Cymbeline, a play directed by our friend Kanika Clayton is on at the Garage Theatre, 22 Gordon Street, London, for three nights starting tomorrow (10, 11, 12th of December). Tickets are £3, on sale from 7pm on the night of the performance.
Cymbeline is one of Shakespeare's lesser known plays, and Kanika says it "sits somewhere between tragedy and comedy, drawing a thin line between the sinister and the absurd". Kanika has worked on it very hard since the beginning of summer, and from what we saw and heard so far it should be amazing. Kanika's friend Ellie Westgarth-Flynn also composed original score for the play (!), and will be performing it live (!!).
Shattered is an exhibition of six-foot-high vases (or ‘sic foor hight vaess’, as I just attempted to type. I’m pretty tired today, sorry. Also, hello, I’m Nadine. Hi), that have been pushed over, attacked with a motorised saw, detonated in ‘controlled explosions’, had concrete dropped on to them, and then been reconstituted with almost invisible filler but gloriously stark jagged edges, glaring gaps, and a delicately warped, leaning effect.
It is an exploration of domestic violence, virginity culture, representations of the female body, Iran, and Green Lanes, which also uses smaller, unsmashed dishes, and video on the Iranian way to eat a pomegranate to highlight the smaller cultural differences and broader cultural similarities (that hydra-headed sexual double standard) between Esfahan and North London.
One smashed vase depicts female faces and bodies in a style reminiscent of Matisse’s Dance, but the eponymous shattered form of the portraits renders rather ambiguous the joyous-seeming dancing women. Another is written all across the exposed inside with the narratives of Iranian and British survivors of sexual violence. The fragmented writing looks like a rosetta stone.
The works also feature gold-embossed birds in the style of a medieval tapestry, almost, detailed representation of elaborate rugs in the background of domestic scenes, and much depiction of women in a manner that recalls both Marjane Satrapi and Posy Simmonds, not as victims or types or heroines but individuals.
The size and the shattered form of the vases evokes the rather arbitrary generic distinction between sculpture and ceramics, a distinction that is so crashingly gendered it seems almost too painfully obvious to mention. Next: gathering, as good as hunting!
The artist, Claudia Clare, who in the interests of full disclosure I should really mention is my aunt, blogs at 'The C Word', which we've linked to at the side. The exhibition is at Hornsey Library until Friday.
Film screening series inauguration at Espai Motel. The entrance is so small and un-neoned I miss it the first time and bike around cursing for a good 10 minutes. When I'm at a point of examining every door and checking whether there's some secret entrance, I realize there's an opening in the seemingly plain white wall, and rows of chairs inside. There's only three people there, and a bunch of leaflets, but none relating to this film cycle or the show going on tonight. If I didn't get a tip about this happening through friends of a friend, there's no way in hell I could have found out about it by chance. Half past eight there's ten people, including me and the people who work here. The place has a vibe of a everyone-knows-each-other hangout. They're selling beer at the tiny bar, and possibly crisps, but someone could have just brought these along. As an alien, solitary viewer, I sit and scribble waiting for the movie. One whole wall is a blackboard, and there's coloured chalk on the side. Animal Collective is playing and there's a two-headed dinosaur figure on the woodenbox-table next to me. First two rows are old, big, red leather armchairs. A reddish light is on, and people are sitting on the floor at the very front. A beer bottle falls off a ladder and smashes on the floor. The projector has to be taped to cast an even image on the wall. Only with its light illuminating the ceiling, I notice it is covered in massive egg containers.
La ciénaga (The Swamp) by Lucrecia Martel is the first of four films in the series Mujeres tras la cámara (Women behind the camera). Sergio Morera, one of the people behind the cineclub, says he chose this movie because he liked it, and because it was very straightforward, but also powerful in its simplicity. Introducing the movie he points out its incredible sensitivity to sound, and indeed, the film is filled with sounds in a way that brings to mind Lisbon Story - I kept imagining how massive their sound recording device had to be, possibly the biggest presence on set. The dialogue is hyperrealistic, and a bit hard to understand even for native Peninsular Spanish speakers - the film is set in Argentina, and follows a story of a family in a confusing succession of images and conversations. Women are present onscreen almost throughout the entire movie, as the family revolves mainly around them. There's not really a reference to any time, political event, or anything that would help to place the story, which renders it even more unreal, or perhaps magically real, set in a mythical village right outside your big city. The most pervasive presence, however, is that of water - and for the most part, dirty water, like in a swamp. All kinds of water sounds are also beautifully recorded, so it's just as interesting to listen as it is to watch, and discover the sonic differences between torrential rain, dirty swimming pool, wine poured in a glass, a running shower, tap, etc. The film had an international release, so it's probably not impossible to find, and you can see the trailer here. It was good.
