Who Are We?

The Harlequin Hipsters were born out of the aether. Once the entertainers, counselors and madmen of king’s courts, they have watched the farces, tragedies and love stories of man since time immemorial. In this era of great change they gravitate towards places in which people seek revelry.

They re-entered the world in the usual way, drawn to each other by the practices of theater, social dance, circus arts and fire. They found commonality through the dream of inspiring and creating beauty; delighting in connection to another without speaking; being strange for the joy and freedom it brings. Gathered now in one city, stripes and spades aplenty once more, we modern court Jesters play with the art of conjuring experiences and opening minds to the wonder of connection.

The Harlequin Hipsters is a collaborative performance collective whose mission is to create an energized sense of community, art and interpersonal connection through the playful fusion of performance art and social dance. Through the synthesis and re-imagining of swing, hip-hop, clown, acrobatics and modern Circus disciplines, we craft experiences that invoke in our audiences a spirit of dance, play and wonder…

And here’s the key: we love to play. The Harlequin Hipsters were born out of a desire to bring performance to the people; to provide a little something out of the ordinary – of the unexpected – into daily life. From this simple intention, we’ve expanded our notion of what partner dance can be. As we experience music in this technological age, we experience culture through a constantly expanding and evolving lens.

As dancers, we are curious to explore the furthest reaches of musicality from a partnering context while incorporating stylistics from a wide range of influences. The tradition of clowning provides a wonderful springboard for this exploration. As we dance we also play. We abjure the fear of looking silly on the dance floor by embracing that risk as a gateway to new and challenging material.