On Sept. 27 and 28, feminist poet Leisha Nicole Stanek visited the Public Space One Close House to put on an hour-long show about feminism and everything it entails.
Stanek’s performance was vulnerable in every sense of the word, beginning with Leisha in the nude. Audience members were encouraged to sketch her on the back of the show’s program, which was intended to be a play on the stereotypical church bulletin.
The bulletin was filled with news, but instead of the standard announcements related to a church community, the news helped to reaffirm the themes of feminism and equality in Stanek’s work.
Each bulletin entry critiqued something in society, whether it be the way hospitals are required to carry out abortions, chronic addictions to social media, or the egregious imbalance regarding the salary of the University of Iowa’s football coach compared to the unpaid work high school athletes do at Kinnick Stadium after UI home games.
The stage was a small but elegant creation.
“The design of the event was led by Leisha. The planning of an event like this varies depending on the needs of the artist,” Kalmia Strong, Public Space One’s program director, said. “In this case, we assisted a bit with getting the space set up, promotion, and ticketing.”
Stanek’s performance took around two and a half years to develop once the idea struck her in 2021. Her long-standing and emotional connection to the spoken word began in college and has stuck with her since.
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“I’ve been writing spoken word performance poetry since college, but then I got married and it disappeared in the confines of domesticity,” Stanek said. “[My inspiration] re-emerged in 2017, and I divorced my husband in 2018 because I couldn’t stop writing.”
The influences of Leisha’s personal life are evident in the poems she performs during the show, with pieces titled “My Ex-Husband Said I Preferred Married Men” and “Wedding Dress.”
These pieces, among plenty of others, tackle her stances on women’s rights, her Catholic upbringing, and even her marriage and subsequent adultery.
On top of the several years it took to craft the show, planning was also a decently lengthy process.
“Leisha reached out to us with a proposal for her performance this summer, which speaks volumes about Leisha’s creative initiative,” Strong said.
Stanek’s performance had a heavy impact on the crowd. She recalled a man explaining that he needed to step outside to smoke a cigarette because he was overwhelmed after the show on Sept. 27.
“I wrote down at 1:25, I think this might change my life, and a few minutes later, I think it did, and I think that Leisha is a pastor of living life,” Malina Amjadi, one of Stanek’s collaborators, said.
The cozy ambiance of the Public Space One Close House provided the perfect, intimate setting for Stanek’s performance and the powerful, vulnerable emotions that came with it.
“PS1 hosts over 400 events and gatherings every year, including workshops, exhibitions, and performances, with a wide variety of aesthetics and approaches,” Strong said. “We feel it’s very important to provide a venue for work that is not easy to categorize and may challenge people’s expectations with both content and format, as well as providing opportunities for artists to present new work.”