Dancer of the Year
Trajal Harrell (Zürich / New York)
Festival finale | No spoken language | Ages 12 and up
The honor came as a complete surprise to him and prompted him to reflect deeply on his role as an artist: A major German dance magazine named Trajal Harrell “Dancer of the Year”. The award was an inspiration, mystery and challenge all at once. On stage, the highly sensitive American always shows what he feels and how he thinks, without considering himself a dancing genius. He sees his role primarily in dissolving categories and classifications. The dance worlds he has explored include the folksy American ‘hoochie-coochie’ shows, Japanese butoh dance, New York postmodernism and, above all, the underground vogueing scene, which is so closely linked to fashion. But Harrell never adopts the movement patterns of a particular community in his pieces. ‘When I go to the dance studio, I am free and looking for something new,’ he explains. And he erases any hierarchy between everyday gestures and academic vocabulary. With rebellious gentleness, Harrell questions all recognition that comes from outside. What are the criteria that ultimately transfer social fragmentation into the world of dance for? In his solo, he pursues these questions with even greater commitment, having been appointed resident choreographer at the Schauspielhaus Zürich shortly after the journalistic laudatio. There, he allowed his artistic universe to shine in even more colorful nuances with his dancers. In Harrell's pieces, the stage becomes a libertarian fashion catwalk. A dance event, also for fashion fans.
Credits
Choreography + Performance + Costume + Sound Design Trajal Harrell Dramaturgy Sara Jansen Technical Direction Santiago Latorre Touring + International Relations + Management Björn Pätz / Zürich Dance Ensemble
Production Zürich Dance Ensemble Koproduktion Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Kanal – Centre Pompidou, ImPulsTanz – Vienna International Dance Festival, Schauspielhaus Bochum, Bit Theatergarasjen, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Lafayette Anticipation, Museum Ludwig, Dampfzentrale Bern and Schauspielhaus Zürich
Creation Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels, 10 May 2019
Biography TRAJAL HARRELL
Trajal Harrell gained international recognition for creating a series of works that bring together the tradition of voguing with early postmodern dance. He is considered to be one of the most important choreographers working in contemporary dance today. In his latest work, the artist combines theoretical and formal ideas from voguing, butoh, and early modern dance. Weaving the links between different dance cultures, the artist puts the body at the centre of his research exploring the ways in which it becomes a receptacle of memory, the past and historical characters who have inspired this work. Intertwining notions of time, history and transcultural references, it reveals the multitude of layers that make up the richness of history of contemporary dance.
Harrell has had his work presented at Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels; Kunsthalle Bern; Aichi Triennial; MUDAM, Luxembourg; Holland Festival, Amsterdam; Kunsthalle Zurich; Fondation Cartier, Paris; Sao Paulo Bienal; Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, Gwangju Biennale; Impulstanz Festival, Vienna; Manchester International Festival; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Kanal Pompidou, Brussels; Festival d’Automne, Paris; The Kitchen, New York; The Barbican Centre, London; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Tanz im August, Berlin; Documenta - Parliament of Bodies, Kassel; MoMA, New York; Festival d’Avignon; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Stedelijk Museum and Holland Festival, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou Metz; MoMA PS1, New York; Performa Biennial, New York; The New Museum, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, among others. In 2023 Harrell has been invited to create a work for the prestigious Cour d’honneur for the 77th edition of Festival d’Avignon. Later that year, Festival d’Automne in
Paris dedicated a portrait to Harrell, presenting nine of his works in Paris. In 2024 Harrell has been awarded the Venice Dance Biennale (Silver Lion).
More information: www.zurichdanceensemble.ch
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