The JGPG Presenting Series in 2018 featured Girl, an evening-length collaboration between contemporary choreographer Monique Jenkinson (in the guise of her drag queen persona Fauxnique) and electronic composer Marc Kate.
6 sold-out runs of Girl happened at the Joe Goode Annex, Oct 11-20th, 2018.
ABOUT THE SHOW
Girl questions masculinist power by speaking to the feminine in everyone with the questions: “Who is the girl in you?, What could you tell her?” As title and theme, Girl carries a single-word critique pointing to the trivialization of women – “girl.” The work draws on horror tropes, especially that of the “final girl” to address power, fear, violence, control, gender, difference and redemption. Despite a potentially bleak outlook as the performers confront the horrors of the world – bouts of nihilism and feminist rage – they’re also invested in hope.
Jenkinson brings her drag queen persona, Fauxnique, into the contemporary dance realm to challenge and play with discourses that essentialize “Woman.” She uses drag, dance, vocalization, and sound synthesis to embody tensions and harmonies within and around the gender binary.
Adhering to the principle of sound as a bodily, choreographic element, composer Kate manipulates his and Fauxnique’s spoken and sung vocals in real time and space, using the manipulated vocals (“othered” through synthesis) as elements in a score that he improvises live.
This is the first full collaboration between Jenkinson and Kate, life partners who’ve been together for decades. Their history of intimacy will be a subtle motor under this work.
More about Fauxnique
More about Marc Kate
Girl is made possible by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation and Lighting Artists in Dance and was conceived in residency at Tanzhaus Zürich.