Saturday, May 25, 2013

QUEER NOISE SOLIDARITY

By Kate Barry


Skillfully chosen as the site for QUEER NOISE SOLIDARITY, Christie Pits Park has a long history of resistance after the legendary race riots that took place there in 1933. More recently this beautiful green-space and recreational park has been the location of a number of assaults on women. QUEER NOISE SOLIDARITY descended on Christie Pits on Friday evening as a way to respond to this violence, while linking feminism and the LGBTQI2S (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenered, Queer, Intersex and Two-Spirited) communities with live art.  

The performance itself consisted of drumming in the park – not your stereotypical feminist, bongo-style, peace-loving drum circle, but rather it was a loud, experimental, triangulated fury of noise. During the performance, Calgary artist Wednesday Lupypciw acted as the conductor as she stood in the middle of a triangle (vulvic) shape of twelve all-female drummers: Celina Carroll, Tyla Crowhurst-Smith, Shavonne Tovah Somvong, Eleanor King, Conny Nowe, Karen Frostitution, Samara Liu, Laura Hartley, Rita Mckeough, Heidi Chan, Simone Baril, Alaska B. This large, loud, all-female ensemble puts the traditionally male-dominated world of rock n’ roll to shame. 


Karen Frostitution (left) and Heidi Chan (right), 2013.   

Born from a small scale, feminist drum circle (with actual drum kits) that Lupypciw originally created for the visual arts component of Calgary’s Sled Island festival, she worked together with FADO performance art centre and the Feminist Art Gallery (FAG) to bring things to the next level. Lupypciw created QUEER NOISE SOLIDARITY specifically for Toronto audiences.

By occupying Christie Pits Park QUEER NOISE SOLIDARITY adeptly positions itself as a unifying tour de force.  To paraphrase artist Allyison Mitchell, if anyone thinks feminism is dead in Toronto, they couldn’t be more wrong! 






Above drum triangle photo credit Coman Poon.
All the other photos were taken on my iphone. 





Wednesday Lupypciw (in red) standing in the middle of the drumming triangle.


Weblinks:

FADO Performance Art Centre


FAG

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