Jhon Stronks: Exploring the Powerful Space

His frilly miniskirt swirls beneath a casual t-shirt. His eyes are lined in smoky shades of kohl, and his hair is cropped close in an auburn coif. A cabaret tune wafts through the dance space and he slinks in a barefoot, high-heeled pantomime, imaginary cigarette in hand. The next moment, he is perched casually on the edge of a folding chair, singing in a high, soulful gender-defying countertenor voice. You are at a Jhon Stronks dance event.Under the moniker, “there…in the sunlight,” Stronks produces evening-length works, and the process-oriented “Venturing Out” series. “Venturing Out” offers audiences a glimpse of dance during its making, and profiles Houston’s diverse choreographers as they investigate various stages of preparing, honing, and performing their craft.

Practice and ProcessStronks explores gender identity and race issues within a deeply embodied practice. His influences are varied and he credits his Fresno, California upbringing for his understanding of multicultural community. Stronks absorbed his African-influenced training under the watchful tutelage of seminal dancers, Bernard Johnson and Michelle Simmons. Winifred Harris, an African-American dancer and choreographer, also strongly contributed to his unique, liminal artistic perspective, as Harris explored the intersection of African movement and Western classical and modern movement idioms.

Stronks is an artist whose theory and practice is well synthesized. An audience member will not find answers at Stronks’ work-in-progress showings or dance concerts, but instead, those who share in the experience will be invited into a provocative, yet thoughtful dialogue, rooted in Stronks’ distinctive, ever-in flux viewpoint.
I’m drawn to Stronks’ commitment to show his process before an audience. Artists often find themselves in a closed loop of making work in “secret,” and then revealing the work to the public in a “tah-dah!” moment. Audiences rarely see the raw beauty of imperfection during the artistic process. Viewers expect a performance to be a “perfect” example of an artist’s work, instead of a node on a continuum of an ongoing and expanding artistic practice.

“I’ve always been interested in that [process], even as an audience member,” Stronks says. “I’m always curious about what was the process of getting to this? When I’m looking at something, I can see the amount of work that goes into it. It’s important to me to get in front of people and see how they respond. Sometimes, I feel like what I am doing is asking questions and the audience’s response is their answer to the question.”

In showing work-in-progress and opening a dialogue with an audience, an artist receives valuable information about what the viewer is experiencing. This process also allows respondents to become an integral part of the work. The open conversation between artist and audience reveals the magic in the making-of and cultivates wonder as the creative process unfolds.

“Sometimes the mystery of a thing is what makes it work…sometimes I think I feel like maybe what I’m trying to do [with “Venturing Out”] is to demystify the process, but not really— I think what I’m trying to do is reveal how mysterious the process is,” Stronks muses.

Jasmine Hearn Ventures Out

Houston audiences will have a chance to engage with a bit of this mysterious process when longtime Stronks collaborator, Jasmine Hearn, returns to Houston for the next “Venturing Out.” Hearn, a native Houstonian, dances in companies in Pittsburgh, New York City, and Philadelphia, as well as choreographing her own work. In addition to “Venturing Out,” Stronks and Hearn will show the first stage of a new collaboration.“What we’re doing is coming back together,” Stronks says of his work with Hearn. “Her work deals a lot with her personal history. She’s going to be setting a solo on me that she performed in “Venturing Out” last February– it’s about her experiences as a debutante– which should be really interesting for me to embody that,” Stronks explains.

Hearn’s debutante dance set on a male body fascinates me. I’m curious about Stronks’ thoughts on the fluidity of gender in his work.

“It’s coming more into play for sure. I’m starting to try to figure out what that is for me,” Stronks says. He also hits on the highly personal nature of his work, reflecting, “Am I going to share this now or am I going to keep to myself? I realized there is a lot I have not been sharing.”Moving Toward Gender Identity 

Stronks is beginning to share the re-emergence of voice in his practice. This new direction is another exploration of gender identity, as he is a countertenor, the highest of the male voices. With a natural range similar to a lower-voiced female singer, these voices are rare and possess a quality capable of blurring the division between feminine and masculine.

“As I am coming back more into contact with my voice, I’m starting to have that conversation with myself about how much of this is about the way I identify as a man? And how much of this ‘woman’ that lives in my throat is an expression of me as a man? Is this an expression of me as a woman? But I’d lost sight of how fascinated I was by contradiction and by not choosing,” Stronks thinks aloud.

Stronks fully embodies this complex inquiry, and he shifts dialogue from the limitations of language to the nonverbal realm of the body— a truly authentic place from which to “speak.” So, how might questions of gender and race manifest in the body?

Stronks adds, “I have a feeling that this will come up as Jasmine and I begin to work together, because she is African-American. It’ll be wonderful,” Stronks responds enthusiastically.

Stronks’ work is grounded in, and committed to his personal experience. His practice is never didactic.

“I’m speaking from my experience,” Stronks asserts. “I’m not speaking from beyond my experience. I need to do this, and that’s why it’s important to me, and if it becomes important because it’s a catalyst for further dialogue then that’s awesome, but I’ll never be more important than what I do.”

Photos of Jasmine Hearn by Abby Gleason
Photos of Jhon Stronks by L.Sarah Creative

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MISHA PENTON is a classical singer, new opera-music performer, theatre artist, and general shaker-upper. www.mishapenton.com

Stronks’ upcoming schedule:

May 12
Venturing Out
City Dance Houston
5-6pm Pre-performance discussion/mixer
6pm Performance with reception to follow
$10
Tickets: http://thereinthesunlight.com/Venturing%20Out%20Spring%202013.html

May 15 at 6pm
DWOW (DiverseWorks on Wednesdays)
Free
diverseworks.org

June 1 at 7pm
Jhon Stronks and Jasmine Hearn collaborate
City Dance Houston
$15 presale and $20 at the door
Tickets: www.thereinthesunlight.com/B.L.K.%20~%20N%20~%20W.H.T.html

June 28
Tim Miller in Residence: Exhibit Q: Queer Bodies Performance Workshop
The New Museum NYC

There…in the sunlight: