Trajal Harrell, Visiting Artist Lecture 2025

Choreographer, Dancer and Performance Artist Trajal Harrell gives a deeply vulnerable lecture at Skowhegan. Harrell immediately speaks about the various highs and lows he has experienced in his career, sharing with the participants many intimate details of his life as an artist. Harrell speaks candidly to the participants about addiction and how everyone has an addiction they struggle with: addiction to power, addiction to sex, addiction to money, addiction to Netflix. Harrell stresses that addictions are everywhere and one has to be able to talk just as much–if not more– about addiction then they talk about race, class, and sexuality. Harrell states that in his practice, he has worked towards building a language of talking about the reality of pleasure and escape, and the importance of self medicating. Harrell states that everyone is a junkie on some level, and Harrell uses the word junkie because it is something that we can reclaim because it is a part of us. Harrell then speaks about his dance practice, and his exploration into conceptual post modern dance. For Harrell, the fashion shows of the 1990s were very influential for him because he found more diversity in those spaces than in the dance world. Fashion helped Harrell think about how one can use material culture to perform in their bodies and allowed him to make the dances he wanted to see. Harrell shares more life lessons with the participants, urging them to embrace their weakness, vulnerabilities and imperfections because this is what makes them human, and can also be a form of strength. Harrell connects this to dance as well, stating that dance is not just about strength but also about weakness. Harrell tells the participants to reflect on the following questions: How can we acknowledge our weakness? How can we acknowledge the drug addicts and the disabled and the people who are cast out of society? Harrell warns the participants that they can be at the height of their career and be totally unhappy, giving them the example of how he won the Venice Bienniale’s Silver Lion and experienced unhappiness. Harrell passionately shares that these ideas of success or what one wants does not make one happy, and it can really eat them up and it is not cliché. Harrell states that it is important to the participants that they forgive themselves, accept themselves, and to give themselves a break. The participants must ask themselves the following question: Is my heart getting bigger, is my heart getting wider? Harrell ends his lecture by urging the artists not to represent the lifestyle like millionaires and billionaires, because artists are the weirdos with alternative possibilities and they have a place in society. They have to offer a vision of something else, and they have the opportunity to show a different reality and a different possibility for people, especially in a world that has become so corporate, branded and individualistic. It is up to artists to resist that.

Please note that the full recording of this lecture is not available for research request.