Rose Wood Performance Artist

Rose Wood (born 1957) is an American transgender performance artist popularly referred to as the “Gender Terrorist” and “The Queen of Filth.” She is notoriously known for her extreme physical acts intentionally created to strike an emotional nerve with audiences. Wood’s work addresses subjects such as variant gender identities, societal constructs, under represented individuals and personal human struggles that are usually hidden but universal. She has been the headliner for The Box, an exclusive “Theatre of Varieties” in both New York City (2007) and London (2011) venues for the past 11 years. She frequently performs internationally.

Life and Work

Born Jon Moskowitz in Somerville, New Jersey, Wood moved to Manhattan to attend NYU as a math major soon switching to the art department. After college she trained in calligraphy, book binding and wood refinishing eventually opening her own antique furniture restoration business.

In the mid 1990’s Wood performed in trans prostitute bars as a platform dancer and stripper. Through a friend she met the legendary Neo-burlesque performer Dirty Martini who helped Wood craft a classic strip tease as a tribute to Vicki Lynne. In need of a stage name she took the name Rose Wood which combined her performance life with her day job as a furniture restorer.  

Within the neo burlesque milieu Wood created what is now known as her signature number, The Bottle Act, which incorporates many of the elements that continue to make a Rose Wood performance so compelling.  In this number Wood presents as a hardened truck stop gal in Daisy Dukes and a fringed t-shirt wearing prosthetic breasts. The audience is immediately brought into physical contact as Wood takes a long pull of Jack Daniels, makes direct eye contact with them and sprays it in their direction.  She proceeds unenthusiastically and with a heavy dose of ire to perform a classic strip tease and reveal number to Muddy Water’s “I’m a Man.” She deposits her dirty panties on the head of a nearby audience member and empties a condom on another. The full frontal reveal of Wood’s genitals opens up the idea of gender ambiguity. "She poignantly illustrates how a man is capable of all the same affectations of a woman — that what is holding us back from accepting this is our own deep-rooted conventions." The anal gymnastics needed for the finale is what sets her apart from other performers.

As venues began to close and audiences of the neo-burlesque became more mainstream Wood continued to explore deeper subjects and her acts became more extreme. When The Box opened in 2007, Wood found a venue that supported her new work and offered a direct relationship to the audience. As Simon Hammerstein the owner of The Box states, the venue was constructed to “break down the barriers…it’s a club where tomorrow’s hangover comes with a lot of “big” cultural-studies questions.”

Wood’s initial transition from MTF in 2009, undergoing breast implants sans bottom surgery has been widely documented by filmmakers and photographers in particular.  Her mixed gender body is used as the bare bones of a costume for the character portrayed. Asked how her performance style came about, Wood answers “The place I find that I can connect with people is the body. The body with its beautiful and horrible elements is a playing field where the mind and heart act themselves out. It's the mind and heart that render the body vulnerable, strong, filthy, addicted, exalted, etc. I like to use the body to show that emotional truth is far more revealing than nudity. “ Wood believes an immersive audience experience is key to her performances “Almost nightly someone will acknowledge I’ve touched something vital in them. It changes people’s perspective on what the other is.”

Attracting the attention of club goers, performance lovers and academics alike, a Rose Wood performance is a complex tale told through a fully cultivated character, and a concise narrative arc with a beginning middle and end. Frequently using her orifices, she addresses “transgressive acts of sex and violence frequently, including penetration, dismemberment and bodily fluids of every kind.” Often sharing directly with the audience.

As Ben Walters writes “To the observant rather than prurient eye, even ostensibly outrageous acts open up plenty of conceptually fertile territory”and Joe Jeffrey notes that Wood’s “body of work demands that the spectator look at it in a way that sees artistic and critical possibilities other than stupefied shock or revulsion.”

Media

Wood’s interaction with famous celebrity audience members has been widely reported. Most famously empting condoms on Leonardo di Caprio and vomiting on Susan Sarandon

Activism

From 1988 – 2006 Wood ran an AIDS awareness outreach organization and established One Foundation, teaching an at risk population a trade through her furniture restoration business.

Awards

Maguey Icon Queer Award, Guadalajara, Mexico 2018

Filmography

Title	Year	Role	Director
Shape of the Shapeless	2010	Herself	Jayan K. Cherian
What’s in a Name	2011	Herself	Eva Kupper
Style Portrait: Rose in London	2012	Herself	Himmelich Studio
Exposed	2013	Herself	Beth B
Miss Rosewood	2017	Herself	Helle Jensen

Rose Wood Performance Artist

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