Bringing Them Out of the Shadows
Jenni Reinke’05 leaped, whirled, and writhed on the stage of the Hillside Theater at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin near Spring Green, Wis.从一个角色变成另一个角色 Mrs. Wrights, her one-woman show. The dance theater production tells the tale of the most important women in the legendary architect’s life: his mother, three wives, and a mistress, with a focus on Olgivanna, 他30年的商业伙伴和继承他遗产的寡妇.
“Growing up in Wisconsin, 我听说过很多关于弗兰克·劳埃德·赖特和他的建筑, 但对他的作品有影响的女性却没有任何影响,” Reinke explains. “Out of this void, Mrs. Wrights was born. I use my body to make visible the women whose histories have been overshadowed by the tower of male ‘genius.’”
After the 2018 premiere, a graduate of Taliesin’s School of Architecture told Reinke: “That was brilliant and courageous. No one talks about these stories here. It’s like we’re living with ghosts.”
Reinke’s show was produced by Milwaukee-based Quasimondo Physical Theatre and toured across the nation, 在大流行迫使其暂停之前，它获得了评论界的赞誉.
Exploring new forms
Credit: Dominic PanicoReinke is a dancer, choreographer, actress, writer, violinist, arts educator, 和非营利性专业人士——尽管不一定是这个顺序. She embraces that fluidity.
“My work is very interdisciplinary,” says Reinke, 她也是密尔沃基狂野太空舞蹈公司的经理. “我不想在研究和表达故事的能力上限制自己, problems, or ideas. 我一直都是多面手，而不是专家. It’s the way my brain works. 我能发现不同事物之间的联系.”
她在十大菠菜台子磨练了这些关系. 赖因克从8岁起就成为小提琴手，并开始主修音乐. 但在另一所大学开始学习后，她渴望更严谨的知识. She found it at Beloit. The focus on the liberal arts fed her mind as she continued to pursue a music major while devouring courses in philosophy, religious studies, and more.
“我很好奇，也很有求知欲. I spent so much time reading and writing papers and sitting at a desk in the library and in class,” says Reinke, who minored in philosophy. “But I felt like something was missing.”
她决定暂时离开她的头脑. On a whim, she enrolled in a dance class, despite having no previous dance experience, and she was hooked. 她永远不会忘记克里斯·约翰逊的编舞课, 伯洛伊特大学舞蹈系教授兼系主任. “That was one of the most challenging and eye-opening classes in my college career,” she says. “It prioritized knowledge from the body … I really valued being rooted in my body and the intelligence of the body.赖因克后来利用这些知识，塑造了《十大菠菜台子》中的人物 Mrs. Wrights to life.
Finding her way back to the stage
Dance initially remained a side passion. After graduating from Beloit, Reinke moved to Hong Kong to teach English for 10 months as part of Beloit’s partnership with Lingnan University. After returning home to Milwaukee, she eventually became the first full-time, Fondy农贸市场的全年市场经理, which serves a large, diverse population on Milwaukee’s north side. When she was laid off from her position in 2012, she seized the opportunity to explore something new.
One day after class at a local dance studio, 她看到了一张宣布成立卡西蒙多体育剧院的海报. Intrigued, she soon became one of Quasimondo’s founding members and continues today as president of its board. 卡西蒙多通过实体剧场创作原创作品, 它将其定义为“一种由我们身体的宽度创造的表演语言”, minds, experience, 以及通过感官交流的想象力.”
“It’s still related to the theater tradition,” she explains, “但我们融入了舞蹈和世界戏剧的传统, so it’s very eclectic. 我们尝试各种形式，并努力使作品具有时效性和时效性.”
The performances can border on the surreal. A few years ago, the ensemble performed Buboes, a play about the bubonic plague, in a former Linens ’N Things storefront in a downtown Milwaukee mall as Christmas-themed music played in the background.
“It is remarkable how much some of our past work speaks to our present moment,” she notes. “Buboes bears the most direct resemblance. Performed in the style of bouffon—a grotesque form of clowning—the show uses the bubonic plague as a backdrop to dissect contagion and social disorder.”
Developing Mrs. Wrights
Mrs. Wrights grew out of Reinke’s thesis project at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts, 她在那里获得了美术硕士学位，专攻当代舞蹈编舞.
While brainstorming thesis ideas, she flashed back to her years working part-time at a local spice shop—the “retirement shop” of William Penzey, Sr.和Ruth Penzey，他们的儿子创立了Penzeys香料连锁店的创始人. 赖因克将已故的威廉·彭泽描述为“一个伪装成香料商人的艺术家”.”
