Dance Among the Water Lilies • Trajall Harrell, Sister or He Buried the Body

Name: Dance Among the Water Lilies • Trajall Harrell, Sister or He Buried the Body
Start: 2023-09-25T19:00:00+0200T00:00-00:00
Location: Musée de l'Orangerie

7 pm and 8.30 pm, Water Lilies room

September 25th, 2023

Trajal Harrell continues his research into Butoh from its beginnings onwards, taking care not to opt for any one story. Sister or He Buried the Body stages the encounter between its Japanese founder Tatsumi Hijikata and the pioneer of Afro-American dances Katherine Dunham, in a fictional tale with all the appearance of choreographic continental drift

True to his determination to create and uncreate a history of dance, Trajal Harrell is set on a form of permanent concertinaing, as in this solo piece, Sister or He Buried the Body. Portraying them in the guise of his own features, he summons up Tatsumi Hijikata and Katherine Dunham, the former’s Butoh and the latter’s Haitian Voodoo. Legend has it that Hijikata once shared a studio with Ms Dunham. Trajal Harrell needed nothing more in order to turn the American into Butoh’s long-lost mother. In his own unique way, Harrell pulls a string and composes a moving picture of modernities. He adds the figure of Hijikata’s dead sister to it, so asserting the link between movement and disappearance. “We must keep learning from the dead, we must live with them”, Tatsumi Hijikata asserted. On a minimalist set composed of woven grass mats and passementerie, Trajal Harrell creates a ceremony of contemplation and sharing. A dance for souls.

Choreographer and performer: Trajal Harrell&lt
Lighting: Stefane Perraud
Costumes and sound: Trajal Harrell
Music production: Tom Monteiro
Playwright: Sara Jansen
With the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels

Trajall Harrell

A New York choreographer, Trajal Harrell explores a combination of genres between Voguing and American postmodern dance, with a theoretical focus on gender, feminism and post-colonialism largely developed during his years at Yale University. He trained as a dancer at the Trisha Brown School, the National Dance Center (Yvonne Rainer), San Francisco City College and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. His creations borrow from fashion, pop culture and the avant-gardes, delivering a reinterpretation of the history of dance.

Trajal Harrell performs all over the world, working with equal regularity in France, including at the Autumn Festival, which is devoting a “Portrait” to him in fall 2023. As his artistic creations are characterized by their hybridism, the choreographer’s performances have also been presented at venues dedicated to the visual arts, including the Museum of Modern Art de New York. In 2016, he presented Caen Amour at the Avignon Festival. In 2019 and 2021 he was a guest at the Échelle Humaine Festival held at Lafayette Anticipations.