Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem (Made-to-Measure)/ Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (M2M)

Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem (Made-to-Measure)/Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (M2M) is the custom-made size in the Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church project.

Only, in this made-to-measure size, the proposition is inverted and the question becomes “What would have happened if one of the early postmoderns from Judson Church had gone uptown to perform in the voguing ballroom scene in Harlem?” Again, rather than illustrating a historical fiction, what we experience was neither possible at The Balls nor at Judson, but a third possibility is created, here and now.

In Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem…(M2M), Harrell makes a full-evening work for three dancers which engages the formalism and minimalism of postmodern dance with the flamboyancy and performativity of voguing. Combining these contrasting styles, Harrell repositions the influence of jazz, funk, and rhythm-and-blues on improvisation in early postmodern dance. Likewise, aesthetic and social discourses are transformed when the postmodern dance pedestrian vocabulary of sitting and standing are re-imagined in the context of a Judson Church gathering in Harlem.


Photo: Ian Douglas  © MoMA PS1

• Choreography: Trajal Harrell
• Performers: Trajal Harrell, Thibault Lac, Ondrej Vidlar
• Costume Design: complexgeometries
• Sound Design: Trajal Harrell
• Tour Management: Friederike Kötter
• Co-produced by Danspace Project for Platform 2012: Judson@50, MoMA PS1 (New York); Tanz im August, Hau Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin).
• Residency support provided by Danspace Project and Impulstanz Vienna International Dance Festival (Vienna).

The commission for Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem (Made-to-Measure)/Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (M2M) is made possible by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation and by Danspace Project's 2012-2013 Commissioning Initiative, which receives major support from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Premiere: Oct 11, 2012 - Danspace Project, New York

Photo: Ian Douglas  © MoMA PS1

You might also enjoy Trajal Harrell: The Köln Concert, EveryBody Dances, and A Conversation with Trajal Harrell. 

Trajal Harrell: The Köln Concert

The Dance of Life: A Conversation with Trajal Harrell

EveryBody Dances with Ondrej Vidlar

Trumbull Tea: Trajal Harrell B.A. '90