In a room full of people, it’s usually pretty easy to spot the dancer. They are the person standing taller than all the rest: chin lifted, stomach sucked in, buttocks clenched. Ballerinas are trained to believe that their body exists between two panels of invisible glass that prevent their spine from ever bending. Thankfully, this makes it easy to spot MJ Harper — the dancer, choreographer and performance artist — who gracefully towers over everyone waiting in the reception of the Standard hotel. Of course, the five-inch leopard print wedges will help with that, too.
It is fair to say that Harper has always lived a life of movement, not only through dance but from country to country, too. From Jamaica to Florida, New York to London, the 35 year-old has spent the past eight years living in Berlin but has made a name for themself travelling the world as a highly sought-after movement director and performer. A muse and collaborator to major figureheads of British fashion, Harper has worked with the likes of Kim Jones, Tim Walker, Katy England and Grace Wales Bonner.
And it’s not just dance and fashion they bridge but the art world, too. Having already performed at the V&A and the Serpentine, this weekend MJ Harper will make their Frieze debut with a work that has been evolving and expanding for the best part of a decade: Arias for a New World. Centred on ‘a stool and microphone stand’, Harper’s intimate, one-person show was born from wanting to give dancers a voice. ‘I always found it really interesting that dancers are usually the first to show up, the last to leave and the least to get paid,’ they say. ‘The dancer suffers in silence. The second the orchestra goes one second overtime, they put their instruments down and they do not play.’
I always found it really interesting that dancers are usually the first to show up, the last to leave and the least to get paid
Typically, a dancer’s role is to communicate a story well enough through movement that speech isn’t necessary. By contrast, Harper is not a performer to be kept on mute — on or off stage. ‘I wish, if I could speak to my younger self, I would have more courage to be able to speak up in environments that weren’t appropriate. Just being able to say no. When you’re in fight or flight, you work so hard to get into spaces that once you’re in there, you don’t want to rock the boat. You don’t speak up.’ The word ‘Aria’ comes from the technical term within an opera where one voice gets to reveal itself. For Harper, that voice has grown and developed over the past eight years, resulting in this weekend’s show.
While they have had more than enough practice performing for crowds, for Harper, their Frieze debut feels different. ‘I’m terrified. I’m really terrified but in a good way. It’s a massive love letter to everyone who has affected me, taken care of me and guided me,’ they tell me when we meet, early on a fresh, blue Saturday morning. It’s the day after the last supermoon of 2023. ‘I felt it,’ says Harper, who believes deeply in energy and spirituality, ‘I had wild dreams last night.’ Regardless of a rocky night’s sleep, they’re fresh-faced, energised and speak as elegantly as they move. Their perfume fills the space around them. ‘It is meant to invoke a graveyard in the American South, so there’s magnolia and earthy notes,’ Harper explains.
Born in Jamaica and raised by a single mother, Harper has danced as long as they can remember. ‘I could move. Dance is an integral part of Jamaican culture. It’s a language that everyone actively engages in. Even just from yard parties my mom could see that I had a natural gravitation towards it.’
At seven years old, Harper and their mother emigrated to Coral Springs, Florida, an hour’s drive from Miami. ‘We left our life behind in Jamaica and we had to basically start anew — we would learn the city by driving around and getting lost. My mom has incredible taste and she always created this little bubble around us that made me feel that it was possible to achieve whatever it might be. She’s a warrior and that is deeply instilled in me,’ they say.
Growing up in Florida during the Nineties, many teenagers were influenced by the popular TV show The Mickey Mouse Club and its alumni, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling. Nsync and The Backstreet Boys were both formed in Florida, and as a result some schools began putting emphasis on the performing arts, hoping to create more young stars. ‘The dance academies and theatre programmes were all trying to feed that system. It meant that the training programmes in Florida were all really strong,’ says Harper, who bagged their place at New World School of the Arts aged 17, after their mother secretly signed them up for an audition.
‘We had gotten into a big fight one night, she marched away and then she goes: “Just so you know, you have a scholarship audition in the morning. Make a solo right now. I’m driving you down to Miami in the morning.” So I made a solo to Nina Simone’s Feeling Good and that was it. My mom gave me an invisibility cloak of love.’
They spent the next four years training in downtown Miami, but unlike many of their counterparts, never dreamed of Broadway. ‘It’s almost like an office job. You do the same thing every single night and there’s no room for variation. I love to dig and excavate and find new angles. So I knew Broadway wouldn’t be the right space for me because I felt like a wild horse.’ Instead, Harper’s main source of inspiration came in the form of experimental contemporary choreographers Pina Bausch, William Forsythe, Alvin Ailey and Wayne McGregor. Naturally, it became an ambition of theirs to train at these choreographer’s companies, and with Ailey and McGregor, that ambition was realised; in their early 20s, Harper moved to New York to train at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.
‘I struggled a little bit at first because I didn’t want to be in the company just because of my skin colour’ (Alvin Ailey made history celebrating Black culture through dance and championing people of colour). ‘To the side of Mr Ailey was Judith Jamison [now director of the Ailey organisation]. That was the first time I saw myself within the space of the dance world. They paved the way for us black and brown dancers, for everyone who’s been othered, to be able to go further.’ It wasn’t long before Harper left New York for London, beating out thousands of other dancers to become one of the final four picked to tour with Wayne McGregor. After several years performing around the world, Harper hit a bump in the road: a leg injury that almost stopped them dancing for good. ‘They told me that if I kept going at this rate it would affect my ability to walk. I felt like someone had clipped my wings.’ It was a turning point in Harper’s career, prompting their move to Berlin as well as a sidestep into fashion.
Harper first met London-based menswear designer Grace Wales Bonner in 2015, during her Fashion in Motion presentation at the V&A. ‘I remember thinking that I’ve never seen my body represented in this way, so I stayed behind to see who did it and saw her. I went up to her and said thank you.’ Soon after, they bumped into each other again, coincidentally, at a time when she was in desperate need of a choreographer and Harper needed work due to their injury. They’ve worked together on and off ever since.
I love trees. There are a few in Berlin I visit. I talk to them, if I’m ever feeling funky I’ll go and sit with them and have a little chat and a hug
Since living in Berlin, Harper has formed close relationships and collaborated with Stefano Pilati, Maison Margiela, Diesel and Armani. They’ll soon add Dior’s Kim Jones — he is designing the costumes for Harper’s Frieze debut. ‘It’s Dior Men’s so it’s technically all menswear but I think what Kim is doing so beautifully, all of them — Grace, Stefano — they’re allowing people to see the grey area. There’s an in between space. Definitions, we have them, but they also change.’ With in-between spaces in mind, I ask where Harper can be found when not working? ‘I love trees. There are a few trees in Berlin that I go and visit. I talk to them, if I’m ever feeling funky I’ll just go and sit with them. I’ll go and have a little chat and a hug.’
When not thinking of Frieze, fashion or chats with leafy friends, Harper has their eyes set on film. ‘I was just in a documentary called El Dorado and I love the camera, so I’d be curious to be in a film. After that I’d be interested to see what it would mean to be a guest director of an opera,’ they explain. When we say goodbye Harper hugs me like they really mean it. The kind of hug that feels healing, leaving behind an imprint of serenity and the scent of magnolia graveyards.
