Vogue, Postmodern Dance To Come Together In Hammer Museum Performance
Choreographer Trajal Harrell presents his work for In Real Life: 100 Days of Film and Performance
The LAist highlights upcoming Hammer Museum performance by Trajal Harrell.
"As with any work of great ambition, it's hard to find a starting point in explaining the scope. This is certainly true for "Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church," choreographer Trajal Harrell's sprawling dance project, which is scheduled to drop by the Hammer Museum this weekend.
The work focuses on two dance forms. On one hand there's vogue, which had its beginnings in the clubs and parties in Harlem during the '80s. Formed by a subculture of gay men, the dance involved striking bold poses, and exuding a spirit that suggested glamour and unwavering pride (yes, Madonna co-opted it for that one song). It was a dance that seemed more suited for the runway than the discotheque.
Harrell's project also touches on the contributions of the Judson Dance Theater, which was formed in the '60s by a collection of dancers at the Judson Memorial Church in New York City's Greenwich Village. The collective's aim was to break free of all our pre-conceived notions on dance. As noted in the New York Times, the dancers "made sometimes gleeful, sometimes messy, but always fundamentally serious investigations into the nature and structure of dance movement.""— Tim Loc, January 13, 2017
Read the full article at the LAist website.