Productions for Fabulous Beast include: Sunday Lunch (1997), Fragile (1999), The Flowerbed (2000), The Christmas Show (2001), Giselle (2003), The Bull (2005), James Son of James (2007), The Rite of Spring (2009), Helen and Hell (2010), and Rian (2011).

Most recently, he directed and choreographed a new production of Handel’s masterpiece Julius Caesar, at the London Coliseum, for English National Opera. Other choreographic work includes: Ariodante, Manon and Alcina (English National Opera); The Rake’s Progress (La Monnaie, Royal Opera House); Faust and Macbeth (Royal Opera House); The Duchess of Malfi, Carousel and The Oedipus Plays (National Theatre); Idomeneo (Royal Flanders Opera); The Love for Three Oranges (Cologne Opera); Pique Dame and Ariodante (Bavarian State Opera).

Rian was nominated for a 2011 Irish Times Theatre Award. Giselle, The Bull and The Rite of Spring were all nominated for Olivier awards and in 2008 Michael won the UK Critics’Circle Award for Best Modern Choreography for The Bull. In 2004, Giselle won the Judges’ Special Award at the Irish Times Theatre Awards. Both Michael and Fabulous Beast received a nomination for the 2009 Europe Prize New Theatrical Realities.

Michael and writer Enda Walsh were awarded the 2012 Meadows Prize by the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, Dallas (SMU), and they spent three weeks in residence at SMU, workshopping a new dance theatre production.