Talk Talk

Talk Talk: An evening of new performance texts, works in process, with readings by

• Cornelius O
• Monique Jenkinson
• Maurya Kerr
• Larry Arrington
• Jesse Hewit

Presented as part of Circo Zero's figure it out (a temporary commune)

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Cornelius is a conceptual artist working in poetics, choreography, image and objects. Their work trembles between genres and is densely implicitly queer (…stop asking), political (…stop asking), and moves toward queer liberatory futures (…stop asking!). They started walking on stage on purpose at age 5, and by accident ever since. They have made work in many places and with many people (you know who you are).

Monique Jenkinson is an artist, choreographer, performer and writer whose work dwells at the intersection of contemporary dance, cabaret and essay. Her alter-ego Fauxnique made herstory as the first cis-woman anywhere, ever to be crowned as a pageant-winning drag queen. Her solo performance works have toured nationally and internationally in wide-ranging contexts from nightclubs to theaters to museums. Monique has made space for children to design gowns for drag queens at a major museum and created college curricula. She engaged in public conversations with legendary theorist Judith Butler and RuPaul Bestie Michelle Visage in the space of a week.

Maurya Kerr (she/her) is a bay area-based artist and 2025 NEA Creative Writing Fellow. Much of her work—across the disciplines of choreography, film, writing, and curation—is focused on black and brown people reclaiming their birthright to both wonderment and the quotidian

larry works in astrology and art.

Jesse Hewit is a psychotherapist with roots in dance, visual art, and performance. Tonight's reading, Purple Epilogue (abridged), is from a play he hasn't written yet about Maria Irene Fornes' influence on everything. Jesse thanks Cornelius for gathering, Keith for world-building, and his fellow readers for filling it all out.

ABOUT figure it out

figure it out (a temporary commune) is a community performing artist residency.

figure it out (a temporary commune) is six weeks of 24/7 access to a one of a kind warehouse/gallery/studio made freely available to a diverse community of experimental artists who need space to improvise, experiment, fail, and thrive.

figure it out (a temporary commune) is experimental performance research generating dance workshops and aerial labs, public conversations, queered holiday gatherings, and performances.

figure it out (a temporary commune) is togetherness-in-difference, collaborating in an intergenerational, multiracial, cross-class, inter-disciplinary, and equitable creative process.

figure it out (a temporary commune) includes culminating experimental performances guided by Keith Hennessy, created in collaboration during the residency.

Read more: www.circozero.org/figure

♥♥♥♥♥
- Big appeciation to our venue SPACE 124, a project space in Project Artaud
- Kerr photo by Carolina Porras Monroy, MJ headshot by Robbie Sweeny, other photos courtesy of the artist
- Thank you to So Bad It's Good Productions for the subwoofers
- figure it out (a temporary commune) is funded by The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, The San Francisco Arts Commission, and The Zellerbach Family Foundation