S/He uses gender and race reversals to take a new look at current events and social attitudes in America. A black female president of the US holds a press conference with the audience while the Clarence Thomas hearings present a black female Senate panel presiding over a white Thomas and Anita Hill. Male and female uses of space and physical vocabulary are turned upside down.
Premiere: The Joyce Theater, New York City 1995
Concept and Direction: Jane Comfort
Choreography: Jane Comfort and Company
Text: Jane Comfort, testimony from the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings and Company members
Music: Mio Morales, Positive K, James Brown, Sam Cooke, Paul Anka (arranged by Adrian Carr), traditional spiritual, and Company members
Costumes: Liz Prince
Lighting: David Ferri
Original Cast: Nancy Alfaro, Jose Castro, Jane Comfort, Deborah Jackson, Christina Redd, Joseph Ritsch, Andre Shoals, and Edisa Weeks
Funding: Altogether Different Fund for New Works, National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
"Jane Comfort's extravaganza, S/He, shows us what the latest gender wars actually look like when danced and set to music. Every movement is a loaded example of how men and women inhabit space-do they simper or strut, cross their legs or spread them-which raises the age old nature/nuture question to the point that you want to spend time in front of a mirror, weeding out your own politically incorrect gestures."
--Art Forum
"A hilarious duet from Jane Comfort's S/He scored points in the sexual politics wars by pairing a sultry singer, Stephanie McKay, with a demurely pregnant boyfriend played by Joseph Ritsch."
-- The New York Times
"S/HE gleefully clashes stereotypes and the resulting dissonance is as exciting as it is disturbing. Jane Comfort's vision is Madison Avenue's nightmare." -- The Baltimore Sun
"In her provocative S/He, Jane Comfort makes hay with sexism in advertising, politics and domestic life…In the knockout opening, Comfort, impersonating a small, crude guy with a scraggly beard, woos Andre Shoals, elegant and self-possessed in drag…Comfort's ideas are brilliant and so is her cast." -- The Village Voice
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