Black Excellence: Trajal Harrell
https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-2026/trajal-harrell
Trajal Harrell is a choreographer and dancer bringing different dance traditions into dialogue with each other and creating speculative moments of coexistence and interaction. Harrell transforms extensive research about dance history into what he calls a “fictitious archive,” in which the geographic, temporal, or social barriers that separated dance styles, cultures, and artists are suspended in the collective imagination. In his explorations of Japanese butoh, minimalism, modern and postmodern dance, and other performance practices, he shows how bodies can express multitudes of historical possibilities and counter-histories.