Mel Ree didn’t own new shoes until she was 17.
Before the poet and performer lit up stages with her “radical authenticity”, before the standing ovations, before Macbeth and Mother May We, Ree was a South Pacific village girl navigating grief, migration, and survival.
Her journey hasn’t been linear and her art doesn’t fit in a box – it challenges and flips the script, raising the mirror to its audience and asking if they see themselves.
“Every artist is telling the same story,” she says. “Mine is healing from trauma and rising into greatness.”
Ree’s story defies simple arcs: a Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA)-trained performer, a voice for BIPOC communities, and the powerhouse behind Revolution Renegade, a Sydney-based community of artists, poets, dancers and musicians.
But these accolades aren’t the point — they’re echoes of something deeper. Her work isn’t just made to entertain. It tells a story of truth and resilience.
At the beginning of Ree’s journey she was a princess, the daughter of a Papua New Guinean chief; but her early life was also marked by abandonment.
My mum walked out of the house like a queen. Big hips, big earrings, fierce and unstoppable.
Despite her status in the village, she grew up in poverty.
“I was born in Papua New Guinea, and we were very poor,” she says. “I didn’t own a new pair of shoes until I was 17. My mum was a village girl… she only had a small piece of land to her name.
“My biological father left us there in the village. My stepdad came through in the end, bringing us all to Australia.”
Ree’s early years growing up in Mooroobool, a poor suburb in Cairns, were marked by grief, and she experienced the loss of two siblings.
“My childhood was chaotic,” Ree says, her voice steady, direct. “I lost two siblings. One when I was four, one when I was eight. It was just one thing after another.”
Her story is full of contradictions, grief and strength, fire and stillness. But they are truths that don’t cancel each other out. They form the foundation she stands on.
Raised by her mother, a woman she lovingly calls “the original revolutionary baddie”, Ree credits her unapologetic strength and boldness in shaping her own resilience.
“She used to buy her foundation from a circus costume shop because regular drugstores never had her shade,” Ree recalls. “Still, she walked out of the house like a queen. Big hips, big earrings, fierce and unstoppable.”
From her, Ree learned that shadow and shine can share the same stage, that light doesn’t come after the pain, it rises through it, sometimes despite it.
Ree speaks about her mother with candour and deep admiration, especially when describing how she stayed true to her roots even after migrating.
“When we moved to Australia, my mum used to cook on a fire at the back of our house and my dad would be like ‘you’re in Australia, you don’t need to cook on fire anymore’. And she’s like, ‘I’m a village gal. This is how I cook my food’.”
Ree’s turning point came when she was accepted into WAAPA.
“Everyone else there was upper middle class, and I was the poor black girl,” she remembers.
There, she says, she discovered a powerful tool: using her body and breath to tell stories, channel emotions, and ultimately to transform.
“That was the beginning of a deep healing,” she says.
I know, because of my pain… I’m going to leave lasting work. Work that reminds people how beautiful they are despite their ugly.
But behind the scenes, Ree battled an eating disorder throughout her 20s.
“The longest I went without throwing up was one week,” she adds. “Throwing up all night, acting all day. The chaos, darling, the chaos.”
Eventually, her body demanded a full stop. After graduating, she spent 18 months on a remote island, engaged in intensive, round-the-clock healing.
When she returned, she brought with her clarity, purpose, and a voice sharpened by both pain and self-awareness.
“There’s this saying that every artist, no matter what medium they’re speaking from, they’re always telling the same story,” she says.
“So, my medium is the story of healing from your trauma and rising into greatness.
“I already know because of my pain, when my life is over, I’m going to leave lasting work. Work that reminds people how beautiful they are despite their ugly.”
Her message is clear: you don’t have to erase your past to move forward. The heartbreak, the chaos, the silence — they belong, they can exist in the same room.
Own them, speak them, and turn them into something bold, healing, and unforgettable. Ree doesn’t ask for applause, she hands you the match and says: light something with it.
Photo courtesy by DefinitelyDefne Photography.
