CONFERENCE AT A GLANCE

Thursday, February 17 University of Washington

10am-3pm Graduate Student Workshop [Closed], Communications 202

5-7pm Conference Opening

Film Festival: Making a Scene on and Off Screen

Communications 120

Friday, February 18 Seattle University, Pigott Building

8-9am Registration/Check In

8am-6pm Ongoing Activities: Radio Kiosk, Community Altar, and Oral History Interviews

9-9:50am Opening Performances

10am-12pm Concurrent Breakout Sessions

12-1:30pm Lunch

1:30-3:30pm Roundtable Discussion

3:30-4:15pm Coffee/Tea Break
4:30-6pm Keynote Performance

8pm-12am Fandango/Community Music Celebration

WELCOME

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 commit to them with our hearts and souls.

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 with a film festival hosted by Angelica Macklin. On Friday, February 18, conference goers will attend topic-focused breakout sessions that bridge 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 with a Community Music 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. If you would like to participate in the digital oral history project, please email us: womenwhorockoralhistory@gmail.com.

We hope you find this collaborative endeavor as exciting as we do! We intend to create an open structure through which unexpected, transformative and even healing conversations might emerge. We look forward to engaging in rich dialogues and laying the foundation for new kinds of communities. What we generate in the next two days will shape next year’s conference.

Co-Conference Organizers:
Mako Fitts, Quetzal Flores, Michelle Habell-Pallán, Sonnet Retman and the Women Who Rock Graduate Student Collective: Nicole Robert, Kim Carter Muñoz, Monica de la Torre, Martha Gonzalez, Kate Mottola, Noralis Rodriguez, Carrie Lanza, Georgia Roberts, and Schuxuan Zhou.

We would like to thank our co-sponsors: the American Music Partnership of Seattle (Experience Music Project, KEXP 90.3 FM, and University of Washington) sponsored by a grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation; American Ethnic Studies, the Borderlands Research Cluster/ Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest, the Center for Global Studies, the Clowes Center, Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity Research Institute, the School of Music, the Simpson Center for the Humanities, the UW Libraries Digital Initiative and Women Studies at the University of Washington; and the Departments of Anthropology, Sociology, and Social Work, the Women Studies Program, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Seattle University.

We have many people to thank for their crucial support, advocacy, collaboration and labor: Miriam Bartha, DJ B-Girl, Kim Carter Muñoz, Shannon Dudley, Jasen Emmons, Mako Fitts, Quetzal Flores, Maria Elena Garcia, Harmony Gonty, Angelina Gradskaya, Maria Guillen, Michelle Habell-Pallán, Elaine Haig, Gretta Harley, Tony Lucero, Angelica Macklin, Scott Macklin, Sonnet Retman, John Vallier, Angelina Villalobos (Angel 179), Kathleen Woodward, and all of our conference participants and volunteers.

We also thank our workshop respondents and discussion facilitators: Alice Armendariz Velasquez, Daphne Brooks, Andreana Clay, Marisol Berrios-Miranda, Ralina Joseph, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Sherrie Tucker, Rebekah Farrugia, Tiffany Lopez, Leilani Nishime, Maylei Blackwell, Laura Palomares, and Judy Tsou.

For more information about the Women Who Rock Project:

https://womenwhorockresearchproject.wordpress.com/

Post conference images @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/womenwhorockproject/

User Name: womenwhorockoralhistory@gmail.com. Password: alicebag

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=142931952433946

Twitter hashtag #womenwhorock

Thursday, February 17 University of Washington Communications 120

5-7pm

Women Who Rock!

Making a Scene on and off Screen

A festival of short films by and about women who rock! This collection showcases how some women are making social change by breaking rules, building community, and making music from South Africa to Palestine, Mexico, Brazil, Seattle and the spaces in between.

Poems from the film Masizakhe: Building Each Other

(South Africa, 2008) Directors Scott and Angelica Macklin. Featuring Sindiwe Magona Fear of Change, Aviwe One Floor Above Me, and Tuleka January Child of the Soil.

People Not Places

(USA, 2009) Director Scott Macklin. Featuring: Invincible, Sabreena da Witch, Toni Hill, and DJ B-Girl. University of Washington Students for Justice in Palestine and Hidmo Entertainment present four talented ladies.

Excerpt from the film Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad

(Mexico, 2007) Director Jill Freidberg. In 2006, a broad-based, non-violent uprising exploded in the state of Oaxaca. Some compared it to the Paris Commune; others called it the first Latin American revolution of the 21st century. But it was the people’s use of the media that truly made history in Oaxaca.

