OhMyEarthGoddess delves into questions of citizenship and belonging to emerge with a femme drag mythology. How can we embrace and create new myths and stories that transform our relationship to questions of power? How can we engage in practices of liberation that increase our capacity to participate? How can we pulverize (a la the brilliant Julia Serano) the concept that femininity is inauthentic? How can we re-embrace all that is feminine not as secondary or less-than, but as its own powerful mode of being. OhMyEarthGoddess rounds up feminist pop music icons to imagine a world in which Joni Mitchell’s “California” is a ritual that grants citizenship to anyone who sings along, in which Merry Clayton (the backup singer whose voice infused the Rolling Stones song “Gimme Shelter” with the clarion call to revolution) is celebrated as the legend she is and in which Dolly Parton manages to keep America united. OhMyEarthGoddess makes fun of Lilith Fair and thinks maybe the world could maybe be a little more like Lilith Fair.
OhMyEarthGoddess is a commission from Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for its Transform Festival which posed the question “Why Citizizenship?” With special guests Qween, Miss Rahni Nothingmore & Gia!
- Premiere: Transform Festival, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco 2017
- Performance: Fauxnique, Gia (Giamaica Zeidler), Miss Rahni Nothingmore, Qween (Travis Santell Rowland)
- Creation, writing, direction & choreography: Monique Jenkinson
- Costume: Mr. David
- Light: José María Franco
- Set: Giacomo Castagnola
- Assistance: Ryan Baker & Maro Guevara
- Video: Philip Andrew Lewis
- Video Documentation: Loren Robertson Productions