Premiering Thursday October 11
Runs Th-Sa through October 20
Joe Goode Annex 8PM tickets here
design: Kevin Clarke photo: RJ Muna
Presented by Joe Goode Performance Group, Girl is an evening-length collaboration between Monique Jenkinson (in the guise of her drag queen persona Fauxnique) and electronic composer Marc Kate. 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?”
The work draws on horror tropes, especially that of the “final girl” to address power, fear, violence, control, gender, difference and redemption. As title and theme, Girl carries a single-word critique pointing to the trivialization of women – “girl.” 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.
