Art Happens

Trajal Harrell approaches this ode through an Asian dance form, Japanese butoh dance, which he has been exploring for many years. Instead of imitating this dance style, he tries to weave it into the imagination, also drawing inspiration from voguing and postmodern dance to create his own vocabulary of movement. Tatsumi Hijikata, the co-founder of butho, is the main inspiration behind this production. In addition, the evening is filled with the influences of other “muses”: from the filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai; Rei Kawakubo and her fashion label Comme des Garçons; the singer Sade; Kazuo Ohno, the other founder of butoh; and to Harrell’s own collaboration with the dancers Thibault Lac and Ondrej Vidlar with whom he shares the stage during this performance.