The real deal though comes after the screening - Your Kid Sister and the Wolfgang Orchestra play a set of all their four songs, and repeat one for the encore. They're two girls wearing animal ears/hats (and for one song, also sunglasses) who, playing only accordion and xylophone, manage to sound like a captivating cross between CocoRosie, Regina Spektor, and Beirut. The songs are beautiful, and perfectly rehearsed - and all that increases my utter, utter surprise and disbelief when I find out, talking to them after the show, that they are exchange students in Barcelona, and only played one show before. Maia Vidal, aka Your Kid Sister, recorded the four songs last summer in Montreal, and was then asked to play a gig at an experimental music festival in France, so asked her friend Risa to learn xylophone (which she did in two weeks) and join her as the Wolfgang Orchestra. Disappointed with the study abroad program at University of Barcelona (something I empathize with very much), or, as Maia puts it, being spoiled by art school in Montreal, the two decided to relegate classes to secondary importance and get as many gigs as possible before Risa goes home after the end of this semester. Talk about a great, great way of spending a year (or semester) abroad! I wonder how many exchange/Erasmus students can say they spent their time abroad developing a new musical project, finding venues, and playing gigs! (Not to mention how many people record slick EPs over summer on their computers.) I was so impressed and overwhelmed by their songs + niceness and friendliness + rendered speechless by the fact that it was all so fresh and unestablished yet sounded super smooth and tight that I entirely forgot to ask what Maia's influences were, and why she called herself Your Kid Sister. The unprofessional non-journalist that I am, I didn't check her MySpace prior to the gig: an answer of sorts to both these questions lies right there: The character that was created is a (duh) younger sister who, having found your Rancid records, dragged them into her room and learned to sing along. As you can tell, she never understood that Punk was a movement, a state of mind, or that she was doing it all wrong (...) she literally expected the wolves to come after listening to the Rancid album "And out come the wolves". So Your Kid Sister's Poison is Rancid's Poison reworked as a heartbreaking accordion tune, and the album "I waited but the wolves never came" is both an homage to my favorite punk band of all time and an indulgence into sweet, quilted, experience of childhood and melody (...) It's conceptual! It's kitsch! It's satire! Yay! Punk - you're doing it so wrong it's fantastically right. Please check Your Kid Sister out: www.myspace.com/yourkidsister; she is bound to outgrow her older siblings. (Plus she gave me a hug.)
DrunkenWerewolf is a music blog and printed magazine ran by Tiffany Daniels, who in the user info for the blog says:
"My name is Tiffany Daniels. Yes readers, that means I'm female.
Originally I didn't want to list any personal details here at all (I don't see why, when it comes to honest music recommendations, I should) but it's become necessary, because it sincerely annoys me when: i) People assume I'm male. ii) People realise I'm female and consequently assume DrunkenWerewolf's male writers are behind the wheel, and I'm some sort of scivvy, or, people realise I'm female and consequently assume I'm a lesbian. iii) I only cover musicians because I have an ulterior motive.
None of the above is true. I started writing because I'm shit at playing music myself. As the ever quoted Kurt Cobain once claimed, "All music journalists are failed musicians". I cover under-exposed innovative artists because I genuinely believe they deserve more credit for what they're doing, and without blowing my own trumpet too hard I put a lot of effort into it. Certainly, the majority of the effort put into the magazine and this blog is my own. This does not mean I want to shag so-and-so or network to get myself a decent job. It simply means, I, a female, want to show support for the music that I love."
The project is incredible in its DIY ethic and self-funding, focus on local and unsigned/unhyped artists, open approach to collaborations, and an insistence on printing each issue, because "print >>> pdf". After it sells out, each issue is put up online for free: check them out here. And/or order the newest issue. Both can also be done from the magazine's MySpace.
Feminism has extended its empowering hand and had an evening of sexist-related rage collide with Women's Enterprise Day. It's motivated me to do something about the sexism women face in the workplace, particularly in the media and music industry. I really think Joe Public associate sexist issues in the music industry with female musicians and female musicians alone; they don't appreciate the problem extends to the every day worker. Please shout about it with me! Repost this to your blog, journal, website, Twitter, MySpace, FaceBook etc...I want as many women involved as possible. To celebrate the women who work behind the scenes in the media and music industry, I'm going to compile a one-off fanzine with a view to organise related events in the future. If you're a writer, editor, promoter, illustrator, designer, fan, manager, PA or PR...anything, so long as you care about and contribute to the media and music industry, please contact me on drunkenwerewolf@hotmail.co.uk."
