Melissa Wu
Captured by Natalie Deryn Johnson | Intimate Witnessing
Melissa Wu is an award-winning cinematographer specialized in dance film. A multidisciplinary artist and a dancer herself, she has been serving NYC art nonprofits and independent artists through cinematography, photography, graphic design, web design, creative direction and project management under her media company 828 Media since 2014.
Supported by different healing commodities, her media products are intertwined with her dance and healing practices. Melissa is also a certified Kundalini Yoga teacher, expanding her media service to wholistic health practioners, healers and activism works, as she build her platform WUWU, presenting practitioners and artists on a similar path, bridging the world of spirituality, healing and art-making intentionally.
Melissa is a Hong Kong native and a survivor of domestic violence. She is currently residing in Brooklyn, New York with her 9 year old. She is working on building an artistic career with her decade long relationship creating and documenting works with dance artists and organizations. She is looking to expand her team with like minded camera lovers and community builders to offer affordable documentation and marketing/branding work for underserved artists and holistic practitioners.
Natalie Deryn Johnson
Natalie Deryn Johnson a multi-disciplinary artist, choreographer, portrait + performance photographer, and intuitive facilitator. Natalie began working with 828 media in 2022 as a video editor, and is excited to continue as Creative and Executive Director alongside Melissa. She moved to New York in 2012 to work with photographer Lois Greenfield and is featured in Greenfield’s publication, Moving Still. Natalie has been photographing the arts community since.
Their spirituality and art practices co-exist and inform one another in a journey heavily informed by invisible injuries, esoteric study, trauma, ceremony, and sensuality. Since Natalie began dancing at age 3 - and picked up a camera at age 5 - they have been creating and grappling within the worlds of performance, embodiment, chronic pain, and expression. She has worked as an indepedent artist to accomplish intimate and poetic undertakings on and off screen: fulfilling roles such as gatherer, dancer, movement director, editor, writer, photographer, videographer. As a professional dancer, she spent two seasons with Christina Noel and The Creature, premiered metaphysical art with Red Lines Productions at BAM. Natalie has devised and written 3 solo shows, has funded major independent work through grassroots fundraising, and are currently emerging as a singer songstress alongside Rhys Tivey. Natalie has experienced a deepening of dance practice with the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, on the seashores of Greece, at B12 in Berlin, and in the desert of New Mexico with Keshet. Natalie has edited dance films that have garnered awards and screened at film festivals, including Kelly Todd's Under Review: Katahdin. She holds a BFA in Choreography and Dance Performance from UC Irvine, and is an energy practitioner at Mystic Dare. Orienting their life towards experiences of closeness, authenticity, and truth has led to a deep knowing of how to witness and facilitate transformation, on and off the stage, in front and behind the camera. She enjoys divination and lives in the bathtub.