The performance lasts three hours. It is recommended to see it in its entirety. However audience may leave and re-enter. A ticket for the performance grants free entry to the museum’s exhibitions.

The performance work MIKE revolves around work culture, power, and self-respect. Dana Michel challenges social norms from a curious rather than provocative perspective, gently bringing people who are often overlooked or excluded into the center of the conversation.

With humor and sensitivity, she questions the very ways we exist. Dana Michel is known for creating situations that evolve according to their own logic. She moves in a world of objects to which she gives new meanings and functions—far removed from binary and linear thinking, production, and action. In an open space over three hours, MIKE invites us into a unique universe where movement and stillness are woven together into an intense experience.

Michel creates a living reflection of a workplace, right in the museum. Here, the audience encounters a figure who moves between rooms. Is it a museum guard? A technician? A stranded stranger in an empty building? They stop, observe, drink coffee from a thermos. And the audience follows them. Every step.

It seems evident that our societies have been constructed based on models of efficiency of people who, generally speaking, are neither healthy nor sane. These same people make important decisions that shape our lives. It’s terrifying.
– Dana Michel

In MIKE, we are confronted with the question: Is it possible to live public lives that reflect our true selves? Through her intimate and open approach, Michel seeks to reveal the very thought process itself. The performance serves as a space for collective reflection.

The work balances between the political and the aesthetic, addressing themes such as class, institutional power, social control, and human vulnerability. It invites reflection on the roles we are assigned and how we might create more space—both mentally and physically—to be who we really are.

Dana Michel challenges our assumptions about work, institutional power, and class, giving the audience three hours to think. Prepare yourself for a rare performance experience that challenges body, mind, and presence.

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Credits: 

Created and performed by / Création et interprétation: Dana Michel

Artistic activators / Activateur·ice·s artistiques: Viva Delorme, Ellen Furey, Peter James, Heidi Louis, Tracy Maurice, Roscoe Michel, Karlyn Percil, Yoan Sorin

Scenographic consultant – Technical direction / Consultant scénographie – Direction technique: Romain Guillet

Sound consultant / Consultant son: David Drury

Production: SCORP CORPS – Viva Delorme, Dana Michel

Distribution: neon lobster – Giulia Messia & Katharina Wallisch

Coproduction: ARSENIC – Centre d’art scénique contemporain (Lausanne, Switzerland / Suisse), Centre national des Arts (Ottawa, Canada), Festival TransAmériques (Montréal, Canada), Julidans Amsterdam (Netherlands / Pays-Bas), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels, Belgium / Bruxelles, Belgique) MDT (Stockholm, Sweden / Suède) Montpellier Danse (France), Moving in November (Helsinki, Finland / Finlande), Wexner Center for the Arts of The Ohio State University in Columbus (United States of America / États-Unis d’Amérique)

Creative residencies / Résidences de création: Alkantara (Lisbon / Lisbonne, Portugal), ANTI Festival (Kuopio, Finland / Finlande), Centre national des Arts (Ottawa, Canada), Kinosaki International Arts Center and Kyoto Experiment (Japon / Japan), Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels, Belgium / Bruxelles, Belgique), Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm (Frankfurt, Germany / Francfort, Allemagne), Montpellier Danse (France) 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, with support from BNP Paribas Foundation RIMI/IMIR, SceneKunst (Stavanger, Norway / Norvège), Shedhalle (Zürich, Switzerland / Suisse) with the kind support of Tanzhaus Zürich and the Embassy of Canada to Switzerland / avec l’aimable support de Tanzhaus Zürich et de l’Ambassade du Canada en Suisse,The Chocolate Factory (NYC, United States of America / États-Unis d’Amérique)

The creation of this work is being made possible thanks to the financial support of:
Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie, Conseil des Arts de Montréal