Photo of the performace MIKE, a person and a vacuum cleaner — Dana Michel, MIKE, 2023 Photo: Françoise Robert

Dana Michel: MIKE

Performance

2.2 – 4.2 2024

Stockholm

Experience “MIKE”, a performance about labor and work culture by Canadian artist Dana Michel. From the fringes comes a silent rebellion that takes its time, but also your time. The performance piece is embedded in the exhibition “Seven Rooms and a Garden: Rashid Johnson and the Moderna Museet’s Collection”.

Dana Michel: MIKE

Performance

Date and time

Friday 2 February 2024 at 17–20
Saturday 3 February 2024 at 14–17
Sunday 4 February 2024 at 14–17

The duration of the performance is three hours. Witnessing the full experience is recommended, but you can freely leave and re-enter if necessary

Location

In the exhibition “Seven Rooms and a Garden”, floor 4

Price

Entrance ticket to the museum is required

During Friday 2 Februay, visitors of “MIKE” have free admission to the exhibition from 17

Contact: Karin Malmquist

The artist Dana Michel specializes in creating situations that have and develop through their own logic. Michel lives in a world of objects to which she gives new meaning and purposes, away from binary and linear thinking, making, and doing.

She breaches social norms from a position of curiosity rather than provocation, gently ushering supposed “marginal figures” to the center of the conversation. With humor and sensitivity, she questions our very modes of existence.

The performance “MIKE” asserts the nomadic aesthetic that has become Michel’s calling card over the course of her career. In an open space, during three hours, “MIKE” invites the audience to spend time inside its universe. The work revolves around labor, work culture, and self-respect, and puts forward a burning question: is it possible to live public lives that reflect our inner selves? Put your faith in Michel’s hands, one yes at a time.

“MIKE” at Moderna Museet is a collaboration with MDT Moderna Dansteatern, a platform for co-production and one of Sweden’s leading stages for contemporary choreography and performance.

“MIKE” is curated and financed by MDT Moderna Dansteatern, which is supported by the City of Stockholm, Stockholm County and the Culture Council.

Dana Michel

Ottawa native, based in Montreal since 2000, Dana Michel is a Canadian of Caribbean descent whose family hails from the island of Saint Lucia. She describes herself as a live artist. Exploring the world of nuance, Dana caused a stir from the start with her first creations. Since then, she has been refining her exploration of time and improvisation, finding her own way into concepts such as identity, sexuality, and work—in other words, looking for ways to expand her relationship to existence. Each of Dana’s projects exposes her vulnerability and her quest to create more vital space for us all.

“MIKE” is her fourth major piece after “Yellow Towel” (2013), “Mercurial George”(2016), and “Cutlass Spring” (2019). In this last decade, her creations have garnered some remarkable accolades. In 2014, she received the ImPulsTanz Award in recognition of creative excellence. In 2017, she was awarded the Silver Lion for Innovation in Dance at the Venice Biennale. In 2019, she received the International Prize for Live Art from the ANTI Festival (Kuopio, Finland). In 2022, she was awarded the Jacqueline Lemieux Prize by the Canada Council for the Arts for her significant contribution to dance in Canada.