about me | Eris DeJarnett

Three photos of Eris smiling. In all three, they are wearing a blue dress, shiny blue lipstick, pink and purple eyeshadow, white eyeliner, and some kind of smile or smirk. Their hair is a faded blue, verging on blond in some spots.

On Identity (specifically, mine)

I’m coming out. Hi. It’s me.

[Hi there! I still love this post, because it captures a very specific snapshot of how much of myself I was willing to share with the world when I wrote it. However, it remains here for archival use only! Parts of this aren’t complete or accurate anymore—or they never quite were, but they were the closest I could comfortably get to actually telling the truth at the time. “Woman” isn’t part of how I talk about my gender at all anymore, and I’ve added some words like agenderflux and gendervague to my list of applicable identity terms. For a full, always-current list of terms and pronouns to use for me, please always refer to my FAQ page. Thanks!]

[Oh, and if you’re here because a troll sent you, thanks for the hate clicks. Fuck you.]

I have tried to write this post three times already.

On the one hand, it could have taken a lot longer to figure these words out—identity is a tricky thing—but on the other hand, most of my blogs have a single iteration. Drafts, sure, but throwing out a whole post and doing it again? Almost never.

I have tried to write this post three times. Enough to know that no amount of smooth introduction is going to do anything useful for me.

So, hi.

My name is [Eris] DeJarnett. Some of you already know me and love (/fear?) me. I’m a lot of things, and I could list them here, but today I’m just going to mention the ones that aren’t dependent on my art or my career: I’m a demigray genderfluid [nonbinary person] ~~woman~~, but usually I just say I’m queer.

[I’m also pan, because of how my demisexuality informs the rest of my attraction; I hadn’t named that when I came out, so I’ve updated this to reflect this current reality. Like the rest of this, that isn’t particularly new, just a continuing discovery of more accurate terminology.]

Remember the end of Untouchable? When I said things were more complicated now? This is why. Because now, we’re not talking about sexism aimed at straight, cisgender women. (We haven’t really been for awhile, if you look closely—I’ve been sprinkling in more things over time—but I’m not going to keep pretending being assigned female at birth is the only part of the equation that applies to me.) Actually, the original version of Untouchable (which I lovingly called 5700) was going to dive into some of this. The post was going to end with me coming out. It was going to be an even bigger piece than it already was. Thankfully, one of my confidants on my review team pointed out that I owed my identity more than that. (thanks, Leila!)

Young Lions (and things I’ll never be)

On the “young lions” of the Phoenix jazz scene and how we talk about ensembles with certain gender balances.

Though as a professional musician who’s friends with other professional musicians, I live my life in a deluge of Facebook event invitations, I do try to take the time to read through most of them so I know who’s playing and what’s happening. A recent one caught my eye: “We have chosen Michael Kocour to give voice to some of the ‘young lions’ of the Phoenix jazz scene . . .” The description was apt—the lineup was full of folks who are skilled and particularly roar-inclined—but “young lions” made me pause. First, because it shouldn’t be in quotes if you really want to sell it, and second, because it’s one of those terms I instinctively know would never be ascribed to me as a default.

This morning, I wandered into our office (which, despite its stated purpose, is not where I do most of my work) and mused about this to my partner. “You’d be a young lioness,” he reassured me, but I was having none of it.

“Lead the Change,” Emotional Labor, and Research

Once upon a time, I accidentally opened up a Title IX investigation. “Lead the change,” a professor told me. Hang onto your hats; it gets weirder.

Once upon a time, as an undergrad, I accidentally opened up a Title IX investigation. (Yes, that is absolutely a ridiculous sentence, but it’s true.) I didn’t mean to, but no one had ever told me that “I can’t tell if they’re being sexist assholes or just assholes” was enough to accelerate an issue. So the contents of that conversation went up to Title IX, but the office never followed up. The effort I’d made to highlight the issues at hand completely evaporated, caught between higher admin who evidently decided it wasn’t a priority and faculty who never checked back to hear if anything came of it.

In the aftermath of those moments, though, I remember a comment from a faculty member that’s continually drilled itself into my brain: “You could lead the change.” It was said in earnest, with the feeling like this marked a door opening, a path forward through all the bullshit. And twenty-year-old me probably wanted to believe it was. Lord knows I spend entirely too much time contemplating where, or if, I fit within the greater Phoenix musical community. The thing is, even though I know all the way down to the bottom of my heart the idea was presented with wholly good intentions, it’s become a bit of an unwanted pest.

A sliver of road occupies the foreground, but the focus is a vast Southwestern sunrise. The landscape is dotted with desert shrubs, and layers of mountains are silhouetted against a brilliant orange and yellow sky.

Okay, Phoenix, Let’s Tango

I’m back in Phoenix, and I’m here to stay for awhile. As I’m getting settled back in, let’s talk a little about where I’m at with that.

Sometimes it feels like I, a person with a 408 area code, was always destined for the 480. The universe likes playing tricks, so it’s not a completely unreasonable suspicion. That said, as many of my AZ-native friends understand, I left, and I didn’t really expect to be back. In fact, if you asked me a year ago if I ever thought I’d live and work in Phoenix again, the answer would have been a vehement no.

On the flip side, when your partner gets the opportunity to study with one of the best trombone teachers in the country, you take it. (Dr. E, I don’t think you’re reading this, but if you are, hi!) As a Sun Devil alum, I’m thrilled my partner and I will both have degrees from ASU (and CalArts . . . but in opposite orders). As someone with a handful of friends I’ve missed desperately, I’m looking forward to reconnecting. But as someone who took some very bad moments and memories with me when I left the desert, as someone who realizes the reasons I was so frequently brushed over and passed by are myriad and gendered, I am . . . less excited.

