Jan Wallyn
(ENG) Besides guiding Zinnema under their leadership towards a promising future, Jan Wallyn is also a devoted performance artist and very outspoken about gender and queer issues. Aware of how mainstream society can easily and sometimes even ignorantly alienate and isolate queer people, they not only fully embrace their genderqueer body and mind but also accepts and embodies the loneliness that often results from homophobic incidents.
As a teenager, Jan was nominated the ‘hottest chick’ of the year. That happened without their knowledge, until the news was published in a local magazine. Homophobic situations like this were just the beginning of Jan’s growing insight into the ways that queer people are marginalized.
Fifteen years later, Jan feels ready to accept their crowning as ‘hottest chick’ – but then on their own terms. In the musical and scenographic production Hottest Chick in Town, Jan presents their feelings and experiences with the support of Samuel Vekeman (sound coaching and mixing), Kopano Maroga (dramaturgy) and Malik Zaryaty (choreography). The performance is both an exploration and celebration of queer loneliness and isolation, a 60-minute soundtrack produced by Jan and inspired by the note of ‘sol’, which also immediately evokes an association with ‘solitude’.
Hottest Chick In Town premiers 16th and 17th of September in V36, Toneelhuis in Antwerp. Both performances were sold out in less than 24 hours time.
(NL) Naast Zinnema onder hun leiderschap te laten varen richting een veelbelovende toekomst, is Jan Wallyn ook actief als performancekunstenaar en zeer uitgesproken over zaken als gender en queerness. Zich bewust van hoe snel en soms zelfs onwetend de mainstream maatschappij queer-mensen vervreemdt en isoleert, omarmt die niet alleen ten volle hun genderqueer lichaam en geest, maar accepteert en belichaamt die ook de eenzaamheid die vaak veroorzaakt wordt door homofobe incidenten.
Als tiener werd Jan genomineerd als ‘heetste wijf’ van het jaar. Dat was buiten hun weten om, tot het nieuws in een lokaal magazine stond. Homofobische situaties als deze waren nog maar het begin van Jans groeiende inzicht in de manier waarop men queer mensen marginaliseert.
Photo: Wim Hermans
Vijftien jaar later voelt Jan zich klaar om hun bekroning tot ‘heetste wijf’ te ontvangen – maar dan wel op hun eigen voorwaarden. In de muzikale en scenografische performance Hottest Chick in Town brengt Jan hun gevoelens en ervaringen samen met de steun van Samuel Vekeman (geluidscoaching en -mixing), Kopano Maroga (dramaturgie) en Malik Zaryaty (choreografie). De theatrale ceremonie is zowel een exploratie als een viering van queer eenzaamheid en isolement, bevat een 60 minutenlange soundtrack die origineel geproducet is door Wallyn and geïnspireerd is door de noot G, oftewel ‘sol’ (de link met het woord ‘solitude’ lonkt achter de hoek). Het publiek wordt uitgenodigd om apart een plek in te nemen op het podium en zo de muzikale ervaring alleen te ondergaan. Elke toeschouwer bepaalt zijn eigen verhouding tot het werk: nu eens relaxerend, dan weer uitbundig dansend.
Hottest Chick In Town gaat in première op 16 en 17 september in V36, Toneelhuis in Antwerpen. Beide performances waren in minder dan 24 uur uitverkocht.
Get to know Jan Wallyn
Inspiration and role models
“I started discovering my interest in performing through school theatres and founded my own dance school when I was 16. 10 people joined and a couple of years later we were over a 100 people. What kept me going here and inspired me was exactly the people who made time out of their day to join a dance class and invest in themselves and the community around them.
Today I get very inspired artistically very inspired by icons such as Alok Vaid Menon, as well as your favorite locals babes such as Kopano Maroga (who is also my partner) and people who I enjoy following on IG such as Emiel Lenaert en Joppe De Campeneere, who als have a great podcast together @flikkerop_pod”
Creative process
“For this work ‘Hottest Chick In Town’ the experience of genderqueer solitude is a central theme. In previous work I never got this personal. I always get inspired by things the happen in my life but this work is not about something that happened to me, it’s about something that is in the core of me. And that is very, very scary. But it has also been very therapeutic, which wasn’t the intention but definitely grateful.
I like to work creating a vague skeleton of the work and then explore how it makes most sense to materialize it in practice.”
How has COVID affected the way you work, create, perform? Did it give you the space to work on any new projects?
”This is a huge privilege as someone who had a stable income throughout COVID, but it actually give me more breathing room for my artistic practice to develop. During this past two years I found language for my gender identity, non-binary, which I didn’t have before. This of course dramatically informed my artistic practice in a different, richer and nuanced way.”
Upcoming projects
“This will also be my musical debut. The day of the premiere, I will release my single ‘Hottest Chick In Town’ on most music streaming platforms. Very excited about that!”
