Photo : © Ian Douglas
As a child, Dana Michel would drape a yellow towel on her head in an attempt to become blonde and to be othered. In YELLOW TOWEL, she revisits this escapist world of alter-egos in a performative ritual longing to be free of censorship. Blending austerity and absurdity, she digs into tropes of black culture and of marginalized beings, turning them inside out to see whether or not she can relate. We witness her allowing a strange creature to emerge from this excavation in a slow and disconcerting metamorphosis that we follow with fascination. An attempt at exorcisms in technicolour.
Dana Michel is a choreographer and performer whose work focuses on live art. Her work interacts with the expanded fields of improvisation, choreography, sculpture, comedy, hip-hop, cinematography, techno, poetry, psychology, dub and social commentary, inviting the audience into a centrifugal experience. Before graduating from Concordia University in her late twenties with a B.A. in contemporary dance, Dana worked in marketing and was a top-level runner and soccer player. She has received numerous awards and recognitions, including the ImPulsTanz Prize (Vienna, 2014), the New York Times Choreographer of the Year (2014), the Silver Lion for Innovation in Dance at the Venice Biennale (2017), the ANTI festival International Prize for Living Art (Finland, 2019), the Jacqueline-Lemieux Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts (2022), the Prix de la Danse de Montréal, international category (CINARS, 2024). Based in Montreal, she is currently touring with four of her solo works: YELLOW TOWEL, MERCURIAL GEORGE, CUTLASS SPRING and MIKE.
Choreography, performances, set and costume design : Dana Michel
Lighting and technical direction : Karine Gauthier
Artistic advisor : Ivo Dimchev, Peter James, Mathieu Léger, Antonija Livingstone, Manolis Tsipos
Sound consultant : David Drury
Production : Dana Michel
Executive production : Parbleux
Coproduction : Festival Transamérique (Montreal), Studio 303 (Montreal)
Creative residencies : Compagnie Marie Chouinard (Montreal), M.A.I (Montreal), Le chien perdu (Brussels), Usine C (Montreal), Circuit-Est Centre Chorégraphique (Montreal), Studio 303 (Montreal), Agora de la danse (Montreal).
The creation of this work was made possible thanks to the financial support of Canada Council for the Arts, Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Programme d’action culturelle du Cirque du Soleil and M.A.I.
