Geneva Jacuzzi is a pop artist working in the strange paradise of angels — Los Angeles. A mother of invention, she is exalted as an early pioneer of the modern lo-fi bedroom pop terrain, and is a notable figure in the underground scenes in Hollywood and Los Angeles, with her influence spreading worldwide in the pop, noise, and independent art communities. Geneva is further recognized for her work in visual and performance art, fabrication, fashion, and film. She directs and produces music videos and video art installations, designs and produces her own sets and wardrobe, and choreographs her stage performances.
Her latest album, Triple Fire, is out now on Dais Records.
One Great Thing is our weekly newsletter where artists tell us all about one thing they’ve been really into lately. This week, the LA-based experimental synth pop artist Geneva Jacuzzi tells us about the process of conceiving her current run of live shows. You can catch Geneva live this Wednesday, September 18, at Elsewhere in Brooklyn, and check out her new album, Triple Fire, which is out now on Dais Records. And to read One Great Thing in your inbox every Monday morning, you can subscribe to our newsletter.
— Annie Fell, Editor-in-chief, Talkhouse Music
I’m in the middle of all of these crazy shows, and it’s the only thing that’s on my mind right now. There’s a lot of passion and anxiety combined in the process. I want to do something new all the time, so when I have a new show coming up, it’s this sort of daunting, terrifying, mysterious thing for me in the future where I know there’s going to be an audience and there’s a deadline. So the process of getting there starts off with me looking around at my life, my inner life, and seeing what is happening, what inspires me right now, what pings me, what’s the thing that I find visually or conceptually inspiring?
I just did a new show last week for the LA record release, and a month prior to that, I didn’t know what I was going to do. And I was scared. It’s funny, because it was around the time of the Olympics, and I was thinking about Greece — I’m half-Greek — and I was thinking, Oh, my god, I wanna put on a Greek play. Somehow, I wanted to build a world almost like Clash of the Titans. I want to create a myth. I didn’t know where to go from there, but I knew that it was going to be a Greek tragedy, in probably two or three acts. So I visualized the stage: I wanted all these columns, and I wanted gods on podiums, and for it to look like a coliseum or a Greek theater. But as far as where the show goes, or the play goes, I didn’t know.
Because I had a deadline, I just started to build it. As I was building it and the deadline was approaching, I started getting ideas. I was listening to all these Greek tragedies and reading The Odyssey and getting into the headspace, and I realized that we needed to go to three realms: Heaven, Hell, and Earth. I was going to be a character that was going through that transformative process throughout the show. So I built the world, and as I was sorting the logistics out of all these different realms and stories, the stories started to take shape. And I didn’t realize — because I just edited the video of the release show — this character was mirroring my own personal life story and I wasn’t even conscious of it! I was like, “Oh, my god! This is me!”
I think a lot of artists do this. They set up some kind of deadline, and the process of going from point-A to point-Z is a very transformative, painful, beautiful, exciting process. And when you attempt something that’s never been done before — not to get too cosmic — the universe brings you all of the ingredients that you need. There’s a level of planning that goes in, but the biggest part is being open to things coming in that you don’t expect to happen. It’s leaving room for coincidence and magic.
I don’t have the time, resources, or energy to perfectly coordinate and choreograph a whole performance from beginning to end for these shows. So my formula is basically controlled chaos. There are certain points in the performance where we all meet — the dancers, the performers, the stage managers all know, “At this point, this happens, and at this point, this happens…” But between that is completely improvised. But it always ends up looking really choreographed. I mean, sometimes it looks insane, but it seems more choreographed than it really is. Pretty much 70% of the show is improvised.
I, just a few days ago, decided that I would bring Greek theater to Elsewhere, even though I thought I wasn’t gonna do it because it’s so much work to do that in New York City coming from LA. I haven’t slept in, like, four days because I’m trying to figure out how to get it all over there. But I’m working with new dancers — Neil “80s Baby” Schwartz’s dance troupe is going to be participating. I have yet to meet them, and we’re planning choreography over the phone. So there’s all these things that are getting done in advance, but it’s only gonna come together in a day. It’s controlled chaos.
I want to bring some kind of element that marks you forever. We always have so much going on; we’re so entertained all the time, but we don’t remember half of it. I’ll watch a whole 12-part season of a Netflix show and I won’t even remember anything, I just zone out. But this is the opposite of that. Everyone can be zoned in and participating. There’s so many working parts coming into these kind of things, but because I’m basically doing something that probably shouldn’t be done on the scale that I’m at, as far as resources go, it’s all about people and finding people that are inspired and down to participate and trusting them. It’s basically going to be a big collaboration between me and New York City. [Laughs.]
As told to Annie Fell.
(Photo Credit: Thalia Mavros)
