Dorota Michalak is a polish choreographer/dancer and educator based in Berlin; graduate of Tanz, Kontext,
Choreographie (HZT/Berlin) and Intercultural Communication (UAM/Poznan).
Her work is largely based on collective processes and long-term research, mixing dance, somatic microbiology, voice practice and fieldwork. She draws on the transgressive potential of fantasizing as an embodied practice. Working with impersonal affect, cellular empathy, kinaesthetic engagement, and deep listening, she explores new sources of personal and collective movement & relatedness.
Her work encompasses staged and site-responsive performances (Lush Blast Series, Doing Things, Poliester, Divine Smell of Paste), collective research-creation (Cry of the Soil, Nudes and Conspiracies), and public space interventions (Exposure, Space Reclaims).
Inspired by SenseLab - Laboratory for Thought in Motion and prefigurative approach, she practices Meshwork Choreography focusing on relational aspects of artistic work across institutional and bottom-up contexts, opening reflection about placemaking, commoning and organizing from the phyto-somatic perspective. Following folk heritage, she works with dance as cathartic, rebellious and relation-building practice, shifting attention towards its tactile, musical and energetic aspects. She focuses on traditional non-metric grooves, polyphonic resonances, and circular dramaturgies as forms of collective intelligence and ways of sensing into reality. Since 2022, she collaborates with a group of musicians and dancers i.a. Maud Buckenmeyer, Borys Słowikowski, Hicham Ounamir, Khadija Ibourk, Ayoub El Ayady, exploring ways how music and dance practices might cultivate global solidarities. Her ongoing research Dance in Planthroposcene has been supported by Tanzpraxis 2022-2024 of the Berlin Senate. Since 2018, she facilitates ecosomatic workshops Becoming Body, Becoming Plant and Phyto-Somatic Dance Party.
Her work has been presented internationally & supported by i.a. Berlin Senate, FondsDaku, Goethe Institut, DAAD, danceWEB Scholarship, Dock11/Berlin, Hellerau/Dresden, Studio Alta/Prague, White Wall Studio/Montreal, Xarkis Festival/Cyprus, Malta Festival/Poznań, Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Since 2023, she is a part of Otucha Collective, a vocal ensemble of FLINTA+ practitioners focusing on phenomena of the human voice and rural Eastern European vocal traditions. In 2024, she co-instigated Plant Babes group, a permeable collective of Berlin-based dance artists who have come together out of the need to live new forms of solidarity in collaboration with plants.
As a dancer, she has collaborated with i.a. Alice Chauchat, Isabelle Schad, Zufit Simon, Pauline Payen, Renae Shadler, Moritz Majce & Sandra Man, Angela Schubot & Jared Gradinger.
Her work is largely based on collective processes and long-term research, mixing dance, somatic microbiology, voice practice and fieldwork. She draws on the transgressive potential of fantasizing as an embodied practice. Working with impersonal affect, cellular empathy, kinaesthetic engagement, and deep listening, she explores new sources of personal and collective movement & relatedness.
Her work encompasses staged and site-responsive performances (Lush Blast Series, Doing Things, Poliester, Divine Smell of Paste), collective research-creation (Cry of the Soil, Nudes and Conspiracies), and public space interventions (Exposure, Space Reclaims).
Inspired by SenseLab - Laboratory for Thought in Motion and prefigurative approach, she practices Meshwork Choreography focusing on relational aspects of artistic work across institutional and bottom-up contexts, opening reflection about placemaking, commoning and organizing from the phyto-somatic perspective. Following folk heritage, she works with dance as cathartic, rebellious and relation-building practice, shifting attention towards its tactile, musical and energetic aspects. She focuses on traditional non-metric grooves, polyphonic resonances, and circular dramaturgies as forms of collective intelligence and ways of sensing into reality. Since 2022, she collaborates with a group of musicians and dancers i.a. Maud Buckenmeyer, Borys Słowikowski, Hicham Ounamir, Khadija Ibourk, Ayoub El Ayady, exploring ways how music and dance practices might cultivate global solidarities. Her ongoing research Dance in Planthroposcene has been supported by Tanzpraxis 2022-2024 of the Berlin Senate. Since 2018, she facilitates ecosomatic workshops Becoming Body, Becoming Plant and Phyto-Somatic Dance Party.
Her work has been presented internationally & supported by i.a. Berlin Senate, FondsDaku, Goethe Institut, DAAD, danceWEB Scholarship, Dock11/Berlin, Hellerau/Dresden, Studio Alta/Prague, White Wall Studio/Montreal, Xarkis Festival/Cyprus, Malta Festival/Poznań, Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Since 2023, she is a part of Otucha Collective, a vocal ensemble of FLINTA+ practitioners focusing on phenomena of the human voice and rural Eastern European vocal traditions. In 2024, she co-instigated Plant Babes group, a permeable collective of Berlin-based dance artists who have come together out of the need to live new forms of solidarity in collaboration with plants.
As a dancer, she has collaborated with i.a. Alice Chauchat, Isabelle Schad, Zufit Simon, Pauline Payen, Renae Shadler, Moritz Majce & Sandra Man, Angela Schubot & Jared Gradinger.