With a visceral fascination for plant life and sensuous encounters with the world, Michela’s artistic research sits at the intersection of ritual, storytelling, herbalism, and somatic dance. She investigates other-than-human agency and ecological thinking within performing arts and diverse social settings. A permaculture apprentice whose relationship to land and rural communities informs her work, she takes an eco-feminist stance incorporating conviviality, practices of care, and creativity as gateways to connection and resilience in the face of ecological grief. Her performer practice is rooted in Butoh and Clowning, merged with contemporary dance, offering a strong physical presence across solo and ensemble contexts.
Michela facilitates workshops including somatic foraging, embodied drawing, and plant meditations. She is a poet and dance writer, member of STREAM—a platform for live art motivated writing at Tanzfabnik Berlin. Since 2021, she collaborates regularly with WILD ACCESS and works with Berlin-based artists such as Alice Chauchat, Niels Weijer, and Beatrix Joyce. Together with Joyce, she founded oma.s GbR, producing cross-genre performances like OWL LADY, their debut theatre production connecting heartbreak narratives with climate crisis discourse.
She holds a BA from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (2016), and an MA in Solo Dance Authorship from HZT, Berlin (2021). Her projects have received funding from Culture Moves Europe, Goethe-Institut Research Abroad Fund, DIS-TANZ-SOLO, Fonds Daku #TakeHeart Residenzförderung BiP (Neu Start Kultur, 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, queer 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 others.
A body that seeks connection with others through self-expression.
A body that is entangled 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 other-than-human.
This body fabulates of possible resilient 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, queer 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 others.
A body that seeks connection with others through self-expression.
A body that is entangled 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 other-than-human.
This body fabulates of possible resilient 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