Thank You, Los Angeles

Phoenix may be home for now, but LA, you have my heart.

Thank you, Los Angeles.

I arrived in town two years ago as a twenty-one-year-old tornado of a human being. I was enraged, confused, and searching for something I hadn’t yet learned to name. I’d spent four years honing one craft after being told I didn’t have the work ethic for the other. I’d realized it mattered to me what my art said to the world, and I was looking for people to help me articulate and realize it.

It’s a little more than that, though, too. When I arrived, I just wanted not to be the girl everyone looked at and brushed aside; as I leave, I know I’ve become a force that’s much more difficult to ignore.

Two years later, I’m leaving—I know, I know, not what I would’ve expected either—without all the answers I was looking for, but with new ideas of how to approach my creative life. Some of the lessons I learned are maybe a little backward; for instance, the city where saying no to the wrong gig can mean no calls for six months taught me it’s okay to pick and choose so you put most of your energy toward the projects you value most. The town I came into with the intention of putting jazz (mostly) behind me gave me the tools to re-approach the genre on my own terms.

Critique Doesn’t Land Without a Lot of Background Reading (so here’s a list)

The last two posts I’ve put out went a little bit viral. I’m not good at following up after stuff like that, so here’s a little bit about activism and research.

As I sat down to draft this week’s blog post, I found myself at a bit of a loss. What could I possibly write, I wondered, that could follow what I’ve put out in the last two weeks? See, I never plan for my writing to reach very far beyond my own circle of friends, family, and fellow artists. When it does, that’s exceptional, but I’m always left with the same question: what do I write about now? Because as much as I love drum corps, this isn’t about to turn into an all-DCI blog. I’m still going to write about every genre of music and performance as it intersects with my creative practice and my identity. But what do I write to follow something so big?

The answer, I think, is something small. This week, friends, we’re not challenging major institutions and their power structures. We aren’t talking about Title IX or Phantom Regiment or schools who ignore sexual, physical, and emotional abuse of students by their private teachers. This week, we’re looking inward at ourselves. And a lot of times, that’s scarier, because we are inherently imperfect humans. We’ve all hurt people to extents we may not fully realize. But we don’t grow as a community unless every single one of us is doing this work, so it’s time to be brave.

Dancing Saves My Life

I’m a musician, but before I started on my first instrument, I was a dancer. And dancing saves my life.

I’m a musician, but before I started on my first instrument, I was a dancer.

Admittedly, I was (and sometimes still am) a clumsy one. I move across the floor slowly and imperfectly. My body aches more than it did when I was three or seven or thirteen or eighteen. I can’t touch my toes to the back of my head like I used to. I spend more of my time in a practice room or in front of a computer than I can afford to spend in a studio.

I’m a musician, but dancing saves my life.

I’m Launching a Patreon!

What the heck is a Patreon page? What am I going to do with mine? Let’s dive into it.

Hello, friends!

I’ve been sitting on these plans for months now, and I’m so excited to finally share them with you. Over the past year, I’ve been floored by the willingness of friends, family, peers, colleagues, and near-strangers to support my art in all its different forms. That support, whether emotional, financial, or professional, has enabled me to reach new heights and produce work I couldn’t even have conceptualized not so long ago. In just two years, I’ve put out a significant amount of work about sexual assault and rape culture. My understanding and use of extended techniques has grown, but I still enjoy mixing them in with more “normal” sounds for a new blend of timbres. I’m braver and more authentic as a performer and artist. I’m so proud of how far I’ve come during my MFA, and even though I know this is just the beginning, it’s a little crazy to believe it’s even real.

As I leave academia (at least, the student side of things) and start bringing my artmaking practices fully into the professional sphere, I’m looking for ways to not only ensure I keep creating new work but get it into the hands and headphones of people who might not always be able to see it performed live. I’ll be rolling these out as they wink into existence, and the first platform I’m adding to my creative portfolio is my Patreon page.

that girl onstage isn’t me

TW: sexual assault. Tomorrow night, I take the stage to bare a piece of my soul. But that girl onstage isn’t me.

Tomorrow night, I take the stage to bare a piece of my soul.

Mine, and a thousand others’.

Tomorrow night, I take the stage with a little fire in my feet and a spark in my eyes and I bring the world into a story I might’ve told a hundred times by now. I bring the world in, and I shut myself out.

You see, that girl onstage isn’t me.

Sure, she wears my face and laughs and cries like I do. She carries with her the same sense of wonder, the same reactions to old wounds made new again. She lives a story that is rich and complex and devoid of the words I’d choose to write for myself. Her experiences shape her, ever so subtly, in different ways than mine shape me. Sometimes they look the same, outwardly—she falls to the floor at all the same times that I probably would—but her motivations, her qualms, her relationship with herself is dramatically different.

Shop’s Open: I’m Accepting Commissions for 2019 and 2020

I’m opening my commissions calendar again. Check out my recent work below and consider adding a new piece to your repertoire in the coming year.

As 2018 comes to a close, I’m spending time reflecting on some of my professional endeavors from the past year. Among the greatest joys in my musical year has been getting so many opportunities to create new works for performers and ensembles who want to add something new to their repertoire. Just this past year, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a slew of folks in three different time zones. Each collaboration has been incredibly rewarding for me, and I’m pleased to announce I’m now accepting commissions for 2019 and 2020.

Tag: about me