Trajal Harrell

Trajal Harrell is considered one of the most important choreographers of his generation. He gained widespread recognition for Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church series, which asked, “What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the ball scene in Harlem had come downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at Judson Church?” In 2016, he completed a two-year Annenberg Residency at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), where he expanded his penchant for juxtaposing dance forms and turned his attention to the work of the Japanese founder of butoh dance, Tatsumi Hijikata. In this work, he looked at butoh through voguing's theoretical lens of "realness" and modern dance through the theoretical lens of butoh. Harrell has performed in American and international venues such as The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, Walker Arts Center, LA’s REDCAT, MoMA and MoMA PS1, Centre Pompidou, and events such as the Panorama Festival, Festival d’Avignon, Festival d’Automne, and Holland Festival.