Trajal Harrell, center, and additional dancers will be performing “Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church” at the Hammer Museum this weekend. Photo: Paula Court.
WEST LOS ANGELES – Innovative choreographer Trajal Harrell, always pushing the dance envelope, poses a provocative question with his latest multi-media performance project.
In his “Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church” – which he performs Saturday and Sunday at the Hammer Museum – Harrell asks, What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the vogueing ball scene in Harlem had come to Manhattan to perform alongside the early postmodern dancers at the Judson Dance Theatre?
Harrell was intrigued by the idea of the ordinary movement in both vogueing and postmodern dance, according to the New York Times. Vogueing places the pedestrian body on the runway, while Judson Dance Theater — an experimental collective that led to postmodern dance — embraced the neutral body and the idea that anyone could dance, according to the article.
Strike a pose.
