Caen Amour

Trajal Harrell’s Caen Amour was inspired by the hoochie coochie-shows of 19th-century America: sensual dance performances full of orientalist fantasies. These shows come back to life in a fictional encounter of Trajal Harrell with modern dance pioneer Loïe Fuller, legendary Japanese dancer Tatsumi Hijikata and Comme des Garçons-founder Rei Kawakubo.

Harrell’s work is all about reinterpreting the past in order to reshape the present. One of the ways he achieves this in Caen Amour is with a set that resembles a merry-go-round, on which the dancers show a range of different dance styles. Sometimes veiled, wearing a simple T-shirt or bare-chested, they explore the boundaries between dance, performance, and identity. Harrell’s piece celebrates the female entertainer and highlights a moment in dance history where the lines between amusement, erotic dance and experimentation are blurred.

'Caen Amour refers to a period in the early 1900s, when women experimented with dance without having institutions for art dancing, breaking away from fixed ideas about burlesque entertainment, social, national or religious dances. They tried to make something that was artistic, and many were influenced by “oriental” dancing. This is where ‘hoochie-koochie’ dancing originates. This was historically interesting to me, and at the same time, I had vague memories of my father covertly going to such shows, which triggered my curiosity as well. At the time of creation, I was moving a lot between theaters and art galleries, which influenced the perspective of the audience. The show is a culmination of all these things.'
– Trajal Harrell, associate artist 2025

Practical information

Caen Amour will be performed twice a day, both on the 19th and 20th of June at the Van de Endezaal of the Stedelijk. This group performance of one hour and 15 minutes requires a ticket that can be bought through the Holland Festival ticket shop. There is no break and no spoken language during the performance. [seats for visitors with limited mobility are available]

Trajal Harrell

The American choreographer and dancer Trajal Harrell (Douglas, Georgia, 1973) is one of the major contemporary choreographers internationally. His unique style combines elements from various dance traditions, fashion, music and visual arts. With universal human emotions and themes like interconnection, tragedy, tenderness and vulnerability, Harrell’s pieces often move audiences on a deeply personal level.

Harrell became internationally known from 2009 with his Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning at The Judson Church, a series of works in which voguing − a dance style that came out of Harlem’s ballroom scene of the 1980s - and early postmodern dance form the basis. During the Holland Festival of 2014, he performed parts of this series at the Stedelijk, marking his first and, to date, most recent contribution to the museum's performance programme. This aligns with his artistic approach of presenting his work in theatres, galleries, and museums worldwide, as well as staging pop-up performances in unexpected places, such as a Paris bookshop.

In his recent work Harrell weaves theoretical elements from voguing with movements and ideas from early modern dance and butoh, a minimalist and socially engaged form of dance from post-war Japan that was developed by Japanese dancer and choreographer Tatsumi Hijikata (1928-1996) in the late 1950s. Harrell’s work explores the overlap between these seemingly divergent dance cultures and puts the body at the centre as a locus of memory, the past and historical influences that shaped his dance practice.

Since 2019, the Holland Festival has worked with associate artists, who present their own work and explore possibilities for deepening the programme and effecting a sustainable connection between the artists and the city. For the 78th edition of the festival, Harrell takes on this role, offering a diverse range of performances throughout June. He returns to Stedelijk, not only for his group performance Caen Amour, but also Sister or He Buried the Body (June 25), a solo performance exploring identity, memory, and history. After more than a decade, Harrell is back performing at the museum.

Sister or He Buried the Body

Find more information on Harrell's other performance at the Stedelijk, happening on June 25.
More info