Michael Smith is a Brisbane-based dance artist who seeks to elevate our experience of live performance by intuitively and intelligently creating meaning through the body. To date his practice has encompassed contemporary dance, dance-theatre, film, performance art and installation.
Michael is currently an artist with The Farm, a dance-theatre company under the artistic direction of Gavin Webber and Grayson Millwood. He has also worked for companies and organisations such as STRUT Dance (DecaDance, Ohad Naharin), QAGOMA (William Forsythe's Fact of Matter, Nick Cave's HEARD) and Opera Australia (King Roger).
As a freelance performer, Michael has worked with independent choreographers including Liesel Zink, Cass Mortimer-Eipper, Paul Selwyn Norton, Jack Ziesing and Robert Crispe, Yilin Kong, Jenni Large, Guy Shomroni and Yaniv Abraham, Matt Cornell (Dirty Feet), Lizzie and Zaimon Vilmanis (Prying Eye), Nerida Matthaei (Phluxus2), Gareth Belling (Collusion Music and Dance), Amalia Pica (IMA), Vanessa Mafe-Keane, Courtney Scheu and Liz Lea.
As a choreographer, Michael's work often questions the traditional roles of audience and space - traversing active participation and audience as allies. He uses imagined realities, fantasy, and imagery based explorations as a means to access deeper, human states. Michael's work has been performed across platforms such as Dance Massive Site Responsive Showcase, Ars Electronica (Austria), TanzZiet (Berlin), AGITART Figueres Festival MOU (Spain), Japan Media Arts Festival, STRUT Dance WA SEED Residency, Metro Arts, Sunshine Coast Arts Prize and South Bank Corporation's 'Flowstate'. In support of Michael’s emerging choreographic practice, he is currently undergoing a Brisbane City Council Lord Mayors Fellowship (2019-2020) to enable opportunities across Europe and Israel.
Michael graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Honours, First Class - Dance Performance in 2014 from Queensland University of Technology (QUT).