Dancer of the Year

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.