Chicago-based burlesque artist Jenn Freeman also known as Po’Chop uses elements of dance, storytelling, and striptease to create performances and inspire students and collaborators across the country. Po’Chop is the creator and author of the blogzine, The Brown Pages and has performed at the Brooklyn Museum in Brown Girls Burlesque’s Bodyspeak, and headlined shows in New Orleans, Minneapolis, St. Louis and New York. Po’Chop is a Board Member & Cast Member, for Jeezy’s Juke Joint, an all black burlesque revue. Po’Chop performs on Netflix’s Easy (Season 2), appears in music videos for songs by Jamila Woods and Mykele Deville, and creates and performs experimental dance films such as LITANY. Jenn Freeman was recognized as a 2022 United States Artist Fellow, a 2021 Foundation of Contemporary Art Grant for Artist, selected as a 2019-2020 Urban Bush Women Choreographic Fellow and as a 2018 Chicago Dancemakers Lab Artist. Po’Chop was voted #10 Most Influential Burlesque Artist by 21st Century Magazine and was dancer in residence at Rebuild Foundation in 2020.
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We are two, Jenn Freeman and Po'Chop and we create movement based performances. Our work is transgressive and pulls from drag and burlesque, modern and praise dance, and spoken word and hip hop. Our work is a reimagining of Lord as (Audre) Lorde where worship is a space where the erotic is regarded as the highest knowledge and ancestors are whispered into walls made of brown bags. Our healing is urgent. Through edifying the legacies of Black women and femmes we heal from the lessons we learned between pews. Coming of age in Missouri’s bootheel as Black and Queer. Our work is both holy and hilarious. Crossing media lines from live performance to digital we are a hybrid fueled by meme culture, Black history and rural Baptist aesthetics. We revel in rituals that are both collaborative and participatory. We use objects, sounds, and movement to encourage the recalling of memories and emotions. Tugging audiences into imagined worlds, our art creates space for folks like public housing activist Beauty Turner or icon Mary J Blige or often overlooked pioneer and faith healer Elder Lucy Smith to be remembered and uplifted. We, Jenn Freeman & Po’Chop, manifest new worlds outta breath and imagination.
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