Maria Lira

(Brazil, 2011) Directors Angelica Macklin and Jonathan Warren. Maria Lira is a political and cultural activist, artist, and choir singer who is building community in Araçuaí, Brazil.

Aldeia Cinta Vermelha de Jundiba

(Brazil, 2010) Director Angelina Gradskaya. Reclaiming identity, culture, and community at Aldeia Cinta Vermelha de Jundiba.

traces

(USA, 2010) Director Randi Courtmanch. Featuring Lasara Jarvis and Randi Courtmanch.

Seattle Fandango Project

(USA, 2010) Director Jill Freidberg. “Convivencia” translates into living/being together. The Seattle Fandango Project aims to create convivencia through music, dance and singing.

Convivencia on Campus

(USA, 2010) Director Carrie Lanza. An interview with Yesenia & Amaris Hunter.

Hidmo Means Home

(USA, 2010) Director Jill Freidberg. Rahwa and Asmeret Habtes’ HIDMO was more than just an Eritrean restaurant in the Central District of Seattle. It served as a venue for a diverse group of musicians, writers, artists and patrons, where community flourished.

Friday, February 18 Seattle University Pigott Building

RADIO KIOSK and ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS Pigott Atrium

8:00 am-6:00 pm

On-site radio and film interviews with conference participants. Stop by and share your

thoughts on Women Who Rock.

Facilitator: Monica De La Torre, Kim Carter Muñoz, Angelica Macklin

OPENING PERFORMANCES

9:00 am – 9:45 am

Spoken Word

Performer: Christa Bell

“How We Rock It”

Performers: Amber Flame, Lara Davis, and Sydney Lewis

“Making a Scene: Roquera Theory, Crisis Performance, and the Practice of Critical Witnessing”

Presenter: Tiffany Lopez

BREAK-OUT SESSIONS

10:00 am-12:00 pm

DIY Media Administration 321

How “do it yourself” media has been used to build scenes and document alternative histories.

“Riot Grrrl”

This segment focuses on riot grrrl in the Pacific Northwest, linking critical riot grrrl zine collections of Zine Archives and Publishing Project (ZAPP) to music produced within this movement with the aim of facilitating discussion about the ways in which riot grrrl interrogated– (and continues to interrogate–) issues of female identity in the dominant culture. Concrete explorations of what defines a zine will be explored, as well as why and for whom these items were produced.

Facilitators: Heather Davis, Elissa Ball, Nora Mukahaita

“‘Queer Sounds, Queer Spaces’: DIY Subculture, Documentation & New Media”

1. How is queer space produced, both physically and virtually, using creative expression?

2. How do these virtual and physical spaces intersect or merge? How might one space support or inform the other as a means of creating a queer music scene?

3. How is today’s queer music scene situated within the history of queer music? What continually evolving role does documentation/archiving play in the preservation and promotion of theses scenes?

4. How do digital technologies like Flip Video and user-generated web content provide the potential for community growth? How do these methods work in terms of promoting performances and participating in a market economy (i.e. Queer record labels, record sales, show promotion)?

5. Lastly, how do we reach beyond those already included in the visible queer public? In doing this, how can we negotiate the divide between subculture and mainstream commercialization (i.e. between visibility and marketability) without alienating a localized fan base?

Facilitators: Meredith Heil, Maggie Owsley, Amber Schaefer

DIY Media(cont)

“‘Disassemble it and dialogue with me’: Communication as Punk Feminist Cultural Activism”
Using our experiences within the New York City DIY/Punk feminist community, we argue that learning to communicate effectively, both interpersonally and through media like music, blogs and zines, is the activism that produces the change that we want. Learning to communicate requires us to listen to each other and expand our cultural vernacular, bringing previously marginalized voices into a new narrative and changing the way we think. This process of learning to dialogue respectfully and productively does more than merely facilitate our feminist work; it is our feminist work. Our presentation shares how this work has enabled us to organize and contribute to our communities, and create feminist art and spaces.
Facilitators: Jamie Varriale Velez, Kate Wadkins

Documenting Community Administration 323

Organizing and reflecting on build community building using creative tools and methods.

