Megan Rhyme is a Chicago-based dance artist whose work spans the fields of performance, teaching, and arts administration.

Her movement background is in Laban-Bartineff based modern dance, ballet, and contact improvisation. She is heavily informed by her studies with Molly Shanahan and what is now known as the Spiral Body Techniques framework for movement. Her movement aesthetic also contains echoes of her past experiences with Butoh artist Wannapa Pimtong-Eubanks and performance artists Janet Schmid and Ania Grenier.

As an artist and dancemaker, Megan uses movement, written and spoken text, gentle instructions, and interactive objects to guide audiences through experiences meant to engage their curiosity. She is interested in the relationship between people and ideas; art/science collaborations are one of her primary areas of research.

Her major works include Inner Cartography (2010), a collaboration with neuroscientist Miriam Sach; Hearken daughter, and incline thy ear (2012), about Hildegarde von Bingen with original music by composer Sam Hertz, and Won’t You Care (2017), incorporating written audience responses read aloud during the piece. She has been featured at the 2010 Chicago Fringe Festival, was a Synapse Arts- New Works artist in 2012, and her work has been funded by a City of Chicago CAAP grant, the CliffDwellers Foundation, the American Physical Society, and Chicago Park District’s Night Out In The Parks program.

Currently a major focus of her artistic practice is her work with research scientist Elizabeth Hicks. Their work Far From Equilibrium, a dance about turbulence, was performed at the Museum of Science and Industry in 2015. It was expanded in 2016 with original music by composer Roger Zare as well as an interactive “research playground” developed by a team of artists, scientists, and engineers, and presented at Links Hall and at 12th Street Beach in downtown Chicago. In 2021 Megan and Elizabeth began working on Solar Dreams, a short dance film that takes a journey through the mind of a solar physicist using modern dance and NASA solar footage.

As a teaching artist, Megan builds spaces for children and youth to explore the world and to develop their own creative voices using dance as a medium. Her teaching philosophy has been shaped by her work with arts integration at Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education, social emotional learning at Dancing With Class, and trauma-informed/healing-centered practice at the Auditorium Theatre’s Hearts To Art camp.

Megan has been a Co-Director at Synapse Arts since 2022. As a member of the company’s 3 person collaborative leadership team, Megan is in charge of Synapse’s education programs and fundraising efforts. She has developed programs such as the DanceWear Share Library, a take-one-leave-one collection of dancewear that offers free shoes and apparel to the community, and supervises Synapse’s Arts Partner classes at the Chicago Park District.