Porca Miseria

Featuring a wide range of styles and influences such as Harlem’s Vogue, Japanese Butoh, ancient Greek theatre and contemporary performance, “Porca Miseria” ponders the lives, stories and struggles of three very different but equally forceful women. Each one of them had to fight hard to achieve power or to hold on to it.

“Maggie the Cat”, part one of the trilogy, is an iridescent and provocative work inspired by the internally tormented and yet seemingly tough protagonist of Tennessee Williams’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof”.

Part two, “The Deathbed of Katherine Dunham”, can be seen both as art installation and performance. It was inspired by a visit that Harrell paid the legendary Afro-American choreographer and civil rights activist Katherine Dunham in 2006, shortly her death.

Part three of the trilogy, “O Medea”, is an emotional homage to the tragic heroine of Greek mythology and an analysis of sorrow and grief.

The individual productions are aesthetically linked by a soundtrack designed by Harrell, which is characterised by an amalgam of different genres and instrumentation.