Trajal Harrell returns to The Kitchen—where in 2014 he presented the entirety of his acclaimed Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church series—with the NY premiere of Caen Amour.
His latest work reimagines the hoochie koochie, an erotic dance that was first popularized by the Syrian dancer Little Egypt. Her 1893 performance at the Chicago World’s Fair spawned a number of imitators trying on an “oriental” style of dance. From the early 20th century through the 1980s, it was performed in traveling shows and fairs throughout the US.
From the hoochie koochie’s exoticizing, sexually objectifying foundations, Harrell writes that he mines for “forms of creative resistance between the cracks of history.” So emerges a crossroads of a contemporary hoochie koochie show, fashion runway, and dance laboratory; stage, catwalk, and dressing room; a museum piece for the historical imagination.
Part of the Crossing The Line Festival 2018 - French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF).
