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Foto: Danila Amodeo

Michael Turinsky is a Vienna-based, physically disabled artist and theoretician, working at the intersection of contemporary dance and performance, disability, and political as well as aesthetic theory.

Academically trained as a philosopher at the University of Vienna, Michael began diving into the world of inclusive dance in 2006. Later questioning the notion of inclusion, Michael later coined his own term 'crip choreography' to designate his unique artistic practice of engaging the specific, resistant materiality of the body in processes of subverting, de-organizing and re-organizing dominant forms and qualities of movement.

Recently, he has also become interested in what fellow disabled artists have termed the 'aesthetics of access,' as well as in exploring the intricate relationship between dance and ecology.

Well-known for their unique aesthetics, their pleasurably ironic references to popular culture, their musicality, as well as their intellectual rigor, his main choreographic works include

  • Heteronomous male (2012)
  • My body, your pleasure (2014)
  • Reverberations (2018)
  • Precarious Moves (2021)
  • SOILED (2022)

His solo work “Precarious Moves” was awarded the prestigious Nestroy Prize for the Best Off-Production 2021.

In 2024 he was as awarded as “Outstanding Artist” by the Austrian Ministry of Arts and Culture.

Michael Turinsky’s commitment to teaching, education and theoretical practice has resulted in numerous workshops, lectures, interventions and publications within various contexts.