michela filzi (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist with a visceral fascination for plant life and sensous encounters with the world.
Her artistic research lies at the intersection of ritual, storytelling, herbalism, and somatic dance, through which she explores other-than-human agency and ecological thinking in the context of the performing arts and diverse social settings.
She is a permaculture apprentice and her relationship to the land and rural communities informs her artistic work. Her participatory and site-specific performances take an eco-feminist stance, incorporating conviviality, practices of care, and the nurturing of art-making and creativity as gateways to connection and resilience in the face of ecological grief. She facilitates various types of workshops such as somatic foraging, embodied drawing, and plant meditations.
A poet at heart and a dance writer, she is a member of the collective STREAM, a platform for live art motivated writing (Tanzfabrik, Berlin). Since 2021 she is part of the collective WILD ACCESS and collaborates regularly with Berlin-based dancers and choreographers such as Alice Chauchat, Niels Weijer and Beatrix Joyce.
She holds a BA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, (2016) and an MA in Solo Dance Authorship from the HZT, Berlin, (2021), she has developed a number of artistic projects that have been funded by national and international sources, including: Culture Moves Europe and the Research Abroad Fund – Goethe Institut, DIS-TANZ-SOLO and Fonds Daku #TakeHeart Residenzförderung BiP (Neu Start Kultur, Die Beauftrage der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, Dachverband Tanz), and Studienabschluss Stipendium für internationale Studierende (DAAD).
2018 © self-portrait - video animation by michela filzi
ARTIST STATEMENT 2025
I
am a body, a human body.
A white, privileged, female identifying human body,
dressed of its history and shaped by its culture.
A human body made visible, audible and tangible by its context.
A body that acknowledges itself through the gaze of the other.
A body that seeks connection with the other through self-expression.
A body that enters in connection with the world through movement,
a body that gains wisdom of the world through experience.
This body accesses the world sensorially:
touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing...Intuition.
Unlearning separation.
Through dance, storytelling and rituals this body invites
other bodies into a collective entanglement with the world.
This body dreams of possible sustainable futures.
This body cultivates a relationship of soulful reciprocity
and ecological awareness.
This body is present.
This body is the witness of wars, violence and ecological destruction.
This body feels powerless when faced with the state of humanity.
This body isn't hopeless.
This body collects stories of hope. This body has trust.
This body heals its wound of feeling remotely separated from itself,
its environment and other bodies.
This body finds solace in nature.
This body has an animist approach to all things.
This body calls this art.
A white, privileged, female identifying human body,
dressed of its history and shaped by its culture.
A human body made visible, audible and tangible by its context.
A body that acknowledges itself through the gaze of the other.
A body that seeks connection with the other through self-expression.
A body that enters in connection with the world through movement,
a body that gains wisdom of the world through experience.
This body accesses the world sensorially:
touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing...Intuition.
Unlearning separation.
Through dance, storytelling and rituals this body invites
other bodies into a collective entanglement with the world.
This body dreams of possible sustainable futures.
This body cultivates a relationship of soulful reciprocity
and ecological awareness.
This body is present.
This body is the witness of wars, violence and ecological destruction.
This body feels powerless when faced with the state of humanity.
This body isn't hopeless.
This body collects stories of hope. This body has trust.
This body heals its wound of feeling remotely separated from itself,
its environment and other bodies.
This body finds solace in nature.
This body has an animist approach to all things.
This body calls this art.
copyright michela filzi © 2025