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KVS

Maggie The Cat

Trajal Harrell
KUNSTENFESTIVALDESARTS
Wed 24.05.2023 and Thu 25.05.2023
24.05.2023
and
25.05.2023
  • 24.05.2023
    20:00 - 21:00
    KVS, Brussels
    KVS BOL
    Past event
  • 25.05.2023
    20:00 - 21:00
    KVS, Brussels
    KVS BOL
    Past event

Cat. Catwalk. Runway. This combination has been brewing in Trajal Harrell’s practice for twenty years through the evolution of his research on the history of runway movement, from the theatrical spectacles in the court of Louis XIV to its use in the contemporary dance tradition and in competitions. Harrell’s work exemplifies runway movement as a dance language of its own, and as a tool for character personification. 

In the case of Maggie the Cat, Maggie is both figurative and abstract. She is the troubled but tough central character of Tennessee Williams’ 1953-play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But Maggie is also an unstoppable energy, propelling the rhythm and structure of the performance forward. The dance is populated by the Mississippi milieu of the play: Big Mama, Big Daddy, and the African American servants on Big Daddy’s plantation. These characters build a rousing rhythm that guides the performance, danced with home furnishings, set to a soundtrack ranging from electro and pop to classical music, in an act that subverts the rules of the bourgeois house.

After his highly acclaimed Bernarda Alba, presented at the festival last year, Harrell returns to Brussels with a bright choreography, where the hidden layers of a canonical classic explode with joy, intensity and freedom.

Maggie The Cat

Credits

PRESENTATION Kunstenfestivaldesarts, KVS DIRECTION, CHOREOGRAPHY, COSTUME DESIGN & SOUND DESIGN Trajal Harrell SET DESIGN Erik Flatmo, Trajal Harrell LIGHT DESIGN Stéfane Perraud ASSISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR Lennart Boyd Schürmann DRAMATURGY Katinka Deecke PERFORMANCE Trajal Harrell, Stephanie Amurao, Helan Boyd Auerbach, Vânia Doutel Vaz, Rob Fordeyn, Christopher Matthews, Nasheeka Nedsreal, Perle Palombe, Songhay Toldon, Ondrej Vidlar, Tiran Normanson TOURING Causecélèbre DISTRIBUTION ART HAPPENS PRODUCTION Manchester International Festival Maggie the Cat forms one part of a trilogy, Porca Miseria, commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Schauspielhaus Zürich, ONASSIS STEGI, Kampnagel, Holland Festival, the Barbican and Dance Umbrella, NYU Skirball, Berliner Festspiele and The Arts Centre at NYU Abu Dhabi