New York-based choreographer Trajal Harrell has received international acclaim for his combinations of contemporary dance with “voguing” elements for many years. In CAEN AMOUR he now creates a sensual encounter between the legendary Jugendstil icon Loïe Fuller and the founder of the Butoh style of dance Tatsumi Hijikata. Fuller’s dancing, wrapped in flowing garments for which she drew inspiration from oriental concepts, managed to be both avant-garde and vaudeville at the same time and was posthumously claimed as modern dance.  CAEN AMOUR also features another dance which occupies a similar position mid-way between the artistic and the popular: the hoochie coochie, a sexualized form of belly dancing in exotic dress which first appeared at the end of the 19th century as a precursor of contemporary striptease.
Operating at the interface between dance, history and orientalism, Trajel Harrell subverts categories and gender roles in a way that is both playful and touching. Slowly and gradually the boundaries between public and private, dancer and audience are blurred and a fascinating blend is created of contemporary hoochie coochie show, dance laboratory and fashion show, stage and catwalk, historical sketch and museum artefact.