Biography
Megan Trappe recently graduated with both a B.F.A. in Contemporary Dance and a B.A. in English from Indiana University. Originally from Muncie, IN she has been dancing for the majority of her life and has been trained in a plethora of dance styles.
Megan has performed in works by Indiana University faculty members Robert Burden, Beatrice Capote, and Elizabeth Shea, as well as numerous student works each semester during her undergraduate studies. She has had the opportunity to choreograph for IU Contemporary Dance's junior choreographic showcase (November 2023), various student-led projects, and most notably her capstone work performed in May 2025.
Megan has had the privilege of being part of other performances such as the Moving Memory: Next Generation showcase in New York City where she performed work Koto by Picabo Saunders (June 2024). She has participated in Movement at the Mies, an independent project by Frances Koper Heintzelman (Oct. 2022), and a Main Stage theatre production of The Winter’s Tale as a dancer in February 2022. In 2025 she has performed in Beatrice Capote's work Transcendence for ACDA's East Central Region conference and Elizabeth Shea's piece Protean Hearts for Dance City Festival's Chicago and Detroit events.
For her senior year Megan focused on completing a written honors thesis for her English degree which was ultimately used as the basis for her BFA capstone project. She is interested in the intersectionality between writing and physical embodiment, and aimed to find a way to connect these two areas of study as she completed her undergraduate work. Her thesis focused on themes of ecstatic vision and mythology of self within the work of two radical twentieth-century female artists: writer H.D. and dancer Isadora Duncan. Megan choreographed and performed a solo inspired by not just the work of these two figures, but the themes and creative methodologies they relied on in their own artistic processes. To accompany her movement she created a video showcasing various images from her research, her own lived experiences, and an original poem written for the work. She utilized spoken word and projection to bring this added element into the world of her final dance performance.
Artistic Statement
As an artist, I am consistently exploring ways in which I can intertwine movement, writing, and visual arts to create work that, above all, honors and showcases the creative process. In my work I strive to find unique ways to unearth and showcase the similarities that can be drawn between each of my creative facets.
I am inspired by art and artists that do not have any reservations when it comes to the boundaries they put on work; I think that art has a duty to challenge everyone that interacts with it to see the subject matter in a different light. I use literature that resonates with me and prose of my own to influence movement I create, as well as visual arts such as painting and collaging. The process of creation is one I value greatly; it tells us the most about ourselves and gives us a space to be completely uninhibited in exploration.
Whether working collaboratively or individually the bulk of the emphasis I put on my work lands on the process itself, and the ways in which the project was nurtured and evolved into its own entity over time. When starting a new project, I do not ask myself what the end result will be, but rather what I am interested in investigating – this allows for the influence of visual, literary, and movement-based arts to take hold of the process and help me to find an answer to the inquiry I posed.