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Ladyfest Bellingham 2010

Ladyfest Bellingham

Ladyfest Bellingham

Ladyfest Bellingham

Ladyfest is a festival of music, art and ideas that aims to empower and celebrate female creativity. This will be the second annual community based Bellingham Ladyfest and is scheduled to take place June 17-20.

Recently, some of the coordinators have dealt with criticism due to misperceptions of the event as being separatist or even anti-male. “That’s the biggest problem we face,” said Katie Rismondo, member of the Ladyfest Bellingham planning committee. “[Ladyfest] is not about men at all, it’s about the women in our community. Some believe it’s about tearing them down somehow, but that’s not what we want to do.”

The festival is an inclusive, all-ages event that encourages women and people who identify as women to share their artistic pursuits in the hopes of partially negating their underrepresentation in the arts. Men are not discouraged from getting involved–but women are the festival’s priority, according to Amy Gibson, member of the Ladyfest Bellingham planning committee. “Ladyfest is not anti-male, Ladyfest is pro-female,” Gibson said.

The first ever Ladyfest began in 2000 when female music acts Sleater-Kinney, Cat Power, Sarah Dougher and Neko Case and author Teresa Carmody founded the event in Olympia, Wash. Since then, the festival has expanded and has been independently structured in urban areas around the world such as Amsterdam, Belgium, Chicago, Dublin, Madrid and Los Angeles.

Gibson believes Ladyfest has been an explosive, global phenomenon because it’s an inspiring, safe space for women to pursue their interests. Until working on Ladyfest, she did not consider herself the event-organizing type. By acting as a volunteer coordinator for Ladyfest, Gibson’s opinion of herself has evolved. “Now I can’t stop thinking about Ladyfest,” she said.

Ladyfest Bellingham became a local fixture after 8 to 10 women came together in 2008 via other outlets to converse about some serious concerns in the local music community, according to Jessyca Murphy, member of the Ladyfest Bellingham planning committee.

These women discussed the community’s deep need for heightened gender-issue consciousness and a means to empower artistic ladies in spite of sexism. Furthermore, the women wanted to drum up allies and a supportive network for several women in Bellingham’s music scene who were sexually assaulted.

“Ladyfest is one of the things that sort of spawned off those conversations,” Murphy said. “It’s a space for women to create and recharge their batteries.”

In addition, the all-female, performance art group “Post Post Fuck Fuck” emerged out of the issue-oriented discourse responsible for Ladyfest Bellingham, Murphy said. The noise outfit formed to promote women being rowdy and abrasive in the wake of the violence.

“It came out of people needing to scream and having the confidence to do so,” Murphy said.”

After last year’s Ladyfest, Gibson said she believes local female bands such as Femme Uke, Party Thighs and Glad Judy were inspired to officially form bands. Murphy and Rismondo are members of Party Thighs.

Ladyfest Bellingham 2010 will include visual art pieces, films, performance projects, skill share workshops, and academic and nonacademic papers. The coordinators have also ensured that novice submissions do not get turned away. “We really like beginning art,” Rismondo said. “We are not about to judge it based on ability. We include whatever we have room for.”

The Ladyfest Bellingham team has also extended an open invite to transfolks, queers, grandmas, gender nonconformists and allies, according to their website.

The planning committee has been meeting at least once a week for the last five or six months to craft the four-day event. The coordinators obtained funding through various means such as bake sales, concerts, poetry readings, a 2009 compilation release, merchandise sales, shared resources and a few donations.

The festival will commence at 5 p.m. on Thursday, June 17 with a potluck dinner and a concert, which will include performances by Cumulus, Mega Bog, Jaen Black and perhaps even Kimya Dawson, Gibson said. On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, June 18-20, the festival will start in the mornings with breakfast events that begin at 11 a.m. each day.

At the breakfast events on June 18 and 19, participants can view music performances and gallery exhibitions and take part in workshops, Glass said. The breakfast location on June 18 will be announced in the near future and breakfast on June 19 will take place at the Hoot House. Breakfast on June 20 will be held at the Opium Den and it will feature an open mic set-up for anyone who wants to share their talents with the group.

In the afternoons on June 18-20, more workshops, presentations and film showings will transpire. In particular– at 1 p.m. on June 19 at Caf Bloom, there will be a film screening and the following day at 1 p.m. there will be a musical performance.

Additionally, at 6 p.m. on June 18 at Maritime Heritage Park, Ladyfest Bellingham will host the bands Rhombus, Milk Party, Night Rain, Council of Lions and the Moandiggers.

But that’s not all in terms of bands performing at Ladyfest so far. At 10 p.m. on June 18 at the Cabin Tavern, Party Thighs, Romanteek, Mini Rex and Redwood Plan will perform followed by Elissa ball, TacocaT and Margy Pepper at 10 p.m. on June 19 at the Cabin Tavern, Glass said. At 6 p.m. on June 20 at the Honeymoon, there will be a Ladyfest debriefing so participants can offer constructive criticism and reflect on the weekend’s topics. The festival will conclude at 10 p.m. on Sunday, June 20 with an erotic show at the Jinx Art Space.

The planning committee is still in the process of confirming performances, locations and other specifics that will be made available in the near future on the festival’s Web site, Gibson said.

For more information about Ladyfest Bellingham, including upcoming schedule information, visit Ladyfestbham.org.