Best Sign of Gender Equality: Fauxnique

SF Bay Guardian Best of the Bay 2004


Everything by Fauxnique

Keith Hennessy's Top 10 in Dance for 2005
SF Bay Guardian Year in Review

Future Perfect (by Hagen & Simone)

In 'Future Perfect,'  an intelligent, witty piece…the idea of fashion versus grammar actually begins to make sense.
Michael Wade Simpson, SF Chronicle 8/30/04

'Future Perfect' was a smart, witty and and original piece of movement theater.
Rita Felciano, Danceview, Autumn, 2004

Silver for Gold: the Odyssey of Edie Sedgwick (written and directed by David J.)

...the theater’s walls looked barely enough to contain Monique Jenkinson’s feline dynamism as Edie. Stretching, lunging, and yowling in a dead-on replica of the scene-baby’s affectless yap, she dominates script and multimedia bric-a-brac, even giving the score a run for its money. Her performance is the only thing imposing unity on the piece’s jigsaw structure.
LA Citybeat 3/12/08 Ron Garmon

Monique Jenkinson is sensually spellbinding as the damaged Edie Sedgwick! In a darkly demanding role, (both emotionally and physically) she exposes the every nerve and self-doubt within as she tells her story, and spills her heart and guts…
Tolucan Times, 3/12/08 Pat Taylor




Mimicry & Flaunting

Back in the day, Bennington College was instrumental in spreading modern dance throughout the country. Last October, when the college celebrated its 75th year, the dance program celebrated its own history.... High points were...Monique Jenkinson's devilishly precise gloss on Maria Callas, 'Mimicry & Flaunting.'
Dance Magazine 01/08 Wendy Perron, Editor-in-Chief

Fauxnique in Bust Magazine

It was six years after (Ana) Matronic's near win that a biological female, Fauxnique, finally took the Miss Trannyshack crown. Trained as a dancer, Fauxnique had emulated drag queens since she was little and had been considering incorporating drag into her dance work when she first attended Trannyshack, in 1998. 'I saw Ana Matronic perform and realized, "Hey, someone will actually let me get up on stage and do this."' Her winning performance in 2003 included a rousing lip-synch to Elton John's 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight,' as well as an elaborate transformation, on pointe shoes, into a butterfly with 20-foot wings. Although her win raised some eyebrows, Heklina, the male drag queen who founded and hosts Trannyshack, defends the decision. 'I never came from a traditional drag background where there were all these rules about what it means to be a drag queen,' says Heklina. 'Trannyshack . . . has always been about who gets out there and does the best performance, and Fauxnique is an amazing performer.'...'(drag) comes down to a sort of self-awareness, a self-consciousness about playing with around playing with femininity,' says Fauxnique. She adds that while drag for her is primarily about performance, it's also a 'rejection of traditional oppressive forms of masculinity—and that's part of an affinity with gay men as well. I wouldn't say every faux queen is a feminist, but I would say that a part of them is in some way.'
Bust Magazine APR/MAY 08 Evie Nagy

Crying in Public

Octavio Paz once said life is not made according to human frailty, though the Nobel Prize–winning poet probably worded it better than that. The underlying question is woefully obvious: why would we create a world that doesn't suit us? While public displays of emotion are considered inappropriate, our private lives are ever shrinking. It's enough to make a girl want to pitch a full-on hissy fit, and no one throws a tantrum like Monique Jenkinson. In 'Crying in Public,' the choreographer, performer, and faux drag queen Fauxnique spins the flip side of "modern man's alienation" with all the fierceness of a spurned celebrity.
San Francisco Bay Guardian 2/7/07 Deborah Giattina

Frolic: a Circusdragburlesque Festival

Fauxnique (aka Monique Jenkinson), the first faux drag queen to win a Miss Trannyshack pageant, teamed up with mezzo male soprano drag queen Katya Ludmilla Smirnoff-Skyy nee Stolichnaya, to give a unique Eastern European performance piece. This was a true ballerina, who spent much of the time on toe, pirouetting and jettéing about the stage with incredible grace.
San Francisco Bay Times12/20/07 Sister Dana Van Iquity 

CounterPULSE has always been a safe haven for the dance community's risk-takers. With Frolic, they've created an event where committed artists don't have to take themselves too seriously. Start with the best drag queens, add a little punk rock and a few experienced choreographers (Monique Jenkinson, Lauren Steiner and Jessica Fudim), and you just can't lose. Now if only the rest the year could be this much fun.
Bay Area Reporter 2007 Bay Area dance in review 12/27/2007 Joe Landini

Territories (by Betty Shamieh, directed by Jessica Heidt)

Though only about 70 minutes long, 'Territories' feels substantial and relevant. Jessica Heidt also lends the production a graceful touch with some nicely choreographed (by Monique Jenkinson) and highly stylized battle scenes. The choreography also comes into play when (the main character) Alia has a seizure, and the world around her dances.
Contra Costa Times 01/20/08 Chad Jones

Under the Radar (Bay Area Now at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts)

But all complaints were obliterated by the final spectacle of Glamamore, Fauxnique and Kiddie. Fauxnique, also known as Monique Jenkinson, is the first female drag queen to be crowned Miss Trannyshack, which means she's a woman who impersonates a man impersonating a woman. She does it well, though what probably puts her over the top is not so much her Shakespearean double-gender play as her dance training, which gives her another weapon in the drag-show arsenal of all-important special effects. It was enough to make a girl want to revisit her Susan Sontag.
San Francisco Chronicle 10/24/05 Rachel Howard