It's been a while since I've done announcements, and these are some random ones, but here are a couple of events I would be going to if I had infinite travel time and money:
The Fresh Fruit Festival in New York (OK, this announcement's a bit late, since the event started on July 10). It's a festival of mostly emerging queer artists and a lot of the performances sound pretty fun, but especially Outsider Dance: Want by Sean Dorsey, who is super-cool. He runs Fresh Meat Productions which puts on a festival of trans performance in San Francisco, and as a dancer he is extremely entertaining and powerful. In the works I've seen, Dorsey combines interesting dance with an engaging personal narrative to make for some fascinating storytelling through movement, music, and voiceover. I highly recommend seeing his work. He's performing on July 22 in New York.
The NOW (New Original Works) Festival at REDCAT. July 20-August 5 in LA. Three weeks of new performances that are bound to be a little bit wacky and weird. I'm definitely going to Program One to see Kristina Wong, who friends have recommended to me many times and who I've only seen so far perform a wacky little piece in a bar. I also hope to see Program 3 because I think John Fleck is an awesome performer and I'd love to see him doing his original work. The people I know who know things about dance say that Program 2 should also be an awesome show because Victoria Marks is super cool. I'm glad that REDCAT is supporting local artists in developing new work.
Femme 2006, August 11-13 in San Francisco. I have some doubts and misgivings about how I fit into this conference, so I didn't apply to present. I'm a little ambivalent about my academic commitment to femmeness, even though I quite enjoy my personal queer femininity. This doesn't appear to be a particularly academic conference, anyway, but the few academic panels there are could be pretty awesome, including one with Gayatri Gopinath whose book is pretty brilliant and who is an excellent speaker. BUT, the reason I'm now thinking about going, even though I had already decided that the conference was a little too touchy-feely and non-academic for me, is the Saturday Night Performance Cabaret. The lineup is fantastic, with several super-fabulous femme burlesque groups, including the Miracle Whips who are LA-based and quite fun. Another LA performer, Darrah de Jour who I've met at local events, will be doing some spoken word. She's as friendly as she is beautiful and I've been wanting to see her perform since I met her. And not all the perfomers are femme. The Transformers are, from all I've heard, a super-fun Bay Area drag/trans performance group who I'd love to see. The conference itself also features its fair share of queer luminaries, including Amber Hollibaugh, Jewelle Gomez, and Del La Grace Volcano taking photos.
I'm not sure I know anyone out there in Colombus, Ohio, but they are presenting the Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival on Sept. 7-16. The lineup is pretty intriguing (Puppet-queers?), but I would be most interested in seeing S. Bear Bergman's new piece. I can also personally vouch for ryka aoki de la cruz's work as beautiful, thoughtful, and intense.
SoCo a GOGO. Friday, Sept. 22 in Atlanta. Performances by fabulous transmen including, Turner Schofield, who I love and recommend at all possible opportunities, and The Athens Boys Choir, who seem totally cute and I really want to see perform one of these days. Also, Turner is looking for a DJ to donate hir services for that evening, so if you happen to know any DJs who like queer folks and will be in Atlanta in late September, please get in touch with him ASAP.
Suffs
-
Having seen its previous version at the Public Theater, I was frankly
flabbergasted that Suffs was transferring to Broadway. But the creative
team did the ...
1 week ago
9 comments:
Hi Violet, I'll be at Femme 2006 (my gf is presenting) and I hope I meet you there! :)
I personally am very disappointed at the low academic content at the conference. There's lots of great stuff on the program and I don't want to underestimate the potential of what's there, but I can't believe there aren't more femme academics out there with something to say. Did they just not send in proposals?
It makes me sad to say it, but when I first reviewed the program I thought, Well, looks like femmes won't be getting out of the ghetto this year... :(
I'm curious: Can you tell us a little more about your "ambivalence about [your]academic commitment to femmeness?"
In terms of my "ambivalence about my academic commitment to femmeness" on the simplest level, it's not what my dissertation's on, so it's not what I'm working on at this particular moment, though I could have gotten together a paper on retro femme performance of style. And, while I do believe that there's got to be a lot to say about femmeness that can be interesting, I find that most discussions that I end up seeing/hearing more or less repeat very similar arguments. While b/f dynamics are something that I very much practice in my personal life, I don't think they've been well theorized since "Towards a Butch/Femme Aesthetic" and that was a long time ago, and even she backtracked to be a little anti-femme (have you read "Towards a Butch/Femme Retro Future? It makes me angry). And to talk about femmeness without talking about butch, while I see how it prevents the conference from being taken over and allows for more community building, seems less interesting somehow to me. I was at the QueerGenders conference in Santa Barbara a couple years ago, which ended up being mostly about femme and trans identities, but even that, I think, opens up a broader dialogue. Nothing in the femme conversation that I've seen/read as of yet has made me really want to jump into the dialogue about femmeness, which, I suppose, is a good enough reason to attend the conference and give it a chance. We'll see how my dissertation is going at the time, I suppose. If I do make it, I look forward to meeting you.