This ties in very well with the Riot Grrrlvideos I mentioned in the previous post, but focuses the attention on music journalists. Music business is infamous for an extremely exclusive attitude towards women, and there's not nearly enough reaction to that kind of treatment. From my personal experience as a former radio dj, former zine co-editor and designer, and current concert-goer, record shop visitor, and music fan, I can say that doing anything with music is very gendered. And as a woman you are expected to know less, have inferior taste, and a less serious approach to everything. The zine I was co-editing and designing was published by UCLU Live Music Society, whose president was surprised to see me at one of the society's meetings, failed to recognize me as a valid important member, and instead, asked me patronizingly if I, too, was interested in music. Then he proceeded to undermine any suggestion I made, especially if it was critical, and exclude me from any decision making or discussion. I was the only female present, of course, and I left the meeting with a firm intent to stick to my own business and never again try to influence what was to be done under the greater scope of the society. Unfortunately, similar things frequently happen in casual conversations about music. A lot of my male friends who have a serious interest in music tend to talk about it only with other males and address them specifically, even if women are present during the conversation, and they have an interest in music as well. It's considered "a man's thing" to the extent that many of my female friends, discouraged by this exclusive dynamic created by their friends and boyfriends, have stopped trying to express their point of view and participate in the male-dominated discussions. That often also means they have become convinced they don't know anything about music, that their opinion doesn't matter, and their tastes are irrelevant. It makes me furious, it makes me sad.
But thankfully, not all women are like that. My friend Kate Ross is a bright example that women can hold a strong and serious interest in music, and execute it with brilliance. Kate co-hosts a radio show on Rare FM, every Sunday at 8PM GMT (9PM CET), has interned for Mojo magazine, and I dearly hope will become a professional music journalist following her graduation. She has an unparalleled knowledge, especially of anything related to the 70s punk scene, a dedicated and vivid interest in many genres of music, respect and recognition for unsigned/local artists, and an attitude that lets her express her opinions confidently and defend them, no matter how many self-important male wannabe-music experts are involved. A woman to admire, an example to follow!
If you have any thoughts on women in the media/music industry, let DrunkenWerewolf know, and spread the word about their request. Comments to this post are also greatly appreciated!
ps. There is an ace event going on in Espai Motel in Barcelona tonight - an inauguration of a film cycle dedicated to women. First screening: La ciénaga by Lucrecia Martel, and a gig by Your Kid Sister. A blog post will follow.
Nadine and I had had an idea of making a zine already two years ago. Then it turned into a blog idea but for various reasons never came into fruition, and our two year's worth of feminist rants and discoveries went unpublished and undocumented. In the beginning of this week I saw some movies that convinced me I should have a higher motivation/purpose in life, and then thanks to someone's helpful suggestion I watched a documentary on Riot Grrrl on YouTube (Experience Music Project's Riot Grrrl Retrospective; all 11 links to the YouTube clips in the Jezebel article). As an effect of these seemingly random factors, I decided to revive Women, Fire and Dangerous Things, and make it a good goal and purpose to promote all kinds of female activity. In the documentary, Layla Gibbons says of how she first formed her band: "We were like, OK, let's just do a band, and it doesn't matter if we're like, not any good or if we make mistakes, let's just do it cause otherwise we're never going to be bold enough to get on stage, and it's important that we represent ourselves." I felt like that was true for this project too - if we don't start now, we might not ever, and so what it might not be perfect, but at least it will be there, we will have something to believe in and care about.
The idea also came together in my head because of my thesis on feminist uses of image and word, for which I'm doing research this year in Barcelona. I'm finding quite a lot of female artists, though not loads that fit my criteria of using both images and words, and it seems a bit of a shame to leave them out completely. As I won't be able to fit too many into my thesis, I thought this project could resolve this, and all sort of female activity, regardless of specifics, could be celebrated.
There's another quote on the blog, stating that "We're not anti-boy, we're pro-girl." I thought it explained well that though feminism may have a lot to do with opposing to patriarchy, it is not, as is widely presumed, an attack on everything with a penis. However, to oppose another stereotype, I think women are still very often undermined in a lot of professions, the world is still male-dominated, and women are under a lot of pressure to conform to traditional roles, accept double standards, and suffer discrimination. And I don't mean in Islamic countries, I mean everywhere. I'm reading a book on women graffiti artists now, and one girl talks about her experience of trying to establish herself as one: she says it was super hard for her to even get people to take her seriously - most presumed she slept around lots and went out to paint with these guys, and that she got them to "help her" paint all her stuff. Graffiti is maybe an extreme example, but it seems to me that in every domain of life it is important to promote and inspire female activity, expand the scopes of femininity, dispel stereotypes and cushioned conceptions of perfect equality, and protest against discrimination and stereotypes that fuck with female and human dignity.
I would love this to be a collaborative project, like it started, so apart from Nadine and myself, I asked a few good friends to collaborate. I was thinking of posting about women we know, or women we heard of, women who do stuff, engage in activities, whatever they may be. It would be great to have all kinds of opinion posts, and I suppose anything that seems fitting for the subject. Yeah? All ideas and discussions and comments welcome!
womenfire.dangerousthings
