Written, conceived, choreographed & performed by Monique Jenkinson
Directed by Chris Black
‘We all enter this world crying, I just never found a reason to stop.’ Inappropriate, inconvenient, unprofessional, hysterical, feminine, childish… ‘Crying in Public’ employs dance, lecture and torch songs; Judy Garland, Alice in Wonderland, and Mary Magdalene; floods, glaciers and tsunamis, to look at what it means to ‘keep it together’ and to ‘fall apart.’ This intensely personal work integrates multiple dance forms (aerial, ballet, and vogueing) to express both the raw joy and the worshipful focus of a good cry, and to embody both the perceived bravery and instability of the openly emotional.
Reviews
“Crying in Public Octavio Paz once said life is not made according to human frailty, though the Nobel Prize–winning poet probably worded it better than that. The underlying question is woefully obvious: why would we create a world that doesn’t suit us? While public displays of emotion are considered inappropriate, our private lives are ever shrinking. It’s enough to make a girl want to pitch a full-on hissy fit, and no one throws a tantrum like Monique Jenkinson. In ‘Crying in Public,’ the choreographer, performer, and faux drag queen Fauxnique spins the flip side of “modern man’s alienation” with all the fierceness of a spurned celebrity”.
– Deborah Giattina, San Francisco Bay Guardian 2/7/07