the Beijing Contemporary Dance Theatre, Okwui Okpokwasili, Douglas Nielsen, Rodolpho Leoni, Henrietta Horn, Deutsche Oper, and Festival D’Aix-en-provence. Their passion for dance education has allowed them to teach master classes throughout Germany and Internationally including California Institute of the Arts, Riverside City College, Marameo Berlin, TanzFaktur, ODC dance San Franscisco, and is a Faculty member at the Berlin Dance Institute. Most recently Manuel Meza was a choreographer in residence at Riverside City College where they created their newest choreographic work, In the Pursuit of Self Love.

Recently they were research grant recipients from the #Takeheart rechercheförderung FondsDaku/NeuStartKultur with their projects, Migrating…Queerness and My Brown Dancing Body and the conceptual research project, Because I Have Something to Say; An Exploration into the Queer Voice.

In 2023, Manuel began their journey as a producer by organising the dance festival Against the Grain which offers a stage and space for POC, Queer, Non-binary/Trans, and radically thinking dancers and performers who are often times fighting for visibility in the dance world. That same year they produced the dance event Smashing Spheres where they premiered a new work A Lonely Paradise, a solo that traces the decade long path of grief and the journey to self love and acceptance. Against the Grain and Smashing Spheres will have their second iterations in 2024.