IN SHORT ⟶ Dana Michel will present an extended performance exploring labour at one of Rome’s most special theatre venues, Teatro di Documenti. Time, space, body, and objects will be reimagined beyond their functional norms, unveiling the potential for a contemplative, ephemeral, and affective experience.
MIKE is a three-hour-long performance that will be staged on two dates; it’s a reflection on the culture of ‘labor’ guided by the shared experience of a silent unhurried rebellion. With MIKE, Montreal-based choreographer Dana Michel opens a breach in social norms, delicately introducing so-called ‘marginal elements’ and turning them into central ones.
The performer develops multiple situations based on an internal and personal logic. She navigates a world of objects, assigning them new meanings and functions far from binary and linear thinking. The starting point is the rethinking of her years-long office job and her current personal and professional life, envisioning a potential future role that is idle and fleeting. Humour and attention to detail challenge established perceptions within a visionary location – the Teatro di Documenti – a unique example of theatre architecture based on an innovative concept: all spaces are integrated and suitable for performance, allowing the audience and the artist to flow and blend together.
MIKE offers an ecology of time – slowed down – resulting from procedures deprived of all functional values; the approach to materials and to the space-time dimension reveals non-hierarchical thinking.
The creation and production of MIKE is a commitment to highlighting the idea that without trust in ourselves and in others, it is impossible to safely live public lives that reflect our interior lives. We are sure to stagnate in a state of half-life and disharmony… gridlocked in the endless traffic of not knowing how to respect or even truly recognize the other. WE MUST LEARN HOW TO TRUST THE OTHER. We must first trust OUR «TRUE» SELVES in order to do this work.
And so, with this work, I have created a list of three “musts”… around which I will sculpt a performative proposal:
1) I/YOU/THEY MUST TRUST that we cannot healthily and consistently continue to work within modalities and environments that weren’t designed for a diversity of minds and hope to thrive or even survive;
2) I/YOU/THEY MUST TRUST that “the arts” is where a large percentage of humans with highly diverse minds come for respite and in pursuit of flourishing. Artists, audiences and cultural workers alike come looking for a safer space to build other possibilities for existing in the world, and we could all benefit greatly from shifting into a modality that reflects more recognition of this diversity of minds in our day-to-day working practices;
3) I/YOU/THEY MUST TRUST and believe in my/your/their interior experiences in order to advocate for them and therefore to build sustainable and possibly helpful-to-others futures. We must model self-respect.
These musts are to be explored via a performative reflection on “work” culture. I will reflect on my business education and office work past, on my personal and professional administrative present, and on a conjuring of a working revolutionary and inclusive future.
– Dana Michel
Dana Michel is a choreographer, performer and live art author based in Montréal (Canada). In her projects, she assembles choreography, sculpture, comedy, hip-hop, techno, poetry, dub, and social critique to create a centrifugal experience. Before graduating in Contemporary Dance from the Concordia University, she was a marketing manager, an athlete and professional football player. In 2014 they received the ImPulsTanz Award (Vienna) for her achievements in the arts, and were listed by The New York Times among the most notable female choreographers of the year. In 2017 she was awarded with the Leone d’Argento at the Venice Biennale, and in 2018 she was the first resident dancer at the National Arts Centre in Canada. In 2019 they won the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art (Kuopio, Finland) and in 2019 the Jacqueline-Lemieux Prize for her contribution to dance in Canada.
conceived and performed by Dana Michel
artistic activators Viva Delorme, Ellen Furey, Peter James, Heidi Louis, Tracy Maurice, Roscoe Michel, Karlyn Percil, Yoan Sorin
scenographic consultant – technical direction Romain Guillet
sound consultant David Drury
production SCORP CORPS – Viva Delorme, Dana Michel
distribution neon lobster – Giulia Messia & Katharina Wallisch
coproduction ARSENIC – Centre d’art scénique contemporain (Losanna, Svizzera), Centre national des Arts (Ottawa, Canada), Festival TransAmériques (Montréal, Canada), Julidans Amsterdam (Paesi Bassi), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Bruxelles, Belgio), MDT (Stockholm, Svezia), Montpellier Danse (Francia), Moving in November, (Helsinki, Finlandia), Wexner Center for the Arts of The Ohio State University in Colombus (USA)
creative residencies Alkantara (Lisbona, Portogallo), ANTI Festival (Kuopio, Finlandia), Centre national des Arts (Ottawa, Canada), Kinosaki International Arts Center and Kyoto Experiment (Giappone), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Bruxelles, Belgio), Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm (Francoforte, Germania), Montpellier Danse (Francia) résidence de création à l’Agora, cité internationale de la danse, avec le soutien de la Fondation BNP Paribas / creation residency at Agora, cité internationale de la danse, con il supporto di BNP Paribas Foundation, RIMI/IMIR, SceneKunst (Stavanger, Norvegia), Shedhalle (Zurigo, Svizzera) con il supporto di Tanzhaus Zürich and the Embassy of Canada to Switzerland, The Chocolate Factory (NYC, USA)
with the support of Délégation du Québec à Rome
the creation of this work is being made possible thanks to the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres of Québec, Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie and Conseil des Arts de Montréal
ph. Carla Schleiffer