“Photovoice”

Photovoice is a participatory action research strategy that provides individuals with the opportunity to identify, reflect, and convey their everyday lives and challenges through photographs and narratives (Becker, 2010). The goals of photovoice include, but are not limited to: The opportunity for people to record and reflect their community’s strengths and concerns, the promotion of critical dialogue and knowledge about personal and community issues through large and small group discussions of photographs, and the ability to reach policy makers (Wang, 1994). Photovoice has five steps: (1) Provide photovoice training to community members, (2) community members take photographs, (3) community members discuss photographs, (4) community members provide narrations for selected photographs, (5) community members share their photos and findings with other community members and decision makers in order to facilitate and achieve change. The method for discussing photographs includes five questions: (1) What do you see here? (2) What is really happening here? (3) How does this relate to our lives? (4) Why does this situation or concern exist? (5) What can we do about it? We need to consider Considerations will need to be made in regards to the sustainability of the end product. Art, in the form of photovoice, is an incredibly powerful vehicle for social change; it accommodates any framework, and compliments any work already in motion.

Facilitators: Jaynina Smith-Prince, Leslea Bowling

“Civil Rights, Queer Latin@s and Music Performance as a Tool for Queer Organizing”

Music is a powerful organizing tool in oppressed communities. Song, music and dance allow us to say and share emotions and ideas in ways that are non-threatening to the listener. Music and dance have played a big role in the Latino queer community. When we dance at the disco to the latest Paulina Rubio tune or, get together to sing songs by Mexico’s greatest ranchera (and gay) song writer, Juan Gabriel, we are using music and performance to claim cultural space where our queerness is the norm, while to organizing for LGBT equality.

Facilitator: Jacque Lairranzar

“‘LOUDmouth’: Nine years and 19 issues of a Feminist ‘zine”

Grounded in feminism and the philosophy of D.I.Y. media, LOUDmouth ‘zine was created in 2002 to promote, document, and preserve feminist thought, action, and history. A unique collaboration between an institution and its surrounding community, LOUDmouth is published by the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at Cal. State L.A. and collectively managed by volunteers. LOUDmouth is now entering its ninth year and is in pre-production for issue 19. The breakout session will serve two functions: 1. To discuss with participants the history and organization of the ‘zine. 2. To encourage and support participants to write

and document the conference from their perspective. During the breakout session, participants will discuss writing about the conference from their own, unique perspective and then write! This material will be published in a special, commemorative ‘zine, Women Who Rock, to be created by LOUDmouth staff and WWR participants. The ‘zine will document the conference via articles, interviews, photography, reviews, poetry, and any other literary expression of and from the conference.

Facilitator: George B. Sanchez-Tello

Home Alive Pigott 105

Activism and performance around issues of safety and gendered violence.

Home Alive launched in 1993 as a response to the rape and murder of The Gits’ Mia Zapata and thrived for 17 years as a force for social change in the Seattle arts community. Growing out of the 1990’s music scene, Home Alive worked within many other communities including homeless women, sex workers, and queer and trans folks. A predominantly woman-centered and -led organization, Home Alive consciously cultivated an environment where everyone looked out for each other’s personal safety. The organization had to formally close shop this past summer. This event inspired a reunion of the founding members and reanimated connections between recent and former participants. This session will be an opportunity for Home Alive founders, organizers, and participants to come together and reflect on the history, politics, and mission of the organization’s 17 year run. Join us for a participatory, collaborative and, no doubt, lively presentation.

Facilitators: Gretta Harley and other former Home Alive members.

“Stockholm Syndrome”

Johanna Buccola will be performing her original spoken word piece, “Stockholm Syndrome,” which includes turntablism by DJ Leopold Bloom, and original music by Seattle music producer, Steve Fisk. “Stockholm Syndrome” addresses sexual assault from the perspective of the victim/survivor. The piece has been rejected and ignored by mainstream radio. This piece is about the ever-present degradation of women presented by popular media that we are exposed to in our everyday lives. Specifically, Johanna will address the current phenomenon of “rape jokes,” which the public is regularly exposed to through popular media, as well as her personal experience as a performer at various comedy shows from coast to coast.

Facilitator: Johanna Buccola

Resisting and Reconstructing Pigott 205

Art as a tool for local expressive practice.

“ ‘Building ‘Building Intentional Communities & Sustaining’: Ladies First Project Founders & Coordinators Create Herstory, Space, and Voice (2002 to present)”

Over 50 fifty of the greatest Seattle artists, from bands, poets, and rockers to rappers/emcees, and more, have graced the stage of Ladies First within the past 8 eight years. As Ladies First gets ready for its 10th Anniversary, the coordinators reflect on the legacy of this project and its effect on the anti-rape movement within Seattle and the United States. What is the lost history of Ladies First? Wand hat are the project’s untold stories of Ladies First? How did it evolve over time? What sustained it? How and why did the community support and not support it? What were the struggles and successes of a simple and yet complex project that started with the hope of creating a safe space to give voice to women of color’s struggles through art and creativity? What will the future look like?

