Trajal Harrell: Body and Soul Podcast

The talented Trajal Harrell is one of dance's versatile, committed workers. He has learned to balance various roles including performer, choreographer, curator, journal editor and instructor. His innovative art, in concept and execution, investigates the links between postmodern and popular aesthetics. Dance Theater Workshop will host the premiere of Harrell's "Quartet for the End of Time," October 15-18, 2008. This full-evening work for four dancers takes the story of Olivier Messiaen's famous music of the same name (composed and first performed by Jewish and Christian musicians in a Nazi prisoner-of-war camp) as a foundation for investigating the antagonism between sincerity and irony in our contemporary time. BIO Trajal Harrell was born in Douglas, Georgia. He graduated from Yale University, majoring in American Studies with a concentration in creative processes--researching theater, literary theory and art history. He has also studied dance and choreography at Brown University, The Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, The San Francisco Institute of Choreography, City College of San Francisco, Movement Research and the Trisha Brown School. His work has been performed in various venues in the US and Europe. In 1998, he was selected as an artist-in-residence at Movement Research and has been active in the development of research projects and curation, including curating an initiative to diversify Movement Research's programming through selection of artists of color for performance opportunities. He has served in editorial capacities for the Movement Research Performance Journal and was appointed editor-in-chief in 2006. LINKS Movement Research: http://www.movementresearch.org/ Dance Theater Workshop: http://www.dtw.org Body and Soul is the official podcast of InfiniteBody dance blog at http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Subscribe through iTunes or at http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml. (c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa This material may not be reproduced in any way, either in part or in its entirety, without the expressed written permission of Eva Yaa Asantewaa.