What is scripted or planned versus improvised isn’t discernible in —the latest performance project by Mariana Valencia—and that is exactly why it is as captivating as it is.
Presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Studio, was produced in collaboration with sound artist and musician Jazmin “Jazzy” Romero, who shares the stage with Valencia for the course of the 60-minute performance. Featuring music, song, dialogue, and choreography, the show uses a fictional character by the name of Jacklean as a starting point.
Mariana Valencia, Jacklean (in rehearsal) (2025), with music by Jazzy Romero. Photo: Maria Baranova. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Valencia and Lydia Okrent, a fellow performance artist and long-time collaborator, first conceived of Jacklean in 2014. In Valencia’s words, “Jacklean is a being who will arrive to us in the future, and it will be a future without identity binary, and Jacklean will prefer the pronouns ‘we’ and ‘us,’ and Jacklean is the perfect example of improvisation at its best. A kind of vision for hope and potential that came to Lydia and I.”
While Jacklean’s conceptual origins date back to 2014, the present project was largely born out of the pandemic lockdowns of 2020, when seemingly everything was brought into question: institutions, communities, life and death, and artmaking itself. From this perspective, Valencia developed a performance that focused on crafting a solid, creatively rigorous framework on which experimental and ever-evolving presentations could be hung.
“It’s not about proposing a final project but proposing a structure for work to be made again and again, an improvisatory structure, a structure of rehearsal, a structure of practice, and a structure where I’m not focused on product,” said Valencia.
Mariana Valencia, Jacklean (in rehearsal) (2025), with music by Jazzy Romero. Photo: Maria Baranova. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
In its present iteration, the fluidity of exchange between Romero and Valencia speaks not only to the efficacy of their collaboration but also to their respective creative fortes. Valencia, who was awarded the Outstanding Breakout Choreographer at the 2018 Bessie Awards and participated in the 2019 Whitney Biennial, has been an important figure in the New York performance art scene for more than a decade. Weaving together elements of her personal life, relationships, anxieties, and more, a vibrant and dynamic world is brought to life in the performance, highlighting her individual experience while simultaneously casting a light on the greater context these thoughts and encounters occur.
Within the performance’s structure, space is carved out for Romero to in turn bring her own creative vision. “Jazzy is working through tools and modalities of electronic music or acoustic or vocal, or her histories in punk music and Spanish speaking music and traditional music from Mexico,” Valencia said.
Mariana Valencia, Jacklean (in rehearsal) (2025), with music by Jazzy Romero. Photo: Maria Baranova. Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
While the performance could not necessarily be described as participatory, at various moments in the piece the audience participates, answering questions collectively or, in several of the more humorous moments (skillfully inserted as a counterweight to the weighty, vulnerable tenor of the piece overall), laughter feeds into the reciprocal nature built between viewer and performer.
“It’s a process of the audience watching Jazzy and I communicate, but also us communicating to them in a way that isn’t ‘we broke the fourth wall,’ but as people to people.”
With eight performances in the series total, and knowing the pivotal role improvisation plays in the work, it’s difficult at first (even if subconsciously) not to seek out the boundary between the planned and unplanned, attempting to suss out what might be the variable between iterations. Valencia’s personable and accessible execution of , however, quickly makes the delineation feel moot. Instead, viewers come away with a feeling analogous to having spent time with a close friend you haven’t seen in a long time, the type where you pick up right where you left off. And perhaps this is at the crux of what or who Jacklean is—a cogent reminder of just how small the chasm really is between you and I and we and us.
Source: Exhibition - news.artnet.com
