Trajal Harrell (US)
The Return of La Argentina

Art & Dance

Orpheas Emirzas

The Return of La Argentina

Antonia Rosa Mercé y Luque was a principal at the Madrid opera at eleven years of age. But she gave up ballet to study Spanish dance when she was 14 years old. She gained fame under the stage name La Argentina and toured all over the world at 25. None other than the inventor of Japanese butoh dance, Tatsumi Hijikata, created a homage to this exceptional dancer: the solo Admiring La Argentina (1977, performed at ImPulsTanz in 1989) with butoh poet Kazuo Ohno in the title role, caused a sensation. Now Trajal Harrell, dancer and choreographer from New York (Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem), breathes new life into Hijikata’s and Ohno’s work. He has invented a very special ritual of artistic reanimation in his characteristic style of intimate, queer aesthetics.

Commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art- MoMA

Austrian Premiere
Duration: 30 min

TRAILER