Bio

Trajal Harrell gained international recognition for creating a series of works that bring together the tradition of voguing with early postmodern dance. He is considered to be one of the most important choreographers working in contemporary dance today. In his latest work, the artist ​ also combines theoretical and formal ideas from butoh​ dance, and early modern dance. Weaving the links between different dance ​h​istories, the artist puts the body at the centre of his research exploring the ways in which it becomes a receptacle of memory,​ speculation, the past​, presence, and historical ​f​igures who have inspired this work. Intertwining notions of time, ​t​he historical imagination, and transcultural references, it reveals the multitude of layers that make up the richness of ​the histor​i​es of ​art and contemporary dance.


For five years (2019-2024), Harrell was a house director at Schauspielhaus Zurich. Currently he is founder and and artistic director of Zurich Dance Ensemble. Harrell has had his work presented at ​The Whitney Museum, New York; Festival d'Automne, Paris; Schauspielhaus Zurich; Triennale, Milano; Roma Europa Festival; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Tanz im August, Berlin; Berliner Festspiele; Pulitzer Art Foundation, St. Louis: ICA Boston; Munich Kammerspiele; Serralves Museum, Porto: Panorama Festival, Rio de Janeiro; Casa do Povo, Sao Paulo; ICA Boston;Theatre Garonne,Toulouse; Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels; Kunsthalle Bern; Aichi Triennial; MUDAM, Luxembourg; Holland Festival, Amsterdam; Kunsthalle Zurich; Fondation Cartier, Paris; Sao Paulo Bienal; Lafayette Anticipations, Paris​; Gwangju Biennale; Impulstanz Festival, Vienna; Manchester International Festival; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Kanal Pompidou, Brussels; Festival d’Automne, Paris; The Kitchen, New York; The Barbican Centre, London; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Tanz im August, Berlin; Documenta - Parliament of Bodies, Kassel; MoMA, New York; Festival d’Avignon; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Centre Pompidou, Paris; ​Sadler's Wells, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centre Pompidou Metz; MoMA PS1, New York; Performa Biennial, New York; The New Museum, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York, among others.


His work​ Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem (Made-to-Measure)/Twenty Looks or Paris is​ Burning at The Judson Church (M2M),has the distinction of being the first dance commission of​ MoMA PS1. He has been awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship; The Doris Duke Impact Award, a​ Bessie Award for​ Antigone Sr./Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (L); as​ well as fellowships from The Foundation for Contemporary Art, Art Matters, and​ the Saison​ Foundation, among other​s.


​He ​b​ecame well-known for Hoochie Koochie, the first survey(1999-2016) and performance exhibition of his work, presented by ​The Barbican​ Centre Art Gallery in London during July-August 2017. In 2023 Harrell ​was invited to​ create ​T​he Romeo for the prestigious Cour d’honneur for the 77th edition of Festival d’Avignon. Later that year, Festival d’Automne in Paris dedicated a portrait to Harrell, presenting eight of his works in Paris.


In 2024​, Harrell ​w​as awarded the Silver Lion of ​The Venice Biennale of Dance​.​ Joining Antigone Sr. (2012), Dancer of the Year (2019), The Koln Concert (2020) and Deathbed (2022) alongside other important and groundbreaking works, his creation, Tambourines (2023), based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel about puriatanical scorn in the colonial United States, has been critically praised as another masterpiece in Harrell's ouevre


Currently he is founder and artistic director of Zurich Dance Ensemble.