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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Portrait Trajal Harrell

Sept 22 – Dec 21, 2023

Choreographers don’t usually get retrospectives, much less ones that overtake Paris for a season. But such is the honor bestowed on the 50-year-old African-American sensual-conceptualist Trajal Harrell. New York claims the choreographer as its own, but France adores him. As part of the Festival d’automne, a Harrell “Portrait” will unfold in nine productions and almost as many Paris locales. The series encompasses solos and ensemble works, world premieres (one of which will appear at BAM in December). and part “M” in the 2011 piece that put the man on the map—Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church. Ever since, Harrell has been coupling mundanity with spectacle—draping the postmodern blasé in outlandish camp—to delicious, mysterious, and maddening effect. Imagine Warhol’s Factory habitués shot through with eros and angst. The Paris shows are selling out fast. —Apollinaire Scherr