Tambourines

A young woman has a child, and everyone is wondering who the father is. But Hester Prynne refuses to reveal who it is. In 17th-century America, this kind of stubbornness cannot go unpunished, so Hester is forced to wear a scarlet red “A” on her chest at all times.

Back when the author Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote the novel The Scarlet Letter, there was no designation for women who had a free approach to their bodies and sexuality, and even less support. In their honour, choreographer and dancer Trajal Harrell takes an imaginative look back: What could have happened in those colonial times, when European settlers occupied foreign territory and subjected their women to arbitrary rules if a woman with an illegitimate child had actually been condemned to wear the scarlet “A”? From where would gloating and solidarity have been expected? Together the performers and audience celebrate the possibility of changing the future by memorializing historical regret.