{{short description|American dancer and choreographer (born 1973)}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = | name = Trajal Harrell | honorific_suffix = | image = <!-- filename only, no "File:" or "Image:" prefix, and no enclosing brackets --> | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | pronunciation = | birth_name = <!-- only use if different from name above --> | birth_date = {{birth year and age|1973}} | birth_place = Douglas, Georgia | baptised = <!-- will not display if birth_date is entered --> | disappeared_date = <!-- {{disappeared date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (disappeared date then birth date) --> | disappeared_place = | disappeared_status = | death_date = <!-- {{Death date and age|YYYY|MM|DD|YYYY|MM|DD}} (death date then birth date) --> | death_place = | death_cause = | body_discovered = | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = <!-- {{coord|LAT|LONG|type:landmark|display=inline}} --> | burial_place = <!-- may be used instead of resting_place and resting_place_coordinates (displays "Burial place" as label) --> | burial_coordinates = <!-- {{coord|LAT|LONG|type:landmark|display=inline}} --> | monuments = | other_names = | citizenship = | education = Trisha Brown School, Centre National de la Dansearis, City College of San Francisco, Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance | alma_mater = Yale University | occupation = Dancer, choreographer, artist | years_active = 2004 - present | era = | employer = | organization = | agent = <!-- Discouraged in most cases, specifically when promotional, and requiring a reliable source --> | known_for = | notable_works = ''Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church''<br />''The Ghost of Montpellier Meets the Samurai'' | style = Contemporary<br />Postmodern | height = <!-- "X cm", "X m" or "X ft Y in" plus optional reference (conversions are automatic) --> | television = | title = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | movement = | opponents = | boards = | criminal_charge = <!-- Criminality parameters should be supported with citations from reliable sources --> | criminal_penalty = | criminal_status = | spouse = <!-- Use article title or common name --> | partner = <!-- (unmarried long-term partner) --> | children = | parents = <!-- overrides mother and father parameters --> | mother = <!-- may be used (optionally with father parameter) in place of parents parameter (displays "Parent(s)" as label) --> | father = <!-- may be used (optionally with mother parameter) in place of parents parameter (displays "Parent(s)" as label) --> | relatives = | family = | callsign = | awards = Bessie Award<br />Guggenheim Fellowship<br />Creative Capital Award | website = {{URL|www.betatrajal.org}} | module = | module2 = | module3 = | module4 = | module5 = | module6 = | signature = | signature_size = | signature_alt = | footnotes = }} '''Trajal Harrell''' (born 1973) is an American dancer and choreographer. Best known for a series entitled ''Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church,'' Harrell "confronts the history, construction, and interpretation of contemporary dance."<ref name="New Yorker">{{cite magazine|last1=Boynton|first1=Andrew|date=May 1, 2012|title=When Drag and Modern Dance Collide|magazine=The New Yorker|url=http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/when-drag-and-modern-dance-collide|accessdate=1 June 2016}}</ref><ref name="NY Times April 2012">{{cite news|last1=La Rocca|first1=Claudia|date=April 27, 2012|title=Another Chapter in a Personal Myth That Keeps Growing Darker|work=New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/28/arts/dance/trajal-harrells-antigone-sr-at-new-york-live-arts.html|accessdate=8 June 2016}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Harrell was raised in Georgia. Harrell's family was well educated and well-established land owners in the south, despite their constant struggles of segregation and its discontents. His godmother named him Trajal after the well-known Roman emperor Trajan.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Dixon-Gottschild |first=Brenda |date=2024-01-23 |title=Enlivening the Imagination: Trajal Harrell's Rich Repertoire of Transcultural, Intersectional, and Futuristic Works |url=https://www.dancemagazine.com/trajal-harrell/ |access-date=2024-03-11 |website=Dance Magazine |language=en-US}}</ref>
He graduated from Yale in 1990 with a BA in American Studies. He also studied theatre with ''David Herskovits'', Trajal had an interest with Anne Bogart's "''The Viewpoints Book"''<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.modernmoves.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Trajal-Harrell.pdf | title=Trajel Harrel | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230626022112/https://www.modernmoves.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Trajal-Harrell.pdf | archive-date=2023-06-26 | website=www.modernmoves.org.uk}}</ref>
