Photographs: Kevin Tachman
Me, Michelle
Text: Jack Ferver
Choreography & Performance: Jack Ferver & Michelle Mola
Music: John Fireman
Me, Michelle is a duet between Jack Ferver and Michelle Mola, which takes on the forever-mysterious Queen Cleopatra as a vehicle for two performers to uncover the truths about iconography, monarchy, and themselves. Ferver offers a manic meta-characterization of Cleopatra during the infamous icon’s final days. Attended by Mola’s portrayal of his/her servant, the two engage in funny, vicious, and tragic psychosexual games that vacillate between the childish to the sociopathic. Through coiling layers of performance ranging from the histrionically grand to the restlessly personal, Me, Michele illustrates how ego fueled by total power can turn into annihilation and the sadomasochism that can exist between gay men and heterosexual women.
“They’re a petulant, vicious, conniving pair. They are also totally charming… The perfect vehicle for a contemporary chameleon like Mr. Ferver, who skips in and out of the role so as to construct a meta-character, his references and registers jostling like echoes in his wake.”
Photographs: Kevin Tachman
PERFORMANCE HISTORY
2012 Abrons Art Center. American Realness. New York, New York.
2011 *The Museum of Arts and Design. Performa 11. New York, New York.
*Premiere
Me, Michelle was originally commissioned as part of Performa 11, and through the Museum of Arts and Design’s program Risk+Reward, curated by Jake Yuzna.