In Motion November - Dana Michel: YOU CANNOT CAN

Dana Michel views swimming as a bodily manifestation of self-confidence and explores why, despite numerous attempts, she cannot feel at ease in water. What prevents most of her family from swimming, even though they come from an island surrounded by both the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea? How can one feel safe in a world if unable to float in the liquid that makes up a large part of the human body?

After presenting her solo works YELLOW TOWEL (2014), MERCURIAL GEORGE (2016), CUTLASS SPRING (2019), and MIKE (2023) at the Liikkeellä marraskuussa festival, Michel returns to Helsinki with her new solo work YOU CANNOT CAN, created for a swimming pool. Surrounded by the audience, she wades through currents of swimming and safe water access histories and socioeconomic realities. The work is presented at the spa section of Hotel St. George beside Old Church Square.

The work is part of the Liikkeellä marraskuussa festival 5-15.11.2026. As part of the festival, Michel participates in an open Soup Talks session with a local artist on 10.11 at 12:00 at Caisa.

Dana Michel is a Montreal-based performance artist whose work combines improvisation, choreography, sculpture, comedy, hip-hop, video art, techno, poetry, psychology, dub, and social critique into an experiential whole. Before earning her bachelor's degree in dance from Concordia University, she worked as a marketing director and competed as a sprinter and footballer. She has received numerous awards, including the ImPulsTanz Award (Vienna, 2014), the Venice Biennale's Silver Lion for dance innovation (2017), the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art (2019), the Jaqueline-Lemieux Prize (Canada Council of the Arts, 2022), and the Prix de la danse de Montréal for international work (2024). In 2014, the New York Times named her one of the year's most important female choreographers, and in 2018 she became Canada's National Arts Centre's first dance resident artist.