When:
Sun, June 1, 2025, 8pm–9pm
Costs:
22 € / 12 € reduced
Duration:
1 hour
Meeting point:
Kunstbau
When:
Sun, June 1, 2025, 8pm–9pm
Costs:
22 € / 12 € reduced
Duration:
1 hour
Meeting point:
Kunstbau
In the 1960s, New York became the birthplace of two influential dance movements. At the Judson Memorial Church in downtown Manhattan, the Judson Dance Theater collective, with members like Trisha Brown and Lucinda Childs, marked the beginning of postmodern dance with experimental approaches and minimalist performances. Several miles uptown in Harlem, Black and Latinx queer people organized the first Balls—competitions inspired by masquerade balls and stars of Hollywood, where the privileged white population was imitated in subversive performance and realness categories. Participants competed for trophies, dressed in extravagant costumes and in the 1980’s began using a movement vocabulary inspired by the fashion world (Voguing). Despite the geographical proximity, both movements and their protagonists largely coexisted without history pronouncing any encountering or artistically influencing one another. Choreographer Trajal Harrell’s series Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church looked at the cracks in fissures in this history.
So, half a century later, Harrell asks the question in one of the series’ pieces “what would have happened if one of the early postmodernists from the Judson Church had gone uptown to perform in the Voguing ballroom scene of Harlem?” In Judson Church Is Ringing in Harlem (Made-to-Measure) / Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at The Judson Church (M2M), the American choreographer, together with two other dancers, imagines this fictional event in an act of playful and joyful confrontation. The minimalism and neutrality of postmodern dance meet the opulence and expressiveness of Voguing, creating entirely new possibilities that never existed in historical reality. Harrell finds a common denominator between the two contrasting styles: walking. Between everyday movements and runway movement, the three dancers create exciting new narratives about social discourses and aesthetic influences.
In Munich, Trajal Harrell is a highly popular and familiar figure. He was a guest at the DANCE Festival in 2015 with Antigone Sr. Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (L) and in 2017 with Caen Amour. Under the artistic direction of Matthias Lilienthal, Harrell created the choreographies Juliet & Romeo and Morning in Byzantium with long-time dancer colleagues and ensemble members. With Made-to-Measure, a special version of the Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church series, the DANCE Festival returns this year to the artistic roots of the American choreographer, presenting a work that exemplifies what has made Harrell internationally famous: the highly sensual and unique connection of Voguing and early postmodern dance.
Takes place as part of the DANCE Festival Munich.