He was also a Frank Lloyd Wright fan. 商店的价签是用伊格尔费瑟字体印的, a Wright font, 当工作人员手工混合香料时，建筑是他们最喜欢的话题. “You know, Frank Lloyd Wright wasn’t very good to his women,” a customer remarked one day. 这件事埋下了一颗种子，多年后在赖因克的脑海中发芽.
The project kicked off in earnest in 2017, 当时赖因克创作了一部关于赖特第一任妻子的舞蹈作品, Kitty, as part of a choreography class. 然后她勾勒出其他角色的可能性. She spent the next year sifting through historical documents to piece the story together.
Reinke对舞蹈作为一种民族志工具的潜力充满热情. “当我找不到关于这些女人的信息时, 我走进工作室，运用我的身体想象力和动觉共情,” she explains. “体验这种对某人身体的极度渴望是什么感觉? 米里亚姆(赖特的第二任妻子)是个吗啡瘾君子, 所以我研究了这些症状，试着把它们过滤掉. 在某个时候，我开始写一个剧本，但这是在这个过程的后期.”
In 2019, the show played to sold-out audiences during a three-week run at the Charles Allis Art Museum in Milwaukee and toured festivals across the country. In addition to the Taliesin premiere, Reinke has performed at two other Wright buildings: the SC Johnson Golden Rondelle Theater in Racine and the Frederick C. Bogk House in Milwaukee.
尽管新冠肺炎已经关闭了表演艺术界, 瑞因克计划将这部剧呈现给全国的新观众. 她觉得有义务让女性的声音走出阴影.
“I will continue to tour Mrs. Wrights 但我正在耐心地应对新冠肺炎的限制，”她说. 在她等待回归现场演出的同时，Reinke正在预订虚拟表演. “I look forward to embracing the evolution of the show as I set it in new spaces with an older—but wiser—body. After all, I believe it is the ability to respond to the present moment that makes live performance truly alive.”
Nicole Sweeney Etter是密尔沃基的一名作家和编辑.
An artist living through the time of Covid
On March 14, 2020, performing artist Jenni Reinke’05 closed a momentous show with Wild Space Dance Company in Milwaukee. “我们知道，更安全的居家订单即将到来, and it felt like we had just held one of the last live performances in the city for an indefinite amount of time,” she says.
And so it was. 很快，世界各地的演出公司接连取消了演出. 在被取消的演出中，还有Reinke参与的其他演出, and she lost her steady paycheck as a dance and community outreach teacher with Danceworks when the studio closed. 她的其他几份工作可以过渡到远程工作, 几个月后，她被Wild Space聘为公司经理.
“What I’m most hopeful for is the opportunity Covid presents to make fundamental social changes that could benefit artists and other low-wage workers,” she says. “在美国，艺术家虽然备受尊敬，但从金钱的角度来看，他们并不受重视. 人们热爱艺术，但他们不愿为它买单——至少不愿为维持生活的工资买单. … I cannot speak for all artists, but many are like me, supporting themselves by weaving together income from a variety of part-time jobs in education, nonprofits, and the service industry.”
While Covid has reduced Reinke’s income, 她相信她的艺术训练增强了她的韧性.
“My experience as an artist is supporting me through the challenges of being a human in this current environment,” she says. “And these are existential challenges both artists and non-artists are facing—uncertainty, loneliness, grief, fear, anxiety, expectations, and self-judgment. I feel fortunate to have my artistic training and community to help me process this moment.”
During the first quiet months at home, 她思考了艺术在大流行之后可能发生的变化. Reinke believes that smaller arts organizations—like her own Quasimondo Physical Theatre—will be best positioned because they’re already used to operating on a shoestring budget.
“I’m excited for a rupture from the past that supports the work of independent and experimental artists,” she says. “I believe that lean, agile, and innovative small companies and independent artists will be rewarded for their resourcefulness and ability to respond.”
去年5月，赖因克与卡西蒙多合作推出了 QuasimondoTV, which engages audiences virtually through watch parties and live play readings of internationally renowned ensemble-based works.
In June, she began rehearsing again with Wild Space for a series of socially distanced live performances held at three parking lots throughout Milwaukee.
瑞因克将继续与两家公司合作，确保安全生产.
“Covid presents opportunities for arts organizations to reimagine the ways in which they fulfill their missions and engage audiences,” she adds. “For an emerging company like Quasimondo, this is an opportunity for us to evolve and showcase what we’ve always done—present original work that speaks to contemporary issues.”
See a trailer of Mrs. Wrights and learn more on Jenni Reinke’s artist website.
