Jesse Factor

Legend tells that Jesse Factor was found as a baby in a basket (designed by Isamu Noguchi) floating down the Allegheny river with a dance belt, a tube of chapstick, and a copy of Martha Graham’s autobiography ‘Blood Memory’. Raised on a diet of MTV and Peach Snapple, he learned that Madonna had studied at the Martha Graham School, and his path in life was set. He journeyed to NYC, studied at Graham, joined Graham II, and eventually danced with the Martha Graham Dance Company.

Factor’s obsession with the cultural phenomenon of the diva figure serves as an entry point into the solo work, centering concepts of artifice, nostalgia, and genderfuck. Previous works embody impossible fusions, bridge cultural worlds, and play with concepts of the monstrous and sublime.

The work enacts what critics have named “subversive…bombastic…kinaesthetically enrapturing” and “harmoniously fabulous hybrids” of the queer mythologies and legends, approaching a sense of queer futurity. Collaborations with composer Andy Hasenpflug, Scott Andrew, and costume designer Tony Allgeier continue to evolve in ways that integrate formal elements of sound and costume into compositional design, pushing beyond current conceptual trends in conventional concert dance.