Becoming a Freak
Lessons in commitment from Ryan Trecartin's 'Center Jenny' and John Leguizamo's 'Freak'.
In the summer of 2013, fresh off the heels of college graduation, I traveled to Venice, Italy to dance at the Venice Biennale’s College Danza program in a new work by the Italian choreographer Alessandro Sciarroni. Rehearsals took place in the Arsenale, where every day I was able to explore many of the 55th Biennale’s exhibits.
I entered a room with a few freestanding pavilions that housed massive screens, sets adorned with quirky furniture, and wooden patios. They each displayed one of the four films premiering at the biennial by the artist Ryan Trecartin. I had never seen his work and was mesmerized. It felt like a smarter, weirder and braver version of some early era Nickelodeon pilot. There was a willfulness to reinvent multiple art forms at once using performance, makeup and technology.
Center Jenny, specifically, was revelatory. I returned to the film almost every day during my three week stay and watched it on loop. I didn't know this kind of performance experimentation was allowed or possible.
In it, “several groups of uniformed girls who are all named Jenny…belong to a caste system in which iterations of the same, basic, archetypal girl differentiate themselves from one another based on how powerfully they have evolved”1. Many people have written about the impressive technical and narrative elements to this work but what I was most entranced by and still hold onto is the commitment and stamina of the performers. Not solely for the sheer energy they had to expend over time but for the wild and strange physicalization of these hyper-superficial and imaginative characters.
Each member of the ensemble, including Aubrey Plaza, Jena Malone, Telfar, and Alia Shawkat, grants permission to venture far outside one’s comfort zone. I was in awe watching them use their physical instincts and mental intellect to ground their performances.
With the shadow of Center Jenny imprinted on my psyche, it has helped me create a space where embarrassment and play are allowed in whatever rehearsal process I end up in. Although most of my dancing career has been relatively traditional (pure movement, for the most part), these performances speak to me and I try to carry around even a shred of this work’s DNA in my commitment to performing. It has remained an inspiring source to return to when I get too heady in a rehearsal process and need to let go.
This kind of bravery and shamelessness is not easy to access as a performer. That’s why such a commitment to character rings so loudly when I watch John Leguizamo in his 1998 Tony-nominated and Emmy Award-winning performance of his one-man show Freak, directed by Spike Lee. This show differs from Center Jenny in many ways - technically, narratively, and physically - but what happens in both is a performer’s physical push through embarrassment in order to become out-of-this-world characters.
In Freak, Leguizamo’s pursuits are tenfold. He entertains the audience using humor, impressive physicality and intense vocal shifts to coerce himself into exaggerated versions of his family members. While providing these moments of sweet release, he is endearingly seeking a nucleus of truth in each character in order to tell a poignant story about seeking acceptance from his father.
I am always impressed watching his muscles work overtime to shape him into something other than himself. It’s as if embodying these people helps him comprehend their profound effect on him. And by doing that, in hilarious and sweaty ways, he can move forward.
By exaggerating the massive influences certain people or archetypes might have on our understanding of the world, performers like Leguizamo or those in Trecartin’s ensemble remind me that we can physically move these weights of influence around.
Like these performers, what if we use our voices and bodies in outrageous ways to help process questions or curiosities about our pasts and furthermore, the world?
https://www.vdrome.org/ryan-trecartin-center-jenny/