CHRISTIAN HANSEN

BIO
Michel Yang is an American born, Brussels-based performance artist. Her work explores notions on identity and cultural hybridity. Her own creations have involved rewriting scars, brick-laying her body, fashioning heels out of candle holders, teaching French while speaking fake Chinese… Such works root from her practices on tracing resistance, framing identity, and embodying objects, spectres, and nothing. Michel’s primary medium is the body, however, video and photography have recently begun to enter her work as extensions of her body practice.

Michel received a Master of Fine Arts in Dance at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. In 2000 she relocated to Brussels, Belgium where her curiosity carried her to other branches of dance and performance, working in inter-disciplinary projects, improvisation, and performance installations. Michel has worked with Lilia Mestre, Stefan Dreher, Pierre Droulers, Mia Lawrence, and Walter Verdin to name a few.

As a teacher Michel’s subjects are contemporary dance, improvisation, and forms of materialization. A few places where she teaches include Ultima Vez, The Royal Conservatory Antwerpen, Summer Studios, Charleroi Danses, D.A.N.C.E. Apprentices, Washington University… .

FRAME OF RESEARCH

Forever changing
A 1:1 diorama depicting:
A decorated tree.
A garden thought up by a radio journalist rather than a film director,
A negotiation between mental and physical space,
A visitor should feel responsible for filling the gaps.
A bathtub covered by artificial grass,
A branch pierced itself long ago by growing around some wire.
A gardener and a retired astronomer, same person.
A trodden path, A cover song.
A diorama as an attempt to make an outdoors art studio disguised as a neglected allotment garden.