Here you find additional information about the dance choreografy «The Ghost of Montpellier Meets the Samurai» by Trajal Harrell that will be shown at Gessnerallee on Sept 17 and 18.
Biographies of the choreographer (below) and his historical references, as well as video- and interview-links.
Dominique Bagouet (1951-1992)
was an emblematic French choreographer, renowned for the intelligence of his writing and the importance of his work in the choreographic French landscape. He initiated the first regional choreografic centre and the now reowned festival Montepellier Danse (since 1981). Bagouet had been obsessed by the dance since early childhood. His first passion was for baroque music and dance. But at the age of 17 his wild, Shelleyan spirit felt it could no longer accept what he began to perceive as the stifling constraints of pure classical ballet.
He began a life of travel and apprenticeship to various masters, like Felix Blaska's company in Paris, Maurice Bejart's supreme mastery of choreography at the Theatre de la Monnaie, Carolyn Carlson in Paris, who taught him techniques he adopted as second nature. In 1976 he won the Concours de Bagnolet with his first great success, Chanson de Nuit. The delicacy and sweetness of his character were exhibited with an almost painful clarity that sprang from a pure, poetic imagination. In 1980 he set up the Centre Choreographique Languedoc- Roussillon at Montpellier, where he began producing outstanding artistic successes - at the same time when Pina Bausch in Wuppertal shaped the artistic dance of the postwar period in Germany.
Bagouet began to tame his exuberant theatricality with a more severe, almost geometrical disposition of dancers in space, yet allowing his dancers an almost baroquely decorative expression. Montpellier’s celebrated Festival de Danse produced several of his new works, like Strange Days to the song by the Doors (1990). So Schnell was filled with images of sport and athletics of a curiously dreamlike kind, and Necesito (1991) was danced to music by a Spanish rock band. In 1992 Bagouet died of Aids at 41 years young. That early deaths marks a trauma for the french dance scene up to date. The association Les Carnets Bagouet established itself shortly after his death in order to preserve and foster his memory and his choreographic heritage. (various sources)
Chanson de Nuit (1976)
So Schnell (1992)
Tatsumi Hijikata (1928-1986)
was a Japanese choreographer, known as the father of Butoh. Butoh is a Japanese theater-dance form that grew out of a rebellion against traditional dance and theater and was influenced by Japanese esthetics and Western modern dance, particularly the Expressionist dance of Mary Wigman. Hijikata coined the term „Butoh“, which he developed in the late 1950’s, first calling it Ankoku Butoh, or ancient dance step of utter darkness. The dance of darkness seized death, and engulfed death within itself; although white was habitually the colour of death in Japan. Black was the colour of the abyss of the human body, which remained petrified and futile.
Began to develop Butoh Hijikata, born in a rural area in northern Japan, came to Tokyo at 18. He intended to study modern dance and ballet. But he found that they were „not suitable“ for him. He became involved in an avant-garde arts group that presented mixed media work and began to develop Butoh, based also on his occupation with darkness, death and decay. Grotesque, lyrical and erotic, Butoh was at first considered shocking and caused controversy in Japan and the Unites States. The first performances of Butoh were in 1959 the piece Kinjiki (Forbidden Colours) about the taboo of homosexuality. Due to misconception this piece outraged the audience and resulted in the banning of Hijikata from the festival.
Hijikata continued to subvert conventional notions of dance. He explored the transmutation of the human body into other forms, such as those of animals. He also developed a poetic and surreal choreographic language, butoh-fu to help the dancer transform into other states of being.
Common features of Butoh include playful and grotesque imagery, taboo topics, extreme or absurd environments, and it is traditionally performed in white body makeup with slow hyper-controlled motion. Hijikata had not performed since the mid-1970’s, but continued to direct, choreograph and teach and developed new projects, but died abruptly from cancer in 1986, at the age of 57.
However, with time butoh groups are increasingly being formed around the world, with their various aesthetic ideals and intentions. Hijikata remains a vital figure of inspiration, in Japan and worldwide, not only for choreographers and performers, but also for visual artists, filmmakers, writers, musicians, architects, and digital artists. (various sources)
Hokosan (1972)
Anna - The Masseurs (1963)
portrait Trajal Harrell
Trajal Harrell (US) is as choreografer based in New York.
Trajal Harrell’s work has been presented In New York and the U.S. at many venues including The Kitchen, New York Live Arts, TBA Festival, Walker Arts Center, American Realness Festival, ICA Boston, Danspace Project, Crossing the Line Festival, DTW, P.S. 122, Cornell University, Colorado College, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and Los Angeles’ RedCat Theater. His work has been presented in international festivals such as Festival d’Automne (Paris), Rencontres Chorégraphiques (Paris), Holland Festival (Amsterdam), Festival d’Avignon, Impulstanz (Vienna), Tanz im August (Berlin), Panorama Festival (Rio de Janeiro). He has also shown performance work in visual art contexts such as MoMA, Performa Biennial, Fondation Cartier (Paris), The New Museum (NYC), The Margulies Art Warehouse (Miami), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Serralves Museum (Porto), Centre Pompidou- Metz, Centre Pompidou-Paris, ICA Boston and Art Basel-Miami Beach. . He has been a receipient of fellowships from The Saison Foundation, The Guggenheim Foundation, Art Matters Foundation, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and in 2014 was one of the inaugural recipients of the Doris Duke Impact Award. He is exceptionally known for a series of works entitled Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church which re-imagine a meeting between early postmodern dance and the voguing dance tradition and created in seven sizes. All seven works in the series continue to tour internationally. Antigone Sr., the large in the series, won the 2012 Bessie Award for Best Production. Most recently, he began a new research examining but dance from the theoretical praxis of voguing. This latest body of work includes, Used Abused and Hung Out to Dry, which premiered at The Museum of Modern Art- MoMA where he has begun a two-year residency, and The Ghost of Montpellier Meets The Samurai.
Trajal Harrel’s work at Gessnerallee
Antigone Sr./ Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (L)
Festival Keine Disziplin 2015
http://tanzforumberlin.de/trailer688.php
(M)IMOSA / Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church (M) 2012
Interview with Trajal Harell