It seems like more than a coincidence that for the North American premiere, “Monkey Off My Back” runs concurrently with Fashion Week in New York City. Fashion as a metaphor for identify has long been a part of Harrell’s work. These runway walkers—a cast diverse in age, size, and affect—look like they’ve been partying all night. A woman enters with her hair in fat pink rollers. The bearded and bald Jeremy Nedd wears a sloppy cardigan over a chiffon dress that looks like a ruffled Roman shade. Marie Goyette enters in a tacky bathrobe wearing rundown slippers, hiding her face with one side of her robe. Many walk barefoot, arches raised as if in spike heels. My calves ache just watching.

In Harrell’s fashion show, the clothes displayed are an imaginative array of the offbeat, designed to express individual personality. His outrageous combinations of uniquely layered, mismatched pieces could have been sourced on bonus day at the Goodwill store. Long hemlines are bunched up and displayed as short. A shirt might be worn with one arm out of the sleeve. The hood of a red puffy jacket pokes up like a festering boil from the neckline of a tailored floor length coat. Costume changes are fluid and fast. An article discarded by one model appears within seconds worn by another. (Are there duplicates?) In one particular series of outfits the models all swing some variation of a handbag at their side—one woman swings a fat paint brush in place of a satchel. I notice my head swinging back and forth as I watch model after model walk past—and more than once my gaze crosses fellow audience members sitting nearby. The see and be seen nature of the show has migrated to the audience.

Countering the levity of the ongoing fashion parade is a theme influenced by Butoh, the emotionally dark dance form Harrell began to pursue following his success with “Twenty Looks.” A chorus of birdlike creatures gathers on one end of the stage and lines up in the manner of a dance class. Maria Ferreira Silva strikes a compelling presence as leader in waving their arms and hands, swaying in place, shifting weight. Soon she begins to falter, staggering off-kilter, and the group follows, their faces one by one melting, mouths drooping. They stoop and dangle their arms like apes. Meanwhile the sound track features a female vocalist singing an engaging poetic lyric: “I am a reckless woman. I always make such a mess.” Later the magnetic Thompson assumes the same faltering crouched stance and melting facial expression while dressed in a terrycloth hooded monk like robe. Frances Chiaverini takes a seat on a piano bench and plucks at the air with her hands. Her grace counters Thompson’s increasingly grotesque posture.