Choreographed from a porcelain costume designed and created by Dawn Summerlin, Porcelain Moves explores the challenges and risks taken in live performance.
From 1996 to 2012 Michelle directed and managed her own professional contemporary dance company, working as choreographer and performer. Based in Madrid, the company's creations were devised through collaborative processes, working with architects, composers, designers, musicians and writers. Works include: Tussore, Arranque en Blanco, Fusca Floribunda, Mi Placer, Heng Tao, TENT, Cuatro por Cuatro, Dialogo entre Sombras, Sobretodo, y…, RED, Abriendo.... The company toured both nationally and internationally, and was awarded commissions and funding from Spanish Government on several occasions.
The dancing body lies at the heart of my praxis. I believe that it is through a phenomenologically experienced encounter with light that a cross fertilization between theories of the body in space and a sensorial motivated practice may render new knowledge or insights. My investigations focus on the dancing body’s processes-in-practice, which in turn acknowledge the transformative thresholds uniquely available in the sensory perception of the choreographing body in relation to light. Key to my thinking and emerging philosophy-through-practice approach, is that light is to be treated as a material force with palpable qualities, as Merleau–Ponty suggests “it is best to think of light as an action by contact” (1964:131).
Michelle has been working and collaborating in circus since 1997. She has mentored, choreographed and directed contemporary circus for tent, theatre and street performance. She has also choreographed and assistent directed large scale traditional circus and has toured extensively throughout Europe with small scale contemporary circus. . Her work with circus has extended into community based projects, including the development of a Cresce-Vivir project in the favela of Cidade de Deus, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Michelle has been nominated a Premio Max, the Spanish equivalent of an Olivier award for Best Choreography 2016, for her her work with the contemporary circus company eia and their latest production Intarsi.
This intra-disciplinary project brings together the film maker and choreographer June Gersten Roberts and Michelle Man in a two year project that explores the acts of enchantment and transformation available in their experiences with dappled light. Together they are exploring the choreographic possibilities available for both camera and the solo performer and how the mediums of recorded body and live body intercalate and support each other in their framings.
L i g h t o u c h : a practice-based research project and performance created as part of Michelle's MA Making Performance (Distinction)
Choreographed as a series of fleeting metamorphoses, Imaginarium delves into the textures and worlds of the surreal artist Leonora Carrington. The main body of this work was created at Crookhey Hall, Lancashire, the childhood residency of the artist. Co-created and performed with James Hewison, Imaginarium has been programmed at the Tate Liverpool as part of their exhibition that celebrates Carrington's work.
Michelle is Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Lecturer in Dance at Edge Hill University where she has been working since 2012. She lectures in Writing on Dance, leads Choreography modules and mentors students' work. She also supports extra-curricular projects for the Performing Arts students, bringing her twenty five years of experience in the industry to this Academic environment.
