A Single Chromosome: Mathew Janczewski on Biology, Dance, and Matthew Barney
Mathew Janczewski, founder of ARENA DANCES, first viewed Matthew Barney’s monumental five-part Cremaster art-film cycle (1994–2002)at the Walker Art Center over two decades ago. But it wasn’t until a period between 2019 and 2021, of alternating months on his couch and in the hospital battling leukemia, that Janczewski discovered a shared inspiration with Barney.
Cremaster is an audacious, highly stylized journey into the embryonic stages of sexual differentiation as determined by a single chromosome. So, too, did a single chromosome play a role in Janczewski’s leukemia. This coincidence of biological destiny spurred the Minnesota-based choreographer’s creative journey toward Only the perverse fantasy can still save us, a full-length work premiering at the Walker Art Center on May 16, 2025, featuring a score by composer Joshua Clausen.
Janczewski recently met with Twin Cities dance writer Caroline Palmer to discuss his new work, Barney’s influence, and the freedom to imagine the details of brave new worlds.
Caroline Palmer
What impact did visual artist Matthew Barney’s work, particularly the Cremaster art-film cycle and associated book, have on you when you first encountered it at the Walker?
Mathew Janczewski
When I first watched the [scene of] mythological creatures in the Cadillac, half-goats sliding in and out from the back seat, it was intriguing. I was enthralled, confused, and didn’t get it. I loved the color.
Honestly, my first interaction was: That’s cool. And that was it. For me, [inspiration] came from the Cremaster book; it was a gift from a friend. When making work, it’s always just chance when inspiration hits. I was intrigued by Barney’s work because it was so challenging. At the time I started reading it, I was on a steroid-fever high, and I was fascinated with the connections.
I was brought up Catholic. The ritual around Catholicism is part of [Barney’s] work, and the questioning of masculinity. I never felt like I fit in, growing up in a small town. Something resonated to me with that connection. It’s like societal restraint. You’re a boy, identified as a boy. This is what you do in life. It’s pre-prescribed in small-town Illinois: You go to college, get a job. My parents wanted me to be a business manager. I was like: I want to dance. I was an outsider, and I was always questioning.
CP
What struck you then and has stayed with you the most about his work? Did you sense right away that you wanted to make a dance performance work? Why did it take 20 years?
MJ
Five years ago, when I was on that steroid-fever high, it started bubbling with me to dive in a little further. I couldn’t stop writing about it. It’s like I have piles of music, and I’ll say, “Oh, I need to make something with this now.” I had the book for 15 years, but when I finally read it, I started to see the similarities. I very much hid who I was for so long while living in a small town.
When I first saw the film at the Walker, Barney was very much a jock, a model. As a gay man, the “body perfect” is a very specific type of thing, and I hated that I felt that way, yet it was enticing to me. With the whole leukemia thing and the discovery that Cremaster is about the testes dropping, I thought about what differentiates me from a female is a single chromosome.
My interest is in stripping away the binary of all things. We all bleed, we all have hearts, and we all have different stories, curiosity, and compassion. And there are all these societal pressures to be put into boxes.
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Matthew Barney, Cremaster 4, 1994/1995. T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 1995. Courtesy Walker Art Center. -
Matthew Barney, Cremaster 4, 1994/1995. T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 1995. Courtesy Walker Art Center. -
Matthew Barney, Cremaster 4, 1994/1995. T. B. Walker Acquisition Fund, 1995. Courtesy Walker Art Center.
CP
The title of the work Only the perverse fantasy can still save us was drawn from the title of an important essay on Barney’s Cremaster cycle by visual art curator Nancy Spector. I understand it may have been a misquotation attributed to Goethe. Was your thinking on the work influenced by Spector’s essay and, if so, how?
MJ
I don’t know about Goethe, but I was drawn to that title specifically. It’s about transformation, a ride or journey to freedom, and how perverse it may be to love yourself.
As a dancer, you’re in the movement; there are no boxes and no restraints. I want to make people happy, and I’ve cared too much about what others think. Now, I’m embracing who I am and what I stand for. I feel like my voice was quiet. Now, I’m trusting myself.
I read in another article that Spector asserts Barney views artistic creation through resistance. I was unable to walk during two years of treatment, unable to move. How do I convey to dancers how to move?
Spector talks about the constant conflict [in Barney’s work] between two zones: pure desire and production. Once something is produced, the resistance is gone. I’m working with dancers collaboratively. How do I welcome them on this path of resistance with me? What all do I share? I’m pretty much an open book. How do I convey that it’s safe to collaborate? Barney is the springboard—we give a nod to Barney—but this is very much our own discovery. I’m going to let the piece divulge itself to me.
