9th international feminist and queer festival Red Dawns

Festi­val Red Dawns, March 5th to 9th 2008, Auto­no­mous Cultu­ral Center Metel­kova mesto, Ljubl­jana, Slove­nia, is orga­ni­sed by asso­ci­a­tion KUD Mreža in coope­ra­tion with many friends, suppor­ters and volun­te­ers. This year, the festi­val is also gene­rously suppor­ted by EYFA, an orga­ni­sa­tion based in Amster­dam which connec­ted Amster­dam, Graz and Ljubl­jana with a project entit­led Trilogy: Women Cros­sing Commu­ni­ties.

What we’ve set out to accom­plish with this year’s festi­val is not easy: we would like to enable connec­ti­ons between art and acti­vism, acti­vism and theory, theory and art. So that, when the cara­van of artists, acti­vists and theo­rists is moving on, we won’t be left with unfor­get­ta­ble memo­ries and broken hearts alone, but with somet­hing more… palpa­ble. For instance, with the open-code program­ming know­ledge of the The Gender­Chan­gers collec­tive, or the auto-repair skills offe­red by Ksenija Glavač, or the burn-out preven­tion tech­ni­ques taught by Belgra­de’s Žene na delu (Women at Work), and the view­points of no less than sixty femi­nists that confront global capi­ta­lism in a fat book called New Femi­nisms; Queer and Networ­king Condi­ti­ons. No doubt, we will also be left with anot­her girl in love from this or that other, star­less Europe. She will try hard to persu­ade Slove­nian autho­ri­ties that it’s not the country she fell in love with, but that she’s prepa­red to do anyt­hing (marry, regis­trer, whate­ver they want) to stay here with the woman, man, the belo­ved and wonder­ful being of her choice.

But we also want to poke the sores that hurt; those caused by the perso­ni­fied fist of patri­ar­chal, falo­go­cen­tric and hete­ro­nor­ma­tive (in short, too common) violence against women, chil­dren and men that are not »manly enough« . Emeli Röndahl is going to ease the pain with a needle and thread in her Bloody Normssewing works­hop. Dancers Nina Fajdiga and Jasmina Križaj will cope with the burden of »real femi­ni­nity« with aching and abrupt moti­ons; stage direc­tor, writer and actress Simona Seme­nič will regard an ill woman as a victim and then, with great plea­sure, reli­eve her of that status. Urška Sterle will starve out and disa­ble every lesbian that would dare to even softly strike anot­her lesbian, femi­nist or, god forbid, any »ordi­nary woman« with her courage. Can you imagine, how it would be if all of us suddenly came out of the closet! In fact, many women do stick out of closets and avera­ges in spite of their pain. We’ve met them in fairy tales, too. The opening night of the festi­val is dedi­ca­ted to them, to (fairy tale) heroi­nes who examine rules and norms in the only way possi­ble: by coura­ge­ously, even despe­ra­tely viola­ting them – and living their lives.

Welcome!

With love,

Red Dawns