My heart was pounding, my ears were ringing, and my nerves were shot. Since I kicked alcohol to the curb some time ago, I had no escape from all of those pre-performance jitters that I was stewing in; and as a socially awkward, over-achieving, anxious perfectionist, that was HARD. Really hard. I can’t count the number of times I paced up and down the stairs of the theater house finding random nonsense to busy my hands with.
Daughter of Woman wasn’t my first run of Ms. J’s Classroom, but this edition felt particularly significant. The 1920s costume party that I hosted for my 35th birthday doubled as a curated learning experience that aimed to resurrect the energy of the First Mother and of the Divine Feminine. I put every ounce of my soul into crafting the classroom of my dreams – intuitive art, educational entertainment, and inspiring activism – hoping to create a memorable and empowering experience for my audience. For this engagement, I revealed my weird quirks and idiosyncrasies all at once… on purpose… and publicly to a room full of people who had never seen this version of me. I married my imagination, inspirations, and intellect to play a role that I’ve always performed: teacher, but this time, I invoked a personality that I had only recently learned to truly embody, “Ms. J.”
Ms. J’s Classroom is a creative lab for freedom-based art + education + activism.
I’ve played school since I was two, and have been a career educator since I was twenty-two, but it wasn’t until December 2018, when I filmed my first visual journal that I became my truest teacher self. Ms. J, the time-traveling, costume-wearing, character-morphing, free-spirited creative that hid inside of me for so long, finally found her freedom. A couple of months later, in March 2019, I (unknowingly) launched my first pilot of Ms. J’s Classroom. By way of a solo exhibition at the Place at Tyler that I called “Divine Design: Rebirth of J LeShae,” I revealed my freshly freed Ms Frizzle identity to an intimate circle of friends and family.
It is my hope that Ms. J’s Classroom will inspire us to revolutionize education and more intentionally encourage radical imagination and freedom-dreaming. I sincerely believe that our liberation depends on it.
Visit msjsclassroom.com to learn more about this creative movement, and stay up to date on Instagram @ms.js.classroom.
project: ms. j’s classroom//creative executive director: j leshaé
creative director: j leshaé
i am who i’ve always been
My heart was pounding, my ears were ringing, and my nerves were shot. Since I kicked alcohol to the curb some time ago, I had no escape from all of those pre-performance jitters that I was stewing in; and as a socially awkward, over-achieving, anxious perfectionist, that was HARD. Really hard. I can’t count the number of times I paced up and down the stairs of the theater house finding random nonsense to busy my hands with.
Photographer: Krystal Rene, 2020. jleshae.com