Ladyfest runs from Sept 27 to 30, 2007

 Lapse, L’étreinte, This is not synchronized swimming, Syncope) were presented at Ladyfest Toronto.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28

Venue: The Boat, 9pm, 19+
$5-10 sliding scale

Featuring musical performances by:
Masia One
Climbing PoeTree (from Brooklyn, NY)
Nolan Natasha Pike (of Scandalnavia)
Hibou

Venue: Brunswick Theatre, 7pm, ALL AGES
$5-10 sliding scale

Featuring a collection of short films by:
Micheline Durocher
Kim Kielhofner
Cara Spooner
Allie Caldwell

Sidrah Laldin
Freeshow Seymour: the films of Allyson Mitchell and Christina Zeidler

Julie Doiron performing at Ladyfest – Tranzac – in Toronto, september 27, 2007

“Invented in Olympia, WA, in 2000, ladyfest was meant to be a festival but in a very short time grew to be a movement. All over the world, in Jakarta, Warsaw, Houston, Leipzig, Timisoara and Newcastle upon Tyne, ladiezzz are celebrating, holding workshops and making music around the vague issue of being queer—by their own definitions. While posters in the city of Budapest are asking, “Do you find solidarity among women a great thing?” ladiezzz in Vancouver say it less discreetly: “Fuck your gender!” they suggest on their leaflets, and that’s exactly what ladyfest intends to do.

Ladyfest wants to establish temporary and continuous spaces for a radical feminist culture that can no longer fit into the grrrls identity that was taken over by a capitalist market a long time ago. We are not cute, we are queer—and if anybody determines categories for our identities, it’s us.

That’s how the lady entered the ’90s stage. But still the motto of the riot grrrls’ movement hasn’t lost any of its validity: Don’t fall in love with the guitarist, be the guitarist.

 

Ladyfest 2007

Ladyfest is open for all those interested does not mean that we do without exclusions. There is, on the contrary, a clear policy of exclusion against racism, hetero-sexism, anti-semitism, and nationalism.

The festivals create a space where the ladyfest society can be tested for real life. A space where we can learn to move away from transphobia and heteronormativity, and on occasion to take an ironic look at our own prejudices about identity.

Ladyfest is nothing you can define in a handful of poetic lines. Ladyfest is a work in progress, taking queer culture into our everyday lives.”

Lisa Bolyos wrote this article as part of Liberate Your Space, the Winter 2008 issue of YES! Magazine. Lisa is a photographer, anti-racist and feminist activist. She lives, works, and is active mainly in Vienna and Berlin.