Trajal Harrell_photo_Bea Borgers
Play Video

TRAJAL HARRELL

Trajal Harrell is an American choreographer and dancer. His practice emerges from the encounter between seemingly distant languages and histories of dance: voguing and ballroom culture, American postmodern dance, butoh, and modern dance. At the heart of his work is the body as a living archive, capable of holding memory, desire, figures from the past, and possibilities yet to be imagined.

Harrell does not reconstruct the history of dance, but reopens and reinvents it, moving through its gaps and contradictions. Through a sensual, ironic, and vulnerable practice, he challenges hierarchies and categories, transforming the stage into a space where past and present can intersect. In 2024, he founded the Zürich Dance Ensemble, where he serves as Artistic Director.

Sala 4 LAC
08.10
18:00

Cine Laterale

Future Tradition * Trajal Harrell

USA/CH

video interview
original English version
28'

Laterale is a research project that explores the international art scene through a series of interviews with key figures and leading practitioners in the contemporary art world.

Each edition develops around a guiding theme that serves as a critical lens and a field of inquiry in dialogue with the interviewees. This year’s focus, Tradizione futura – “Future Tradition”, invites artists to reflect on their relationship with the legacy they have inherited – mentors, lineages, educational paths – and on the constant dialogue between memory and innovation, between nostalgia for the past and imagination of the future. The interviews explore the tension between past and future: what languages are emerging? What cultural responsibilities accompany experimentation? How are technology, social changes and new sensibilities redefining the very concept of “Master”, Maestro?

The first glimpses into these reflections will emerge as part of FIT 2026. On Thursday 8 October, a video interview will be screened featuring the American dancer and choreographer Trajal Harrell
in conversation with Francesca Serrazanetti, curator, researcher and author.

<photo Bea Borgers

Laterale is an audiovisual archive of reflection 

 project concept (and lead) Carmelo Rifici, Paola Tripoli, Alessio Manzan
scientific committee Maddalena Giovannelli, Rossella Menna, Francesca Serrazanetti, Diego Vincenti
editorial curation Maddalena Giovannelli, Rossella Menna, Carmelo Rifici, Francesca Serrazanetti, Paola Tripoli, Diego Vincent
visual concept Alessio Manzan, Sebastiano Piattini, Carmelo Rifici, Mike Toebbe, Desirée Veschetti
camera and Lighting Sebastiano Piattini, Gianpaolo Gianini
editing Sebastiano Piattini
sound design Federica Furlani
web Alice Croci Torti, Ivan Pedrini, Desirée Veschetti
social media Agnese D’Ascanio