WRESTLELADSWRESTLE
"MY NAME IS JENNI JACKSON.
I AM THE UNDER 50KG BRITISH JUDO CHAMPION."
WRESTLELADSWRESTLE is a new live performance combining theatre, dance, judo and pro-wrestling in a joyful reclamation of space. Investigating the myth of 'empowerment’ through playfighting, Jenni draws on her teenage career as British Judo Champion, and is joined by a drummer, one white man, and an ensemble of 30 local women who are trained to playfight with her.
Inspired by her Bolivian mother. Buffy the vampire slayer, pro-wrestling, Bolivian Cholita wrestling and her real-life judo career, Jenni revisits a historical racist incident she witnessed her mother experience, and constructs a sports spectacle where memory and autobiography is replayed, destroyed, and reframed by an unreliable narrator with a crash mat. Playing with the theatricality of pro-wrestling, live feed, embedded creative captions and bold physicalities, Jenni invites you to consider who is entitled to play with violence, and what it means to empower yourself in an unequal society.
Jenni is assembling a gang of women of all ages and abilities, who will be trained to playfight with her. An almighty GIRL GANG. The gang will be recruited locally through an exciting programme of workshops.
In a world where space is contested, using our bodies to occupy space feels like a
revolution. Jenni's mother placed her into a judo dojo as a young teenager, and she
became a teenage champion representing the UK. The dojo offered a place to be
seen and to challenge her body and her limitations.
Upcoming awards for this work include The Jerwood Live Work Award, MGCFutures Award, and she has been supported by Open Lab at The Barbican Centre. Jenni will be pitching at this years Caravan Assembly (Farnham Maltings & Brighton Festival) on Monday 13th May 2024. Please contact us for more details here.
The performance uses creative captioning, live camera feed, and embedded audio description. Featuring sports commentary as audio description; Jenni is working with a variety of voices, including a young girl and a mature woman, who will relay the action to audiences.
This work has been previously been developed with the support of DARE Festival/Upstart Theatre, HOME Manchester, ARC Stockton, Oxford Playhouse, Battersea Arts Centre, Royal Exchange Theatre.
WRESTLELADSWRESTLE will premiere in Autumn 2024 at HOME Manchester, and is touring in Spring 2025.
Available for onward UK and International Touring from Summer 2025.
Supported by Arts Council England, HOME Manchester, Sheffield Crucible, Cambridge Junction, and Battersea Arts Centre.
Pitch Deck and recording of the Barbican Work in Progress sharing available upon request.
