O Medea

In the work “Judson Church is Ringing in Harlem (Made-to-Measure),” which was presented at the Onassis Stegi in 2016, Harrell attempted a reconsideration of “official” historical narratives, most of which silence issues of race and ethnic identity. In a similarly creative re-reading of history, the choreographer now imagines a hypothetical meeting between three different heroines: the emblematic Medea, Maggie from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” and Katherine Dunham, a leading figure in modern dance.

“Medea, a barbarian twice over—by birth and from love,” writes Giorgos Heimonas in the introduction to his translation of Euripides’s work. This aspect, of cultural difference, is often overlooked in readings of Medea: the clash between two cultures that also proscribes how the story will unfold. It isn’t only betrayal in love, but also the ensnarement of the subject in civilization, which shapes, even predetermines, certain decisions that subject will take.

Harrell doesn’t linger on Heimonas’s notion of Medea as a “distorted erotic figure,” nor on the “barbarousness of her erotic denuding,” her revenge on Jason, which bubbles up from her boundless, impassioned rage. Rather, Medea becomes the excuse for stories from the present to be heard, which may carry the same despair, centering around the internal schism in the person telling the story. In essence, these are “Medeas”—if one can make such a claim—since the heroine’s role is split between seven different performers.