Very Grace

Ever heard of "Ginger Rogers Syndrome"? A talented dancer in the 1930s, partnered with Fred Astaire, she performed the same dance steps, but backwards and in high heels, meaning that if a woman wants to do the same things as a man, she has to put in more effort and commitment.

Some women, however, have managed to escape this logic, determined to follow only their own desires and aptitudes. The book Morgana. Stories of Girls Your Mother Wouldn't Approve, co-written by Michela Murgia and Chiara Tagliaferri, is dedicated to them.

The protagonists are the most diverse: from Saint Catherine of Siena to Moira Orfei, from the Brontë sisters to Marina Abramovic. A chapter is dedicated to Beverly the Firefly, the nickname everyone in the Jamaican town of Spanish Town used for Grace Jones, a rebel from an early age: "I came out of my mother's shoes. I came kicking." Raised by her maternal grandmother and her abusive partner, a fanatical preacher, suffocated by harassing restrictions and forced to recite her prayers with a belt, at just 13 years old Grace sailed alone to America, later making a name for herself as a model and conquering the runways of Paris. And it was here that during a party she leaped onto the table and began to sing with her volcanic voice, exuberant, powerful, and hot as lava.

She quickly made her breakthrough as a singer, first crowned queen of New York's gay clubs and then conquering the top of the world charts with her album Portfolio, in 1977. Confident in her drug use and intolerant of any rules, Grace Jones—write Murgia and Tagliaferri—became "an alien, cybernetic Nefertiti, with her hair shaved at the sides and high in the center" (an outfit she flaunted—as a Bond Girl—in the 1985 film A View to a Kill). In 2002, singing "Pourquoi me réveiller" from Massenet's "Werther" alongside Pavarotti, she stunned "Big Luciano" with her velvety tenor timbre.

Among her greatest hits was her cover of Edith Piaf's "La vie en rose," one of her greatest performances ever. Her song "Slave to the Rhythm" is extremely famous, addressing African-American slavery as well as the exploitation of black artists by the music industry. A career-defining masterpiece is undoubtedly "I've Seen That Face Before," a captivating reinterpretation of Piazzolla's "Libertango," complete with French lyrics and melancholic accordion strokes.

But Grace Jones isn't just a star: she taught women that to get ahead in life, it's not essential to know how to dance backwards in high heels, but to remain master of your own desires, the only guarantee of your individual integrity.

In the introduction to her 2015 biography, "I'll Never Wright My Memories," Grace Jones says: "If you want me, this is me. Not a caricature of me. This is the deep me, the other me, and there are other mes I haven't even been able to conceive yet. But I'll get there. I'll continue to follow the path I left behind to find out where I'm going. I only have one life to work with, and I'll squeeze every last drop out of it before it's over.



Mauro Tabasso
with Valentina Giaresti
NP April 2025