2012 Edgy Women Festival, Mar 15–Apr 1

The 19th Annual Edgy Women Festival gets underway tonight. It begins with a free launch party starting at 8pm at the Royal Phoenix, 5788 St-Laurent. The evening will include the launch of a feminist zombie anthology, films, presentations and a dance party with DJ DYKE.

In addition to performances and shows, they will be hosting a conference at the Casa Del Popolo, workshops, an opportunity to meet the artists, and a late-night hockey game.

Edgy Women "explores the complexity of contemporary feminism, through fun, experimental, and community-building artistic events. Presented by Studio 303, Edgy Women has blossomed from a 4-day event into a full-blown international festival, featuring a plethora of neophyte and experienced artists in a diverse programme of cutting edge work which is both experimental AND entertaining. Through its performance series, artist talks, and professional workshops, Edgy Women creates a forum for cultural exchange through a thematic context, providing an excellent opportunity for audiences to experience content-driven artwork by women."

The 19th Edgy Women Festival continues from March 15th to April 1st.

---

EDGY WOMEN 2012

from March 15th to April 1st 2012
featuring
Andréane Leclerc & Holly Gauthier-Frankel, Evalyn Parry,
Gaëlle Bourges, The Scandelles
and many more

Montreal – Edgy Women presents clever, unconventional and uncompromomising projects whose content is as creative as the forms they take. This annual festival celebrates a variety of feminist perspectives, through fun, experimental, and community-building artistic events.

FREE / DONATIONS EVENTS

March 15th - 8 p.m.: Opening night + Edgy Zombie / Royal Pheonix (FREE!)
March 18th + 25th - 2 p.m.: Conférence Edgy-Upop / Casa Del Popolo (FREE!)
March 20th - 7 p.m.: J’ACTE / La Centrale (Donations)
March 29th - 11 p.m.: Edgy hockey / Aréna Mont-Royal

TICKETED EVENTS

March 22nd - 8 p.m.: SPIN / Sala Rossa
March 23rd - 8 p.m.: Je Baise les Yeux / Sala Rossa
March 24th - 8 p.m. + 10 : 30 p.m. (as part of the Meow Mix party) : In Succube / Sala Rossa
March 30th - 8 p.m., March 31st - 6 p.m. + 10 p.m., April 1st - 4 p.m.: Les Demimondes / Studio 303
Press kits available online

PROGRAMMING

Opening night + EDGY Zombie avec le collectif GLSINS
The festival kicks off with the launch of a feminist zombie anthology by the french collective GLSINS : films, presentations and, of course, dance party with DJ Dyke Rivers!
GLSINS collective is a French association whose members are spread across Toulouse, Lille and Paris and whose objectives are to promote and disseminate lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex feminists (LGBTQIF) culture to the widest possible audience through various media (events, movies, books, prints on t-shirts, posters, hats …). Their montreal adventure is supported by Office Franco-Québécois de la Jeunesse (OFQJ). Website : Pendant que vous dormez

J’ACTE in collaboration with Groupe Intervention Vidéo
Historical and topical overview of performance video. Artist Eugénie Cliche was invited to focus on a specific aspect of Groupe Intervention Video’s collection. The program she curated features a dozen artists (often performers) and covers the period 1996-2012. The act of performing is defined as a gesture, an intervention, a trick, an accomplishment. Perhaps it can also be a report or a contract?

SPIN by Evalyn Parry
Innovative Toronto artist Evalyn Parry takes her audience on unique theatrical and musical journey in her tour-de-force performance celebrating the Bicycle. Inspired by the first woman to ride around the world on a bicycle in 1894, Parry weaves a web of stories that deftly travel from 19th century women’s emancipation to 21st century consumer culture, from the political to the personal. Parry’s "co-star" is a vintage bicycle. Suspended on a mechanic’s stand and connected to electronic effects, the bicycle is played – from fenders to spokes to bells – by percussionist Brad Hart, conjuring a unique and astonishing sonic accompaniment to Parry’s captivating SPIN.
Evalyn Parry is an award-winning, multi-disciplinary artist. Her solo and collaborative performances have taken her to music, storytelling, poetry and theatre festivals from coast to coast of North America over the last decade; she has released four critically-acclaimed CDs and her work has been widely broadcast, commissioned and anthologized. SPIN was developed and premiered at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto in 2011, and will be on tour across the country in 2012/13. The recording of SPIN was recently nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award ("Pushing The Boundaries").www.evalynparry.com

