Mariana Valencia:
Jacklean (in rehearsal)

The Kravis Studio presents the performance Jacklean (in rehearsal) by choreographer and dancer Mariana Valencia in collaboration with musician and sound artist Jazmin “Jazzy” Romero. Jacklean (in rehearsal) is a process-based performance that emerges through a score made up of improvisatory choreography, music, and text. Valencia offers discourse and movement, while Romero performs the synthesizer, guitar, and vocals. Together, the two conjure Jacklean (in rehearsal), an exchange between the artists and audience, governed by rehearsal and play.

Valencia uses dance to explore the role of an individual within a collective social body. Her practice foregrounds personal experience against a broader cultural context, using improvisation, experimental dance, and comedy—all grounded in a queer, Latina sensibility. Part of New York’s performance art community for over a decade, Valencia weaves together movement vocabularies pulling from cumbia, modern and postmodern dance, freestyle, and quotidian gestures. During Jacklean (in rehearsal), Romero’s polyvocal repertoire of punk, jazz, cumbia, and electronic music acts as a soundtrack and a prompt for Valencia’s movements.

Organized by Lilia Rocio Taboada, Curatorial Associate, Department of Media and Performance. With thanks to Kennedy Hollins Jones, former Black Arts Council 12-Month Intern, Department of Media and Performance. Produced by Lizzie Gorfaine, Associate Director and Producer, with Kayva Yang, Assistant Performance Coordinator, Performance and Live Programs.

Media and Performance at MoMA is presented through a partnership with Richard Mille.

Leadership support for the exhibition is provided by the Wallis Annenberg Director’s Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art, the Sarah Arison Endowment Fund for Performance, and the Julie A. Zoppo Fund for the Exhibition of Women Artists.