Are You OK?

A solo performance in progress

Written and performed by Jessica Davenport

Originally performed at Positive Space Gallery, Tulsa, September 2023 as a part of “Is everything Okay?,” a group show curated by Allison Ward - @bittersweetbutthole - centered around the experience of women and queer people existing in Oklahoma.

“Are You OK?” is a 30 minute solo performance, that is in development and that is envisioned as a part of what will be an evening length quasi-autobiographical perfomance work. It was first performed in its first iteration in the fall of 2023 at the Positive Space Gallery in Tulsa, as a part of a group show curated by Allison Ward, centered around the experience of women and queer people existing in Oklahoma. Incorporating movement, music, text, the manipulation of dangerous and dangerously manipulated objects, as well as a large dose of comedy and a playful sense of danger and the absurd, the performance touches on and prods at autobiographical moments of memory imprinted indelibly into the nervous system of a girl who came of age in bible belted middle america. She glides in recklessly on roller skates, burdened by a large and cumbersome basket. From her basket of tricks, she pulls out the unexpected. The evangelical church. Domestic Violence. Complex Trauma. First Loves. 80s dance songs. Girlhood. A high school yearbook. Her Mother. Jesus. They’re all in there. As they always have been. There may be screaming and crying. There might be skinned knees. She may ask you to dance. She might take up an offering and offer you salvation. She might feel inclined to trick you and run away. Or show you her scars. She's here for it, and wants you to be here too.