I work with dancers I have a lot of trust in, and I feel like they trust me. They knew right away they would go on an unknown journey. That’s a given to dance with me. We shared the Cremaster book at rehearsals and pulled out things for inspiration. Several lines of words or phrases, images, videos, it all connected for me—this is what is inspiring me. The dancers had access to add in their thoughts. It was give-and-take from one another.
CP
In a review of Spector’s essay, critic Karl Wolff wrote: The Cremaster Cycle isn’t about trans issues, per se, but it would make an excellent vehicle for intelligent discussions about gender and trans awareness. Do you agree?
MJ
One hundred percent. I was thinking about pronouns and how people were thinking about themselves, and the controversy about that for some people, for some stupid reason. To paraphrase Spector, I’m not going to turn this work into ideology: it’s more abstract. It engages viewers to contemplate gender transformation and resistance. It’s not necessarily specific to transgender [experience]. I don’t have that history; my dancers don’t. I am trying to make the dancers androgynous, though. It’s so fun to make this work, and these ideas are a springboard.
CP
The photography being utilized to promote this work is stunning. Can you talk about how those photos were created—particularly that background light-green color, which I believe references a color drawn from Barney’s work, the use of gauzy textiles, and the overall visual/lighting design, which seems to be very central to the work?
MJ
Galen Higgins took the photos and doctored up the minty color as the background. I wanted the images to be otherworldly, emerging from somewhere else. I wanted to create my own world on stage, which I always try to do.
Barney’s inspiration is the minty green color and the womb-like intimate space. The work is about transformation: change is constant, and I’m using that within the world. He combines that pastel color and vibrant red. I’m fascinated by that, and I’m trying to understand it. It’s all this made-up world by him, with all these details. That is something I was working toward with the dancers. If they are going to move in unison, the detail is down to the shift of the toe. I’m trying to create this world and intimacy within this world. It’s magical.
CP
Could you talk more about the level of detail and specificity in Barney’s approach that informed your choreography for this work?
MJ
I make movement very quickly. The generation of material is easy; I have tools in place. Then it’s the paring down and getting at the heart of it that’s challenging. I’m going further into that; I’m resistant to it because I just want to move. But I want the movement to be a bit more vulnerable.
It’s also about embracing myself and who I am, what I do. How perverse is that? I’m always curious and interested in challenging myself. How do I go in a new direction? It’s the model of Sisyphus. How do we push even further up the hill? How do we break through what we’re hiding from?
CP
The McGuire Theater stage at the Walker is quite large. You have made work for it in the past and have seen many other dance works in the theater. Can you talk about making work for that distinctive space? How has the inspiration from Barney translated into movement and your spatial designs?
MJ
We were talking about using a gallery space but would have had to wait until 2027. [In the McGuire Theater], the fabrics will create a womb-like sense for the dancers. There’s a voyeuristic quality for the audience. We’re still doing big, sweeping movements, but we focus in on things. That intimacy allows vulnerable things to happen and be shared.
The audience is in the same world as us: We’re all entering this safe space. They will be welcomed into the world in a specific way upon entering the doors. I love how Barney uses orifices in his work. You’re always entering this unknown world through an orifice, and you exit from this orifice into a whole different world. It’s so fascinating to me.
CP
You and your company, ARENA Dances, regularly produce and present one or two seasons a year in the Twin Cities. When the Walker makes commitments for new commissions/premieres and associated creative-production residencies from leading Minnesota-based dance artists, it is generally so they can realize something they can’t normally in their regular seasons elsewhere. Aside perhaps from the Walker-Barney connection, what aspects of the new work needed a Walker commitment?
MJ
I have such high regard for [Senior Curator of Performing Arts] Philip Bither and the programming at the Walker. It’s huge. I enjoy working with the crew and having access to the archives so I can dive deeper into the research.
I have been around for a long time and tend to shy away from works from set pieces because it’s complicated. But at the Walker, I can fulfill that. I feel like I’m pushing the edges of the space, thinking about the walls around us, and how we can open them up by using the Cremaster film and the images to push the boundaries. It makes you go for the biggest dream possible. Even when it can’t happen, it opens my creative mind.▪︎
Experience Mathew Janczewski/ARENA DANCES: Only the perverse fantasy can still save us at the Walker May 16–17, 2025. Learn more and get tickets here.
Discover more about Matthew Barney and other artists in the Walker's collections here.
This conversation was produced through a partnership with the podcast Studio Stories. Listen to more of this conversation here.
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