Trajal Harrel, born in 1973 in Douglas, Georgia (USA), studied at the Trisha Brown School, the Centre National de la Dansearis, the City College of San Francisco and the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance. Since 2004 he has been working as a dancer and choreographer. He became internationally known with his series Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church, which brought together the tradition of Voguing Dance with early postmodern dance. In addition, he dealt with the work of Butoh artist Tatsumi Hijikata in a series of pieces. Harrell is considered one of the most important representatives of his generation. After a two-year residency at the MoMA in New York, the London art centre Barbican recently presented a major retrospective of his works. His works have also been shown in The Kitchen (New York), TBA Festival (Portland), Festival d'Automne (Paris), Festival d'Avignon and Panorama Festival (Rio de Janeiro) and at the Ruhrtriennale 2017 with Caen Amour. In the same year he directed the Shakespeare adaptation Juliet & Romeo at the Münchner Kammerspiele. Harrell has also staged several choreographies in the context of visual arts. Séance du travail in the 2018/2019 season is his first production at Schauspielhaus Bochum, which is being created with members of the ensemble especially for the striking foyer of the theatre.

Past roles: