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A portrait of a Black woman with an asymmetrical afro, standing in front of an apricot-colored wall. Her eyes are closed and adorned with purple eyeshadow. She appears to be breathing in, mid-inhale. Her fingertips lightly touch her neck, her face glowing, and her lips spreading into a big smile, giving a look of both serenity and joy.

Photo by Anjali Pinto.

Artists

Jenn Freeman | Po’Chop

She // Her // Hers

Multidisciplinary Artist and Burlesque Performer

Chicago, Illinois

“Over the past year my practice has taught me the value of unproductivity. That aimlessly wandering is a form of rest and that idleness isn’t a luxury but essential to my healing.I’ve learned to show up to the studio with no agenda and meet myself at that day’s edge. I’ve learned to give grief its space. I’ve learned when to push and when to find stillness.”

Jenn Freeman, also known as Po’Chop, is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist and burlesque performer. Freeman uses elements of dance, storytelling, and striptease to expel antiqued notions of blackness, queer identity, spirituality, rage, and healing. They have shared work at the Brooklyn Museum, Steppenwolf Theatre, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago and have been featured in performances including Jamila Woods’ Legacy! Legacy! Unfolded (2019) and season two of Netflix’s Easy (2017).

Freeman’s 2019 work The People’s Church of the G.H.E.T.T.O (Greatest History Ever Told To Our People) combines dance, ritual, and poetry. It reimagines a worship service rooted in the life and work of Audre Lorde and is dedicated to the education and edification of Black women. It was performed at Blanc Gallery in Chicago.

Freeman has received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts grant (2021), an Illinois Arts Council Agency Artist Fellowship (2021), a dance residency from Rebuild Foundation (2020), an Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Initiative Fellowship (2020), and a Chicago DanceMakers Forum Lab Artist grant (2018). Po’Chop serves as a board member and cast member for Jeezy’s Juke Joint, an all-Black burlesque revue.

Donor -This award was generously supported by MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett.

This artist page was last updated on: 07.12.2024

Dance
Close up photograph of a wooden chair on its side. A person wearing a tan suit reclines behind the wooden slats of the chair’s back, holding them as though they were bars. A brick wall is visible in the background.

Jenn Freeman | Po'Chop. LITANY | Pt. V | Dynamite, 2020. Filmed at Rebuild Foundation by Jordan Phelps.

Courtesy of the artist.

A person dances in a room where the walls have been lined with brown paper bags. They stand to the right of the frame, wearing a bright red dress covering their body and face. One outstretched hand pulls a length of the fabric upward.

The People's Church of the G.H.E.T.T.O (Great History Ever Told To Our People) , 2018. Gallery Blanc, Chicago.

Photo by Candice Majors.

Jenn Freeman. Litany trailer.