Ella Mesma is an established professional artist with over 20 years of experience in dance, yoga, & meditation. Artistic Director of Ella Mesma Company, Maya Gandaia Ltd & co-director of award winning company Business Yoga, Ella also ran a carnaval arts company for 7 years.



Ella's pronounes are She or They. They are the published author of Journal to Joy & about to publish a second book, Mesma offers a 9 month coaching programme for creatives (The Goddxx Path) & yearly retreats to Thailand, Portugal & Morocco.

As a choreographer & human, Ella is interested in unlearning to get back to our authentic selves, in transformation & wellbeing & in story telling; in particular putting the stories she would love to have seen growing up on stage. Their creative passions include painting, capoeira, salsa, surfing, travel & speaking languages. Of mixed heritage, born in Kent, grew up in Bristol, now based between Leeds where she studied politics, Lisbon & Bristol.

Ella began her dance career dancing salsa in Bristol, then studied under Merville Jones (a founder of Phoenix) based in Leeds before going to Brazil to study samba & aerial, where she paraded in carnaval as a passista in 2006. Ella travelled to many countries (including Denmark, Serbia, India, Turkey, Spain, South Africa) to perform and teach at salsa events and congresses. 

In 2009, Ella was awarded a Lisa Ullman scholarship to train with Angel Ortiz (RIP) in NYC in On2 style Salsa. Ella began breaking just before she began her conservatoire training at LSCD (the Place) in 2009 (& an MA in 2017).



Ella was a Dance On artist at Yorkshire Dance. She created & toured Roots of Rumba Festival (2013-2018). Performance highlights include Russell Maliphant Company, Lea Anderson (The Chomondeleys), Olympics Opening Ceremony. Ella Mesma Company have performed at theatres worldwide & Ella has been commissioned by Sadler’s Wells, Manchester International Festival (Little Amal) & the National Centre for Circus. Ella has been Associate Artist at Dance City (2017), Trinity Centre Bristol (2018), Slate World (2020), Pervasive Media Studio, Pavillion Dance South West (2020-2021).