VVxn
Oh, and the thing that really makes me angry about the femme conference is that you've got 2 well known femme academics (Laura Harris, Gayatri Gopinath) and you schedule them opposite each other? At 9am? What were these people thinking? Those are the 2 panels I'm most interested in going to and they're competing. Grrr.
VVxn, thanks for the response. Perhaps I met you at the QueerGenders conf. in Santa Barbara, cuz I was there. :) Were you presenting? I had some work in the visual art show.
"Nothing in the femme conversation that I've seen/read as of yet has made me really want to jump into the dialogue about femmeness, which, I suppose, is a good enough reason to attend the conference and give it a chance."
I keep feeling that it's all there and just awaiting a certain spark, and yet it never seems to ignite. I'm a butch (or butch-like, lol), so that spark can't come from me. But being a person of action, I feel like just lighting that match and shouting, Yoo-HOO! Is anybody there, or not?!
So maybe I'm just dreaming, and there really isn't "anything there." That would disappoint me sorely.
On the other hand: "...to talk about femmeness without talking about butch, while I see how it prevents the conference from being taken over and allows for more community building, seems less interesting somehow to me."
I'm with you, but also in the other direction: I'm not that interested in talking about butch without talking about femme, too. My own focus these days is less and less on individual identity and more on identity in relationship.
Yes I rather suspect we have met at some point. I was definitely using an ad for your work/website as a bookmark for a while (no offense, I hope, it was lovely to have a little bit of art with me when I was working). I did indeed give an awkward little paper that was still in progress at QueerGenders.
"My own focus these days is less and less on individual identity and more on identity in relationship."
Yes, but that's a dangerous path, too, because an identity that's most visible and dynamic in relationship runs the risk of being lost outside of one. As a single femme, who spends more time with gay men than other queer women, I'm almost never read as queer until I talk about it, It is important to also think about how femme stands alone, resists invisibility, etc. And talking about identities in relationship often leads me to talking about personal relationships and personal experiences, which aren't necessarily academically productive. Can we and would we want to talk about femme identity without talking about dating?
"So maybe I'm just dreaming, and there really isn't 'anything there.' That would disappoint me sorely."
That's awfully defeatist. There's certainly something to be said, the question is just whether or not it's going to be achieved in this context, in this format. Someone out there will spark an exciting dialogue at some point, but I'm not so sure it's here and now. And saying something inflammatory and letting others run with it is not a bad strategy at all. Of course, there are ways you can say it and ways that it is not productive to do so, but in general, just because you're not femme doesn't mean you can't throw ideas and questions out there. I have a lot to say in response to your one sentence question, "Can you tell us a little more about your 'ambivalence about [your]academic commitment to femmeness?'" (I'll have to post more thoughts one of these days). So, throw it out there. Here in the comments, on your own blog, in conversations, at the conference, wherever. What do you want me to be thinking about? Where do you find the dialogue unsatisfying? What direction do you want to see it going?
My field, and thus my arguments, are framed in terms of performance and especially performance of retro styles, so I'm particularly curious about this surge of queer femme burlesque, particularly in comparison to drag performances and/or trans performances. My questions in general revolve around what it means to perform a historical masculinity or femininity as opposed to a more contemporary style. While femmeness isn't the focus of this work, it is at least adjacent and relevant.
Those are just some disjointed thoughts.
"I was definitely using an ad for your work/website as a bookmark for a while (no offense, I hope, it was lovely to have a little bit of art with me when I was working)."
That makes me very happy! And you have my special permission to do that anytime you want. *s*
I have LOTS to say in response to your other points but it's going to have to wait for the moment, got some fires that I gotta attend to right now, arghh...
At Femme 2006, you can also check out Rachel Lewis's paper on "Smack My Bitch Up" as part of the "Femmes in Pop Culture" panel (8/13 at 1:30 pm). She's a lovely femme Cornell grad student of Judith Peraino's who graciously hosted me when I was checking out Cornell last year. Her paper is a best bet for thoughtful and intelligent theorizations of femme-ness.
i would so be at that conference, except i'm going to be camping in the backwoods of Michigan with a bunch of hot trannies. oh well.
Violet Vixen,
Hi cutie! I just read your delicious comments, and I'm so honored! Please let me know where we've met, and also, if you are on MySpace, friend me! (www.myspace.com/darrahdejour)
Have you had a chance to read my column "Femme in the City"? It's available at: www.dotnewsmagazine.com/la5.htm
I appreciate your gorgeousness, and I hope to see you soon. There are a few fun events coming up in my life, so keep me noted on yours and I'll show you mine.
Good luck with your dissertation!
P.S. Jackadandy made some fantastic comments at the workshop "Femme Allies." Her Femme is greatly worshipped, I do believe. Will you be going to her art show in Joshua Tree?
With love,
Darrah
Post a Comment