All you really need to know about Jessica McKerlie’s 'Gender Spanner' is that its working title was originally 'A Journey Into Gender Through the Music of Black Sabbath' (and though the performance has changed greatly since its inception, it does still feature one song by those bat-eating heavy metal greats).
Promotional pictures which feature Jessica seductively licking a spanner (“I'm a big fan of Miley,” she says), and covered in post-it notes of various identity labels might not aid one's understanding. If such descriptions elude you, then you just might be part of the audience that this offbeat performer is trying to reach.
Fitting for a show concerned with ambiguity, the show's very title is a double pun. “I wanted to convey that I'm not transgender, I'm spanning the wide spectrum of gender. Obviously it alludes to throwing a spanner in the works. And if you call someone a spanner, I think, it's a derogatory term, like 'oh you idiot, you're a bit of a spanner'. It's spanning a wide spectrum, and it's not the norm. Language and the way that we use it is a big theme of the show. It’s about reclaiming language, it doesn't matter that it was a derogatory term. I am a gender spanner, I'm owning that title.”
© Sarah Walker But what actually goes on in 'Gender Spanner'? The complex and terrifying art of plate-spinning, for one, an activity at once both acrobatic and metaphor. “The plate spinning came about because I really wanted to play with the image of a woman, and what a woman is expected to be, and plate spinning as an act fits in nicely. It's a metaphor for the many roles a woman has to play; she's a mother, she's there for her husband, she's got the plate of dinner ready for him when he gets home, if she wants to go to work she still has to do all those things on top of going to work. And she still has to look beautiful while doing it.
“I wanted to present a physical representation of the many balls we have in the air, the many plates we have spinning. While doing a badass dance that is completely un-womanly. Being a woman these days means so many different things, so I don't know, it's kind of taking the image of femininity and fucking with it. Which makes it more feminine in a way. A woman can be anything, that's the point, a man can be anything, and a person can be parts of a man, and still juggling the duties of all the above.”
So what draws her to such unusual material? Well, for Jessica, it is not. “It's me writing about my life, so it's not that unusual. I get asked that a lot by people like my mum, or more straight-laced people for whom it’s unfamiliar subject matter, which is actually why it needs to be on the stage. Mental illness in particular, is a massive issue that isn't talked about enough. I guess that's the attraction, getting things on stage that perhaps aren't there, but should be.”
© Sarah Walker But fear not viewers closer to Jessica's mum in perspective, the show will not be hostile toward you. “I've got a friend, cis straight male friend, who was like, 'I didn't feel vilified at all.' That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to call attention to the fact that people are people no matter what they like or what they are.”
Tired as she must surely be after a long day of dancing and keeping plates in the air (literally and figuratively), Jessica feels it's all worth it if she can reach out to people. “After a show in Melbourne I had an email from someone, a father who had ended up there by accident with his teenage son. They were going to see something else but they cancelled, they somehow ended up in my show. He was like 'thank you, we had no idea what we were walking into, and that show started a really important conversation with me and my son'.
“So it's a conversation-starter if nothing else.”
'Gender Spanner' performs Brisbane Powerhouse 11-13 February as part of MELT Festival which runs which runs 3-14 February, Fringe World 16-20 February and Adelaide Fringe Festival 1-14 March.
