Dana Michel specializes in creating situations governed by their own logic, skillfully diverting object functions to create enigmatic situations that defy conventional ideas. Her approach transcends binary thinking, fearlessly deconstructing normative behavior through absurdity. In short, she questions the modes of existence with humor and depth. After having shown her solos YELLOW TOWEL (2014), MERCURIAL GEORGE (2016) and CUTLASS SPRING (2019) in the frame of Moving in November, she returns to Helsinki with her latest and most ambitious solo performance yet. For MIKE she starts with a question: if we cannot be ourselves at work, where we spend most of our lives – what kind of lives are we living? To find an answer, she creates a meditation on the work environment, transforming daily actions into choreographic experiments. Yet every action is interrupted, seemingly losing its fluidity, as if her body has become imprisoned by routine repetition. During a three-hour performance placed in the open space of Caisa, Michel unfolds the automatism of our daily actions, sharply addressing work-life balance, hovering between tragic and comic.

Dana Michel works with the expanded fields of improvisation, choreography, sculpture, comedy, hip-hop, cinematography, techno, poetry, psychology, dub and social commentary to create a centrifuge of experience. Before graduating from the BFA program in Contemporary Dance at Concordia University in her late twenties, Michel was a marketing executive, and a competitive runner and football player. In 2014, she was awarded the newly created ImPulsTanz Award (Austria) in recognition for outstanding artistic accomplishments. In 2017, Michel was awarded the Silver Lion for Innovation in Dance at the Venice Biennale. In 2018, she became the first ever dance artist in residence at the National Arts Centre (Canada). In 2019, she was awarded the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art (Finland). In 2023 she received the Canada Council for the Arts’ Jacqueline Lemieux prize for her significant contribution to dance in Canada.

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Duration: 3h

Please note: MIKE is a long-durational performance. You are invited to lie, sit or stand and to move freely in the space. Witnessing the full experience is recommended, but you can leave and re-enter if wished.

Tickets: https://movinginnovember.fi/mike/