MOYA MICHAEL

Moya Michael is a dancer and choreographer. Since moving to Brussels from South Africa, she has been an active contributor in the performing arts ecosystem in Belgium. She studied at P.A.R.T.S. and has performed in many original creations and repertoires in collaboration with Anne Teresa deKeersmaeker and Rosas. Presently, she continues to teach repertoire for Rosas internationally. Moya Michael is a founding member of the Akram Khan Companyshe in London and does various independent commissions around the world including in India, China, Germany, Austria, and her home country South Africa. 

In recent years, there were three distinct touchstones or turning points for Michael as an artist. These three moments in her career directly shaped her exploration, and are the seeds of her current research. The first one was when Michael created Darling with Igor Shyshko. Together they generated choreography that was deliberately not a demonstration of their training as dancers. When she collaborated with Faustin Linyekula for The Dialogue Series IV: Moya her second turning point was inspired by asking questions about context and what one might refer to as “internal systems”. 

The third significant touchstone – and the point of departure for her current research – is her recent experimentation in India. There she participated in a workshop on Postcolonial Theory, and was again forced to think about different systems of “brownness” (both literal and figurative), and how these systems inform her artistic development as she moves toward her own original choreography.