Trajal Harrell: The Köln Concert

To the music of Keith Jarrett and Joni Mitchell

Used by arrangement with ECM Records

A dance piece to the most famous solo piano recording of all time - Keith Jarrett's The Köln Concert. To this music, the debut of Trajal Harrell's Schauspielhaus Zürich Dance Ensemble, founded in 2019 at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, took place. Before The Köln Concert is played, we first hear four songs by another artist, Canadian musician Joni Mitchell. Her music opens the evening, setting the stage for the music of Keith Jarrett and for the seven dancers of the dance ensemble.

Trajal Harrell's The Köln Concert seeks a way for people to meet despite different languages, different world views, and different identities. The shared experience of people—of tender and strong people disclosing their vulnerability and dancing—functions as a reminder of the need to stay close, to have respect, and never to forget that there are many stories of people who are hardly ever heard or seen—people pushed into the shadows, the lonely, the addicted, the abandoned, the homeless, the sad—who defy their abandonment proudly and in beauty. It is to them that this evening belongs.

A post-performance conversation will be moderated by Tavia Nyong’o, the William Lampson Professor of Theater and Performance Studies, Professor of American Studies and African American Studies at Yale University.