Also this issue: The Root Philly's first lady of hip-hop, Bahamadia, keeps going on. -A.D. Amorosi Exile in Girlville Who's who on the Ladyfest music stages. Picture This Ladyfest artists test their vision. -Lori Hill Mad as Hell Mantua's Yellow Rage is not gonna take it anymore. -Meredith Broussard Girls On Film Ladyfest unleashes the screen queens. -Sam Adams Theater: Mixed Medea Enraged Cow makes friend of Fo. -Juliet Fletcher Depth Becomes Her The women of Trace Fury are trained and ready for anything. -John Vettese The Match Indie rock mothers of invention Tsunami are still fighting the good fight and reuniting for Ladyfest. -Patrick Rapa

March 20-26, 2003

cover story

Come Together

THE POWER OF THE press: Julie Gerstein silkscreens shirts (above). She and fellow organizer Marlee Darling hold up the finished product (below).

The women of Ladyfest Philly reshape the old business model

by Patrick Rapa

When a local newspaper reporter contacted the organizers of Ladyfest and asked who the "head honcho" was, they had to laugh. The four-day not-just-music festival has no head honcho, and that's exactly the point.

"We use a consensus-based model," explains Allison Harris, one of the 30 or so organizers gathered in a circle upstairs at Robin's Books for the second-to-last full committee meeting before the festival begins. "Sometimes our decisions take hours to come to, but when we make a decision, we feel like everyone's voice has been heard and represented."

Ladyfest Philly, running March 20-23, is a citywide celebration of women in the arts -- four days of concerts, gallery shows, poetry readings, workshops, movies and dance/theater performances. Many of the participants were already involved in Philly's arts and activism scenes (a festival-endorsed antiwar protest takes place on the Art Museum steps March 23; see story beginning on p. 9 for more on protests), but most of them were strangers before Ladyfest. After a year and a half of planning, booking, organizing and problem-solving together, it's almost game time.

"From the beginning of this whole thing it was very important for us to form a true collective where leadership was not frowned upon but the idea of a static leader was," says poet Laura Bardwell, who worked on the budget and music committees and is reading at the Triangle Theatre on Friday. "We wanted leadership to be a hat that was worn by everyone involved at a time that was comfortable for them."

So the non-hierarchical collective chooses a new facilitator each meeting to find out what everybody wants to discuss and make sure every topic gets attention.

One of today's bullet points is bathrooms. Harris, who works on the budgetality (budget plus hospitality) and spoken-word committees, recently spoke with an activist from the transgendered community who had requested that the lavatories be designated in non-gender-limiting ways. With events taking place at no fewer than 20 venues all over town, single-person bathrooms (the ideal situation) are not always going to be an option.

So what then? Unisex bathrooms? Raising hands and taking turns, many of the women weigh in on the issue: A lot of Ladyfest events are all-ages, and young people -- particularly girls -- may not be comfortable sharing restrooms with men. The idea of creating one women's room and one unisex bathroom comes up. Would men be comfortable with that? And what should the signs on the doors say? The outline of a stickwoman in a dress will not cut it. Should there just be drawings of toilets and urinals?

They have fun trying to work it out for 10 solid minutes but it's clear they consider the issue a serious one. Eventually it's decided that a subcommittee will come up with a solution and the meeting should keep moving.

The original Ladyfest was a six-day multimedia (but mostly punk rock) event held in 2000 in Olympia, Wash., (home of other famed indie music festivals like Yoyo A Go Go, Homo A Go Go and International Pop Underground). Since then, versions of Ladyfest have been popping up all over the country and the world in cities big and small: L.A., Atlanta, London, Amsterdam, Ottawa, Chicago, Lansing, New York, Glasgow and Bloomington. Ladyfests are planned later this year for Seattle, Manchester, Hamburg and Melbourne.

And each one is grassroots with no corporate sponsorship and no official link to other Ladyfests. Having no home base or headquarters means it’s up to organizers of each individual festival to make of it what they want.

