In Motion November - Dana Michel: YOU CANNOT CAN

Dana Michel views swimming as a bodily manifestation of self-confidence and wonders why, despite numerous attempts, she cannot feel calm 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 in November festival, Michel returns to Helsinki with her new solo work YOU CANNOT CAN, created for a swimming pool. The work is presented in the spa section of Hotel St. George beside Old Church Square. Surrounded by the audience, Michel wades through currents of swimming and safe water access histories and socioeconomic realities, guided by her kaleidoscopic curiosity.

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

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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.

In 2014, Michel was awarded the newly established ImPulsTanz Award (Vienna) and was mentioned in the New York Times as one of the year's most important female choreographers. In 2017, she received the Venice Biennale's Silver Lion for dance innovation, and in 2018 became Canada's National Arts Centre's first dance residency artist. Later honours include the ANTI Festival International Prize for Live Art (2019), Canada Council of the Arts Jaqueline-Lemie