| Summary: | Through the performances of Trajal Harrell and Jade Montserrat, this article explores how slowness, exhaustion and withdrawal in contemporary dance troubles how queer and racialised bodies are often conscripted into displays of spectacular labour in live, performance and dance settings. This is a particularly pertinent intervention at a time in which the live art and performance sector relies on diminishing, casualised and precarious labour conditions to sustain itself, which is especially pernicious for already marginalised people. I track these slower aesthetics at play in the work of Harrell, especially in his dance performance 20 Looks or Paris is Burning at the Judson Church (S), as well as in Montserrat's Revue and Shadowing Josephine. I draw both Harrell and Montserrat together as case studies in this article, as both their interests in dance history – from voguing, Postmodern dance, and Josephine Baker, respectively – are committed to exploring the various ways increasing forms of spectacular labour are demanded of queer and racialised subjects, and how that might yet be reframed or resisted.
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