Works & Process At The Guggenheim Presents The World Premiere Of John Jarboe's ROSE: YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

Works & Process, the performing arts series at the Guggenheim, is proud to present the world premiere of John Jarboe's Rose: You Are Who You Eat on March 26, 2022 at 7:30 pm.

Taking place in the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Peter B. Lewis Theater at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, all programs invite audiences to embrace artistic process and uniquely blend performance highlights with insightful artists discussions.

Rose: You Are Who You Eat is a true story set to music. Artist John Jarboe writes:

In 2018 my aunt revealed I had a twin in the womb.

She said, "You know you had a twin in the womb?"

I didn't know.

She said, "You ate her. That's why you are the way you are."

This was a lot to swallow.

My aunt's pronouncement that my gender stemmed from an act of fetal cannibalism is the seed for this piece: a celebration and "digestion" of this newfound twin, who I later learned would have been named "Rose."

Commissioned by Works & Process, Rose is a shrine of music, image, objects, and text, that brings together a team of queer artists, including composers and musicians Emily Bate, Daniel de Jesús, Pax Ressler, and Be Steadwell with director Mary Tuomanen, to tell the legend of John and Rose. Jarboe, known as the founding artistic director of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, explores this tale through musical styles ranging from art song to 1980s pop ballad, elaborate floral-inspired costumes made by Rebecca Kanach, intimate storytelling, and a feast of wordplay. This evening will feature a concert of original songs performed by a live band and set alongside a garden of images made with filmmaker Christopher Ash. After this event, the project will continue to evolve into films and an art installation in which fellow genderqueers can nourish their own idiosyncratic identities.

"It's not every day you learn that you are a gender cannibal," said John Jarboe. "I've been working on this project with Works & Process since spring 2020, but in a way, I have been working on it since conception. It's been a long process of digestion and one I'm ready to share with people in live space. It's a healing ritual of sorts that I hope will do for the audience what it is doing for me. As queer folx, however we identify, we are always in dynamic tension between being who we are authentically and the tyranny of respectability: fitting in by making ourselves more palatable, more recognizable to a cis-het society in order to get through the day, escape harassment, and for some of us, just to survive. I don't pass. I don't fit into a clean, commercialized narrative of transition. What I love about the story of Rose, is that it is unmistakably disrespectful, pretty tasteless, and entirely me."

Following the Works & Process premiere on March 26, the concert experience of Rose can be seen at CulturalDC's Source Theatre on April 1-2. Over the next 18 months, CulturalDC will work with Jarboe to realize the evolution of Roseinto an immersive, multidisciplinary installation.

Rose first came to life in Jarboe's Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commission, an initiative launched by Works & Process in the early days of the pandemic to provide artists with creative and financial support during a period of uncertainty. Working towards shaping a more inclusive, fair, and representative and colorful world, Works & Process commissioned the live performance of Rose and provided the project with a bubble residency at Mount Tremper Arts in fall 2020. In spring 2021 the project also received a Works & Process bubble residency at Bethany Arts Community, made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Throughout the pandemic, Works & Process continued to provide opportunities for artists and pioneered the bubble residency to support their work safely. The spring 2022 season will feature the official world premieres of works created by New York artists - many representing historically marginalized performing art cultures - and incubated during the peak of the pandemic inside 2020-21 Works & Process bubble residencies. Alongside the commissions, Works & Process will present performance excerpts of and artists discussions about new works prior to their premieres at leading organizations including BAAD!, BAM, Boston Ballet, Federal Hall, Glimmerglass Festival, The Metropolitan Opera, and New York City Ballet.

$35, $15 partial view. Pay-what-you-wish tickets are available for purchase online only at worksandprocess.org. House seats may be available for $1,000+ Friends of Works & Process. To purchase house seats, email friends@worksandprocess.org. House seats may be released to the public before performances.