Je Baise les Yeux de Gaëlle Bourges
A performance that undresses the gaze: three ex-strippers reflect upon their experiences, as a methodical moderator interrogates them. A clever and quirky deconstruction of the prejudices associated with erotic dancing, a most marginal practice in the field of performing arts.
Gaëlle Bourges studied ballet, contemporary dance, and modern literature, becomes flexible through theatre, and later starts to make rather short choreographic pieces. She has a degree from University Paris VIII in Performing Arts, and is a Somatic Movement educator from the Body-Mind Centering School.www.gaellebourges.com

In Succube d'Andréane Leclerc et Holly Gauthier-Frankel
Hailing from the burlesque and circus milieus, this emerging artist duo explore womanhood. Two soulmates on a journey into the depth of the ocean; for some it is hell, for them this is heaven. Created for Studo 303, In Succube premieres at Edgy Women Festival. A mother, a sister, an actress, a courtesan, a burlesque queen, a contortionist, a whipcracker, a singer, in a glass bottomed boat, a Succubus and an Incubus set sail on an odyssey. Are they Demons, or dreaming Goddesses?
Born into a traditional Quebec Family, Andreane Leclerc ran away and joined the circus at the age of 9. The National Circus School took her in for a while, but she eventually went on her own way, from festivals to modern and traveling circuses, German cabarets, and conceptual performances. A slight tendency toward existentialism guides this snake-woman through her Master’s Degree in Dramatic Art at UQÀM. She works on empowering the technique of contortion as a malleable material, capable of directing the viewer into a world of sensations and imagery beyond the spectacular. Et pourquoi pas! – Disparue – Sherepaka et VA are her first creations based on the question of being and the present. She also collaborates with the band The Unsettlers, her body becoming an instrument, a musical body of flesh. Andreane now continues her path in various collaborations with Holly Gauthier-Frankel in which they dive into the heart of fantasy: InSuccube.
Holly Gauthier-Frankel is a Montreal-born-and-raised singer, writer, actor and burlesque performer. Born into a family of musicians, Holly has been working for 23 years, lending her voice to Emmy-Award-winning cartoons, and hundreds of other shows and albums. But it is as her burlesque alter-ego, Miss Sugarpuss, that she has garnered the most critical acclaim. Considered one of the "Top Ten Most Desirable Women" in the Montreal Mirror’s 2008, 2010, and 2011 BOM Polls, Miss Sugarpuss performs regularly in cabaret clubs and theatres in Montréal, New York City, and Tokyo. In Succube has allowed her to combine her love of dance, experimental theatre and humour in order to explore new and uncharted territories of the heart and the soul.

Les Demimondes by The Scandelles
Through a multidisciplinary lens of dance, film, song, movement and monologue Les Demimondes examines how fine arts, music, film, photography and the media have profited off the shabby mystique of the whore while whores themselves remain marginalized and criminalized. Hosted by Prostitution herself, a Zelig-like character who leads us through famous depictions of prostitutes in the arts and media.
The Scandelles’Kitty Neptune and Sasha Van Bon Bon have collected an impressive roster of collaborators and generated a prolific body of work in under a decade. From environmental burlesque acts to large-scale theatre works, The Scandelles have created a repertoire of provocative and wildly entertaining shows including Under the Mink, Who’s Your Dada?, Les Demimondes and Give A Piece of Ass a Chance (a short art porn film created in collaboration with Bruce LaBruce). The Scandelles’work has been seen everywhere from seedy sex clubs to international film festivals. Dancer/choreographer Kitty Neptune and nationally published sex columnist Sasha Van Bon Bon were featured performers and co-creators of ArtHouse Cabaret (2007 Dora-award winning production). They believe that high art and low art can meet in the open and don’t just have to convene clandestinely in cheap motels, even though that’s fun sometimes. Their work is always about sex. Which they heard sells but it turns out that was a huge lie. In the theatre, anyway. www.thescandelles.com

EDGY EXTRAS
Edgy workshops
Classes for profesional artists by Antonija Linvingston (March 19th-23rd) and Gaëlle Bourges (March 26th-29th). More info on our website.

Edgy blog
Two invited bloggers, Laura Beeston and Barbara Legault, offer their personal and orginal close-up on Edgy Women's activities on our blog (online early March)

Meet the Edgy artists
Coming soon at a university near you!
More info on edgywomen.ca

About Edgy Women: Since 1994, Studio 303 presents Edgy Women in an attempt to stimulate critical thought, nurture innovative creation and highlight the important body of work being made by women working outside traditional venues and disciplines. With a long history of presenting hard-to-define works, Edgy Women prioritizes practices and perspectives that push boundaries in terms of form and content. Past performers include Céline Bonnier (actress), Sylvette Babin (performance artist), Annie Sprinkle (performer), Marie Brassard (actress), as well as interdisciplinary artists Alexis O'Hara, Dayna Mcleod, Nathalie Claude (actress) and Narcissister (performer).