Spicuzza keeps touchy subject of performance art in focus

Performance art can be a touchy subject.

Its aims and standards are less established than those of the fine arts, and for many that's cause for debate.

By fusing dance, poetry, props, music, voice and sound into a single show, performance artists often aim to be engaging, controversial and transcending, yet to many come off as overblown, pretentious and just plain silly.

When a national performance artist like Karen Finley smears chocolate on her naked body while ranting a bit of free verse about sex roles in society, some delight in her audacity while others decry her attention-grabbing antics and scream, "That's not art!"

Whichever side of the debate you weigh in on says a lot about the kind of roles, purposes and capabilities you believe art can fulfill.

Performance artist Jeanne Spicuzza is aware of that tension.

Her multimedia piece, "Naked," which comes to Thai Joe's Lounge at 8:30 p.m. Monday ($3), fuses enough fragments of dance, vocals, poetry and dramatic visuals to make a Laurie Anderson show seem understated. But the bits consistently use humor and focus to keep the production out of the ether.

"One of the more out-there moments has me standing before a screen of my own watercolor paintings reciting poetry, and the paintings are are slowly superimposed onto my body through projectors," Spicuzza said. "But there are other, lighter moments, too. For instance, there's a point in the show where I ponder aloud on the fact that you could basically replace the voice of Steve Perry, the lead singer of Journey, with that of Ethel Merman's.

Spicuzza grew up in Shorewood, spending much of her childhood painting and writing stories and song lyrics. She earned bachelor degrees in philosophy and psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee before entering the M.A. program in the university's philosophy department.

She began performing at poetry and spoken-word performances about five years ago, including clubs in Hollywood while living in L.A. for a short spell last year, and at those in Chicago and Minneapolis before that.

On the local poetry, spoken-word and performance-art scene, Spicuzza's scoped out several in other cities and believes Milwaukee holds its own.

"There are a lot of good writers here who actually have performing talent as well,” said Spicuzza. “They don't go hand in hand; you have to have the subtlety and editing skills of a polished writer but be able to present it with dramatic flair.

"People like Matt Cook, Sean McNally, Jennifer Knox and Jen Benka– they all have crossed over and done it well," she says of other area scribes who work in more than one artistic medium.

Here, Spicuzza often can be seen at Y-Not II, 706 E. Lyons St., during the bar's "poetry slams" every second Wednesday of the month.

Spicuzza has a 12-year-old daughter, Stephanie, who's also caught the performing bug. She has a part in Mom's next project, a filmed performance piece titled "Breath of God."

When Spicuzza has Stephanie at age 17, she thought the event might derail a career in the arts, “but she actually helped me focus on what I wanted to do.”

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