Saturday, March 15, 2025 4:00-6:00 PM
Fauxnique Performance + San Francisco Dance Film Festival Screening
Saturday, March 15, 4 – 6 p.m. Doors close at 4:30
di Rosa Center of Contemporary Art
$30 General; $20 Members
In conjunction with Moving Pictures: A Survey Exhibition of Works by Deborah Oropallo and Collaborators, di Rosa and Catharine Clark Gallery’s BOXBLUR present a performance in movement by Fauxnique (Monique Jenkinson), accompanied by a screening of short films selected by San Francisco Dance Film Festival.
Part One: Down the Path
Nearly two decades ago Fauxnique presented Heroic Comportment, a performance in response to Oropallo’s exhibition, Guise, at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, kicking off a creative connection that continues to weave through the artists’ lives. Building on that shared history, Fauxnique’s performance Down the Path takes inspiration from the fairy tale and protest imagery in Oropallo’s current exhibition, Moving Pictures. The performance draws on Fauxnique’s persistent obsession with artifice, authenticity, and femininity to contemplate the march of personal and political progress, interrupted by obstacles real and imagined, and villains tricky and treacherous.
Part Two: Postcards from the Edge.
Curated by Randall Heath, Executive Director of the SF Dance Film Festival, Postcards from the Edge presents a selection of short dance films celebrating movement, resilience, and transformation while unfurling urgent narratives of climate distress, political defiance, and the fluidity of gender identity. Through dramatic choreography and cinematography, the films in Postcards from the Edge capture a spirit of resistance and reinvention, proving that even in times of upheaval, movement is a force for change.
Curated by Randall Heath, Executive Director of the SF Dance Film Festival.
Selected films:
Circle (Mexico)
The Dérive (Iran)
Ghostly Labor (USA)
Mother Melancholia (Germany)
Nelkin Line (USA)
There will be a pre performance by Fauxnique at 3:00 pm at the Bell Tower.
Monique Jenkinson is an artist, choreographer, performer, and writer. Her work dwells at the intersection of contemporary dance and cabaret and considers the performance of femininity as a powerful, vulnerable, and subversive act. Her alter-ego, Fauxnique, made herstory as the first cis woman ever, anywhere, crowned as a pageant-winning drag queen, and her performance works have toured nationally and internationally in wide-ranging contexts from nightclubs to theaters to museums. She engaged in public conversation with superstar philosopher Judith Butler and RuPaul bestie Michelle Visage within days of each other and has created both college curricula and space for children to design gowns for drag queens. Honors include residencies at Headlands Center for the Arts, Tanzhaus Zürich, and Atlantic Center for the Arts, an Irvine Fellowship and residency at the de Young Museum, GOLDIE and BESTIE awards, and generous foundation support. Her memoir, Faux Queen is out now on Amble Press.
San Francisco Dance Film Festival offers something for diehard dance fans and newcomers alike, from in-depth feature documentaries to engaging shorts programs. Since its first iteration in 2010, the Festival has secured a solid place on the international scene, drawing a vibrant and diverse range of participants from all over the world. SFDFF offers a rare place where independent artists can celebrate their achievements and inspire each other as a unified community. It also serves to introduce dance to those who don’t typically attend live performances and showcases new international talent before it reaches the Bay Area through traditional venues.
