American dancer and choreographer Trajal Harrell works – in his own words – “like an action painter”. The director of the Venice Dance Biennale, Wayne McGregor, awarded him the Silver Lion for his uniqueness.
Born in Arizona in 1973, Harrell graduated at Yale, at the Centre National de la Danse, and at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. “His foundational research is based on a rich conversation between post-modern dance, the New York voguing scene and Japanese dance Butō. His work reimagines our pasts and laughs at chronological, geographical and cultural distance, leading to performances in venues dedicated as much to visual arts as to live theatre.”
Harrell will present two pieces in Venice: Sister or He Buried the Body and Tambourine. The former is a performance-installation on one of the fathers of Butō dance, Tatsumi Hijikata, mixed with vogueing-inspired contemporary dance. The latter, inspired by The Scarlet Letter, is an homage to all women who, in the past, were barred from making decisions for their own body.