Ladyfest Philly organizers looked at (and attended) previous versions of the festival, learned from them and built on them. Ladyfest Chicago was too music-centric for their taste. After Ladyfest Bay Area offended people with stereotypically beautiful women on their T-shirts, the Philadelphia committee decided to go with the more neutral Liberty Bell on theirs.

Local poet/organizer Samantha Barrow -- funded by a WOO grant (Window of Opportunity) from the Leeway Foundation -- rode her motorcycle around the country this past summer performing at readings and talking to women who worked on other Ladyfests.

"It’s a web that’s starting to get connected," says Barrow of the various women’s groups she encountered on her journey. Her experiences and interviews are compiled in a chapbook available at the festival. She reads on Thursday at the First Unitarian Church.

Organizers also went on a weekend retreat with area activist and nonprofit organizer Elizabeth Terry to discuss goals and vision.

The result is a schedule featuring a diversity of genres from spoken word (like Mantua's Yellow Rage, Philadelphia's hip-hop beat poet Ursula Rucker), dance and theater (Boston's baton-twirling Laurel Kirtz, Philly's up-and-coming Enraged Cow and established acts Nichole Canuso, Myra Bazell and The Bald Mermaids), film, visual arts and workshops.

The musical lineup is equally eye-catching. There’s China’s fiery rock band Hang on the Box, Philly/D.C.’s indie goddesses Tsunami, San Francisco’s punk cellist Bonfire Madigan and NYC’s methodical and melodious Ida. And some of the most sought-after acts are from Philly: spiritual hip-hopper Bahamadia, the intense and rocking x’s x’s, the cuddly smirking Snow Fairies. Making Ladyfest a showcase for Philadelphia’s women in all the arts was part of the group’s official manifesto.

Many of the organizers and musicians are awed by the Ladyfest experience. "It is a celebration of the creativity of women," says independent Philadelphia singer/songwriter/festival performer Cynthia Mason. "It shows that women have made great strides as artists and organizers, in both the mainstream and fringe entertainment worlds."

It’s also, says Mason, a signpost that the winds of progress are blowing in. "The music scene is still an old boys’ club, but things have changed a lot over the last 10 years. There are so many more female musicians, DJs, booking agents, etc. It is inspiring."

Ask local rocker Kara Lafty -- whose power pop band The Jane Anchor plays the festival on Thursday -- and she'll tell you the ball really got rolling when women's music showcase Sugar Town started two years ago.

"Many clubs in Philadelphia have, at one time or another, hosted Œwomen in rock' nights, but it wasn't until Sugar Town that it really starting happening on a consistent basis," says Lafty. "I think it has been successful because it is organized by women who are deeply involved in the scene. In my opinion, the Philadelphia music scene could use more female-fronted bands. An event like Sugar Town may inspire a woman to play an instrument or start a band, knowing there is a supportive community that encourages it."

Maria Tessa Sciarrino is a DJ, a Sugar Town co-creator and a Ladyfest organizer. She says the secret to all these enterprises is confidence. "I talk to girls who really like music and I'm like "Why don't you play a guitar or something,' and they say "well I can't." The great thing about Ladyfest is that there's shit that we don't know how to do but we still do it anyway. We're not afraid of the unknown."

"Our culture tells us that women aren’t supposed to come together and they’re not supposed to congregate and organize and form something as beautiful as this," says organizer Julie Gerstein. "This is us breaking out of that. And being an example for other women that you can do that and it can be amazing."

Check www.ladyfestphilly.org for a complete schedule of events, or go to one of their hubs to pick up a program or passes.

Hub hours: Thu., March 20: Robin’s Bookstore, 108 S. 13th St., noon-7:30 p.m.; William Way Community Center, 1315 Spruce St., 8-10 p.m. Fri., March 21: Robin’s Bookstore, noon-7:30 p.m. Sat., March 22: The Rotunda, 4012 Walnut St., noon-7:30 p.m. Sun., March 23: William Way,11 a.m.-4 p.m. Most events are $5-$10.