Artist MJ Harper has been conceiving Arias for a New World for some years now, and during that time they have developed a performance piece that will premiere at Koko this Sunday, 15 October, in London, marking the end of Frieze London 2023. Previous iterations of the performance have been performed at the Serpentine in collaboration with Grace Wales Bonner and the V&A – invited by Tim Walker – but this version, styled by Katy England with Dior, is the culmination of years of work brought together in one, ambitious work of art.
‘I basically asked myself, all right… If Eartha Kitt and Pina Bausch were still alive and they were my age and had an iPhone, what would the work look like?’ said MJ Harper over video chat as they took a break for rehearsal. ‘That was a base layer and then on top of it, I thought, and then what if they were working with modalities that Wayne McGregor used, and William Forsythe used and so I just basically became obsessed and started approaching the platform, in this sort of very academic and cerebral way.’
Bringing in their Jamaican American heritage, and building on their love of the work of favourite artists – from the iconic gay activist Derek Jarman, to the legendary dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch and the Black Hollywood glamour of Eartha Kitt – Harper is now seeking to channel their inspirations into something entirely new.
MJ Harper on ‘Arias for a New World’
MJ Harper
Harper moved to Berlin from London after an injury meant they had to cease dancing with the Wayne McGregor company, and took a job at Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich under Barry Kosky. This led to joining Komische Oper in Berlin, a change of pace and direction that meant they had the space to expand on their personal practice.
‘On lunch break, I would sneak away and make things in the studio, or I would stay a little bit later and then from what I would make in the studio, I would put that together into little solos. Eventually, this thing started to kind of develop where I just created this character that I thought was really interesting and then I realised that it was basically a portrait of the experience of my mum and I immigrating to the States.’
Arias for a New World has been scored by Antoni Komasa-Lazarkiewicz and will be accompanied by him and composer Thomas Moked Blum, while being shot by filmmaker Matt Lambert. Exploring themes of eroticism, ritual, personal history, gesture, elegance and religion, Harper is truly trying to do something creatively new, something groundbreaking. This quest takes in their identity as being Jamaican and American, a childhood spent being raised by a single mother, and being an artist concerned with the avant-garde. Harper is looking to something fresh and boundary-pushing.
‘It's sexy, it's like it's a fever dream, but to this day, I don't really know how to describe it. I think what's been really fun has been that from every iteration that I've done, the consensus from people [is that] they actually don't know what they've experienced.’
MJ Harper performs Arias for a New World at Koko on 15 October, tickets can be found here
-
Postcard from Paris Design Week 2024Surrealism, restraint and a beautiful show of Blunk marked the new season of design events in the French capital
-
Hermès cuts a dash with its first sports watch for womenThe Hermès Cut epitomises the clean design codes of the house
-
First look: ‘Ash Rise’ – 20 Scottish designers explore the versatility of the blighted native hardwoodA new Edinburgh exhibition addresses the issue of ash dieback with an inventive and optimistic response from Scotland’s design community
-
FKA Twigs at Sotheby’s: healing, rawness and EusexuaFKA Twigs debuts durational artwork at Sotheby’s, London, to coincide with new album launch, Eusexua. Wallpaper’s Hannah Silver was there
-
Artist Jonathan Baldock plays hide and seek with the windows of Hermès' London flagshipA series of fantastical, brightly coloured hedges, dotted with peepholes, transform Hermès' New Bond Street store, offering an interactive experience for the passerby
-
Penny Slinger’s 1970s erotic Photo Romance asks: ‘Is this where my story begins?’Artist Penny Slinger’s seminal ‘An Exorcism’, gets an immersive outing
-
‘Happy birthday Louise Parker II’: enter the world of Roe EthridgeRoe Ethridge speaks of his concurrent Gagosian exhibitions, in Gstaad and London, touching on his fugue approach to photography, fridge doors, and his longstanding collaborator Louise Parker
-
‘A gentleness in the hard truths’: behind the scenes at Slave PlaySlave Play, London is on at the Noël Coward theatre – Amah-Rose Abrams reports on a ‘hilarious, tender, confronting’ performance and its masterful mirrored set
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the BarbicanIn Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
-
‘I am almost an anti-sculptor’: Dominique White on her Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize showThe artist mines the ocean to explore Afrofuturism in ‘Deadweight’, opening at London’s Whitechapel and detailed in a new film
-
Remembering Rusty Egan's Blitz Club: a place to 'avoid the mob and the homophobes', where the New Romantics were bornAs he releases new vinyl boxset, 'Blitzed!', Wallpaper* meets DJ Rusty Egan to talk about London's scene-building Blitz club – the antidote to the late 70s punk scene and a hot-bed of experimental fashion
