Saturday, September 16, 2006

Ladyfest Leicester 2007




Right, Most of you know about this but here is an explanation for those of you who dont.
Charisse (poopy47000) and I were approached earlier this month to be the litarary co-ordinators of Ladyfest Leicester 2007. The aim of Ladyfest, is its a festival to promote awareness of womens issues within arena's that are mostly male dominated (therefore it often gets lots of female rock bands). In previous Ladyfests the Litrature side of things have been pretty terrible - simpl because Ladyfests put so much atetntion on music, they often dont actually get any artists or writers to contribute and the Lit bit gets shove on the backburner.
Well, Stacey (person who is organising the most of the festival, owns her own record label and has organised Ladyfests all over the country) has pretty much left the organisation of the entire event to Charisse and I. We are focusing on poetry (shudder) performance poetry, readings and spoken word, MC's and extracts from plays. We will be running an open submissions for everyone to send us their stuff, but there are a efw conditions.
1. solo male writers will not be able to sumbit (sorry - not my rules - perhaps will do a Mrfest at some point) but will be able to co-write with female (NB: I have a meeting about Ladyfest Today and I WILL be contesting this point - I am very unhappy about it)
2. Female protagonists pleses
3. due to the feminis nature of this event, work that has a feminist poetic about it will be favoured
(I feel like saying that anybody who is liked by Momentum please not apply - their stuff is defo NOT the type of thing we are looking for! - but I didnt really say that, did i?)
Anyway, everyone who I cn possibly think of I will contact with a full set of submission guidelines when Charisse and I have finalised them. I may set up annother email account simply for Ladyfest 07.
Oh, some more details, It is going to be held in Quebec but I havent got the exact date as yet.
And we have a team of 2 Techies to (perhaps) do most of the stuff.
So if you think you have teh stuff for this venture then please take a look at it, also tell people you think may be intrested in any way - to come see it, to submit or to help in anyway
here is the myspace for the overall festival
http://www.myspace.com/ladyfestleicester07

PS: These pics are logos that were used in Ladyfest's from around the world. I can't upload the Ladyfest Leicester logo, 'cos I can't seem to get on with MySpace!

8 comments:

Lucy Ann Wade said...

Perhaps it might be worth asking your mate Damien to spread the word of submissions wanted on that Leicester council literary newsletter?

Oh, and let me know the submission guidelines when they're finalised!!

I do think the rule that no men are allowed is a bit crap - I mean, men can be feminists too, you know. It's sort of missing the point of feminism to exclude them really, isn't it? And it plays up to those awful stereotypes of what 'feminism' means - we're trying to get rid of the "anti-male pack of ugly lesbians" stereotype. Perhaps the organiser should read 'Backlash'!!!

Lucy Ann Wade said...

Hey, by that same ruling, does that mean that the female rock groups are not allowed to perform any original or cover versions of songs written by male artists??!!!

Oooh, I'm in a very ranty mood this morning...

Sabrina Mei-Li Smith said...

well i doubt the bands will be playing covers anyway, so that rules out that one.
Charisse and I have, like the BIGGEST list of people to contact for this thing and, yes, Damien is on it!
and I really dont think "you-know-who" will be entering anything mysogynistic enough about dental nurses! (lucy - there is a clue in that sentence as to who "you-know-who" is!)
I think that on the music side bands that have male-female mix are allowed, not a whole male band (sorry everyone - the darkness shall not be performing!) so the same rule has been applied to the litrature.
and I'm sorry, Rese, what the hell is gynocentric??? Perhaps you should take a long lie down in a darkened room as you did want to call the night "Dickless" (!!!)
Damn - I really want to see the Darkness now... spandex ahoy!

morphean ramble said...

voldemort is going to be playing?!?

Alex said...

Is this the coolest place name?

Yes. Yes it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammerfest

Sabrina Mei-Li Smith said...

Hammerfest? now i really am frightened!

Alex said...

It could be twinned with Ladysmith in South Africa. Then if you combine them you get...

Yes you guessed it.


Hammersmith.

Stace said...

Hehe im going to firmly distroy my blogging cherry (with the exception of the evil that is myspace)
Ladyfest Leicester-agogo!
Definitely not an anti-male thing, i love men(granted not as much as some ladies:P !) As Charisse mentioned we just aim to celebrate and promote female talent and raise lots of money for charity in the process.
Maybe a male writer event or a anything goes open mic night fundraiser would help???