The African American choreographer Trajal Harrell is not well known in Britain, but a new grand-scale exposition of his work at the Barbican is set to change that. For more than a decade, Harrell has been quietly transforming the face of dance by taking it into new and unexpected areas. His central idea is an imaginary meeting and stylistic fusion of the postmodern dance of 60s downtown New York, and the Harlem voguing balls which developed as a gay subcultural activity at the same time.
This sounds like an overloaded concept, but the reality is both mesmerising and direct. The Barbican show takes place in the spacious top-floor gallery, and performance days run for seven hours, with a rolling programme of works, mostly lasting for around 10 minutes. The longest, at 60 minutes, is In the Mood for Frankie. Incorporating elements of Japanese butoh, Indian bharatanatyam, voguing and disco among other styles, and set to an eclectic score featuring Maxwell and Sade, the work sees Harrell and two other male dancers (Thibault Lac, Ondrej Vidlar) performing a dream-like catwalk show. Upper bodies shimmying, hips swaying with somnolent slowness, elbows and wrists floating as if upheld by currents of air, these are dances of extraordinary delicacy. Dresses and swatches of material are deployed as costumes, draped like evening gowns, and swirled like matador capes.
Feminine traits are exaggerated, but without a trace of camp. The mood is poignant, elegiac, and at moments profoundly desolate. And it’s in this desolation, this mourning for a stolen past, that the work’s power resides. Harrell’s appropriation of femininity, and his calculated orientalism - at one point Lac wields a silver jug in the manner of an odalisque in a painting by Ingres or Lefebvre - are an inescapable reference to the intertwined oppressions of slavery and colonialism. The impression that Harrell is giving us access to a secret world, as fragrant and closely guarded as a harem, reminds us of the walls erected by homophobia. Hoochie Koochie is an entrancing spectacle, satisfyingly fierce in its intellectual rigour. It’s also, I promise, quite unlike anything you’ve ever seen.
• Trajal Harrell: Hoochie Koochie is at the Barbican, London until 13 August
