ICA LIVE: DANCE

Trajal Harrell

Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (S)
Featuring work by visual artist Franklin Evans
Co-presented by Summer Stages Dance at Concord Academy

"They don't make many artists like Mr. Harrell; his sophisticated, nuanced works are not to be missed." —The New York Times

New York-based choreographer Trajal Harrell has been at the center of a recent reemergence of voguing. In a compelling new solo work, he explores its surprising connections to the postmodern dance of 1960s New York. As Harrell puts it, this piece seeks to answer the question: “What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the voguing ball scene in Harlem had come downtown to perform at Judson Church with the early postmodern choreographers?"

For Harrell, they come together on the runway, where he embodies 20 different “looks” or personas, from “West Coast Preppy School Boy” to “Serving Superhero” (complete with cape). Like Yvonne Rainer or Trisha Brown, Harrell debates the very nature of performance—the role of seduction, glamour, and spectacle in dance and in the ways we present ourselves in everyday life.

Following the performance, stay for a talk with Harrell and visual artist Sarah Sze, who are collaborating on a new work during a week-long residency at the ICA. The residency and performance, to be presented in 2011, are part of Co Lab: Process + Performance, a partnership with Summer Stages Dance at Concord Academy.

The Co Lab series is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, the many generous individual donors of Summer Stages Dance and the ICA/Boston, and the Contemporary Art Centers (CAC) network, administered by the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), with major support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. CAC is comprised of leading art centers and brings together performing arts curators to support collaboration and work across disciplines, and is an initiative of NEFA’s National Dance Project.