== Career == Harrell's work has been presented at festivals in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Rio De Janeiro, Montreal, and the Netherlands, and at venues including The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, the Walker Art Center, Danspace Project, Dance Theater Workshop, Performance Space 122, Philadelphia Live Arts, REDCAT, Cornell University, Colorado College, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. He has shown performance work in visual art contexts at The Museum of Modern Art, the New Museum, MoMA PS1, Fondation Cartier pour L’art Contemporain, the Bronx Museum of the Arts; Fundação Serralves, Centre Pompidou-Metz, and Art Basel.<ref name="HuffPo">{{cite news|last1=Chae|first1=Julie|date=December 11, 2012|title=Trajal Harrell: The Next Martha Graham Has Arrived!|work=Huffiington Post|url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/julie-chae/trajal-harrell-photos_b_1946973.html|accessdate=14 June 2016}}</ref><ref name="b globe">{{cite news|last1=Gantz|first1=Jeffrey|date=March 26, 2016|title='Twenty Looks' lights up the ICA|work=Boston Globe|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2016/03/26/harrell/rINAdXLyxg7QTvmsy18CAM/story.html|accessdate=14 June 2016}}</ref>
Harrell has received fellowships from organizations including the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2014), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, The Saison Foundation, the Art Matters Foundation, and the Doris Duke Foundation.<ref name="MOMA">{{cite web|title=Trajal Harrell: In one step are a thousand animals|url=http://www.moma.org/calendar/performance/1451?locale=en|accessdate=8 June 2016|website=moma.org|publisher=Museum of Modern Art}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Trajal Harrell|url=http://www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org/recipients/trajal-harrell|accessdate=14 June 2016|website=Foundation for Contemporary Arts}}</ref>
In 2019 Harrell became a resident choreographer at the Schauspielhaus Zurich and in 2024 founded the Zürich Dance Ensemble.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2023-09-20 |title=Trajal Harrell’s Dance Card Is Full (Published 2023) |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/20/arts/dance/trajal-harrell.html |access-date=2025-09-09 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=A Mystical Evening |url=https://fjordreview.com/blogs/all/a-mystical-evening |access-date=2025-09-09 |website=Fjord Review |language=en}}</ref>
=== ''Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church'' === Harrell's work, ''Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church'' asks the question, "What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the vogueing ball scene in Harlem had come downtown to perform alongside the early postmoderns at Judson Church?"<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=The Kitchen: Trajal Harrell: Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church|url=https://thekitchen.org/event/trajal-harrell-twenty-looks-or-paris-is-burning-at-the-judson-church|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=|website=}}</ref> Harrell takes up dance history by combining these two specific and disparate groups of dance makers (separated by class, race, gender, and other categories of "identity").<ref name="Kourlas">{{Cite news|last=Kourlas|first=Gia|date=2016-12-30|title=For This Choreographer, One Size Does Not Fit All|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/arts/dance/for-this-choreographer-one-size-does-not-fit-all.html|access-date=2020-07-26|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
Harrell's historical references are completely opposite from one another. One is a predominantly white collective of dancer, looks at minimalist art and making dance accessible to everyone, compared with the underground ball culture that consists of queer people of colour, where dancing is larger than life.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web| title=Diffracted temporalities: Trajal Harrell’s other dance histories | url=https://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/id/eprint/47242/3/Perazzo-Domm-D-47242-AAM-1.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240311205425/https://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/id/eprint/47242/3/Perazzo-Domm-D-47242-AAM-1.pdf | archive-date=2024-03-11}}</ref>
The film documentary ''Paris Is Burning'' inspired Trajal Harrell, whereby he further questions "why Judson was an accepted part of history but vogueing wasn't?"<ref name=":0" />
The project began in 2009 and was completed in 2017, staged in different sizes over the years.<ref name="Kourlas"/>
''Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church'' has been theorised by scholars madison moore<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Moore|first=M.|authorlink=madison moore|date=2014-01-01|title=Walk for Me: Postmodern Dance at the House of Harrell|url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/theater/article/44/1/5-23/24417|journal=Theater|language=en|volume=44|issue=1|pages=5–23|doi=10.1215/01610775-2370746|issn=0161-0775|url-access=subscription}}</ref> as well as Tavia Nyong'o, in his 2018 work ''Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life.''<ref>{{Cite web|last=Murphy|first=Peter|date=2019-02-05|title=Tavia Nyong'o's Afro-Fabulations: The Queer Drama of Black Life|url=https://brooklynrail.org/2019/02/art_books/Tavia-Nyongos-Afro-Fabulations-The-Queer-Drama-of-Black-Life|access-date=2020-07-26|website=The Brooklyn Rail|language=en-US}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==External links== *[http://betatrajal.org/home.html Official website ]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Harrell, Trajal}} Category:1973 births Category:Living people Category:American male dancers Category:American choreographers Category:Yale University alumni