We invite you to participate in the Women Who Rock Conference: Making Scenes, Building Communities, February 17-18, at the University of Washington and Seattle University.
We convene because the music calls us. Women have been a powerful force in Seattle’s well-known independent music scene, as performers, promoters, writers, DJs, archivists and fans. In many cases, they embody the hybrid identity of artist-activist-advocate. Historically, in the Pacific Northwest, women have used their music and activism to create music scenes that anchor social justice movements. The present is no different. The Women Who Rock Conference, organized by the Women Who Rock Research Project and the Women Who Rock Graduate Student Collective, highlights both contemporary and past movements in and outside of Seattle by bringing together musicians, activists, writers, advocates, educators, and scholars to talk about questions of female representation and access for women within music scenes. We have been particularly inspired by the ways that Chicana and Black feminist thought has expanded who counts as “women” and what counts as “rock.” In staging these conversations about women and music, we hope to build community and make our own scenes in the process. Though these conversations may prove to be challenging at times, we are committed to them nonetheless.
CONFERENCE STRUCTURE
The conference runs for two days. On Thursday, February 17, following a workshop format, a small group of scholars will respond to works-in-progress centered around feminist thought and music presented by graduate students from the University of Washington and Seattle University. The conference then welcomes all participants to attend a film festival facilitated by Angelica Macklin. On Friday, February 18, conference goers will attend topic-focused breakout sessions that include a broad range of participants. Here, we’ve experimented with a conference structure that emphasizes dialogue. In a departure from traditional panel sessions, participants will briefly introduce their topics and then open up conversations that engage the diverse audiences present at the conference. Later, we will meet as a large group to synthesize our conversations. At the close of the conference, performance artist Maria Elena Gaitan will perform and that night, we will convene an open mike ni!
ght and Fandango gathering.
ORAL HISTORY ARCHIVE
The conference responds to the ways in which women’s participation in independent scenes has often been downplayed or unacknowledged. We are currently assembling the Women Who Rock Digital Oral History Project to archive the stories of women and women of color who have built community through the making of music in Seattle, the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The archive will be hosted by the University of Washington and made freely accessible to the public.
To ensure a seat, please register at: https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/quetzal/111906
For program: https://womenwhorockresearchproject.wordpress.com/
For more information please email us: womenwhorockoralhistory@gmail.com.
Best,
Mako Fitts
quetzal flores
Michelle Habell-Pallan
Sonnet Retman
Women Who Rock Graduate Student Collective, including Nicole Robert, Kim Carter Munoz, Monica de la
Torre, Martha Gonzalez, Kate Mottola, Noralis Rodriguez, Georgia Roberts, and Schuxuan Zhou
Conference co-organizers
Women Who Rock 