Facilitators: Onion Carrillo, Georgena Frazier, Luzviminda “Lulu” Carpenter, Monique Franklin, & Heidi Jackson

Resisting and Reconstructing(cont)

“‘Wrapping the World’: Echoes of Palestinian Women Rappers”

The history of Palestinian woman rappers didn’t begin with a happy chapter. Shortly after her appearance in the single and video clip of DAM “Nwaladet Hon”, (Born Here, 2003), which protests against the oppression and marginalization of Palestinians in Israel, Abeer Zinati (the first Palestinian woman rapper) was pressured by a few male members in her extended family to renounce music altogether. She was requested to stop singing or participating in any pubic performances of hip-hop, because it risked the social reputation of the family and put her own life at a political risk as well. While Zinati was fighting for her music career and life in the Palestinian ghetto of Lid at the margins of the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Lid/Lud in Israel, Safa Hathoot and Nahwa Abed-Alal established Arapeyat (roughly translated as Arab Women Who Rap)—the first group of Palestinian women rappers. In addition, I also will examine the musical productions and careers of two other Palestinian women rappers in the Diaspora: Shadier Mansour (England) and Sahira Awad (Germany). I will examine how both women carve a space for themselves as women rappers in Europe while rapping in Arabic/English and German respectively and negotiating questions of identity and citizenship as second-generation immigrants/ third-generation Palestinian refugees, and Muslim women.

Facilitator: Amal Eqeiq

Rock Camp Administration 308

How rock camps for girls constituteare an empowering tool for social change across generations.

“Finding the Beat: How Girls Create Self Through Music”

What does the music girls listen to, enjoy, and create, say about who they are? What do they believe it says about them? How do girls use music to understand themselves? Is there a link between high self-esteem and listening to and engaging with positive, female-empowering music?

Facilitator: Jen Moore

“Rain City Rock Camp for Girls”

Girls Rock Camps are starting up all over the country–and all over the world. These music education organizations develop programming to encourage leadership and promote self esteem in girls. Whereas some movements of music and community-building center around a specific genre, or the people who are involved at that exact moment in time, Girls Rock Camps center around the idea of promoting self-esteem in girls. They focus on giving the next generation of girls the chance to experience choices in life that they might not otherwise be encouraged to pursue in a gender-biased society. Women who mentor the girls participate not only as artists, but as agents of social change and social justice. Will this create a movement and community that lasts because it is focused on educating and encouraging the next generation?

Facilitators: Natalie Walker, Alex Niedzialkowski

“How do we preserve the feminine link between the past, present, and future?”

Many of the high-school students with whom I’ve worked closely are not aware that women’s studies exists, and many simply won’t be able to afford college. I find myself wondering where they’re likely to get ANY feminist history, narrative, and empowerment, especially since the current pervasive media images of feminism have come down to things like “man-haters” and Sarah Palin!

Facilitator: Alicia Dara

Seattle Fandango Project Pigott 108

Feminist decolonizing liberatory praxis via participatory music and dance.

“Son Jarocho and Spirituality”

Son Jarocho has a long repertoire of spiritual rituals embedded in the practice. Considering its various influences, the meanings and expressions embedded differ by groups and individuals. Women are the center of fandango, thus essential in the process of giving birth to connections with the practice, themselves, and others as a communal experience. The extension of the importance of our participation in these practices is a vehicle toward equality and dignity in the music scene and other areas of our lives.

Facilitator: Iris Viveros

“Rocking the Dialogue between a Mom and Daughter”

The practice of the fandango has been introduced in the Seattle area through the efforts of Quetzal Flores and Martha Gonzalez. This is perpetuated through many local musicians coming together in a communal space practicing the music and the etiquette of the fandango and it has resulted in an organic display of convivencia, the practice of living and doing life together. This practice has resulted in the creation of a space in our own home where we have placed a tarima and created a space for dialogue within the family. This session will explore this space of organic conversation, which erupts from the exploration of music within our own home. This session explores how music, the love for music and the exploration of music can occur organically and without debt or stress to a child.

Facilitators: Yesenia and Amaris Hunter

“‘Adios mi morena’: Fandango Jarocho & the Redefinition of the Feminine Other”

In performance contexts, especially in “folkloric,” “ethnic,” and “traditional” genres, women dancers are often relegated to the realm of the exotic by audience expectations. As the central percussive element of this music-making practice, the bailadora represents a unique role for women performers, one that goes beyond the visual exoticism and/or exotification of spectacle or performance. Fandango jarocho is thus becoming a site for redefining and reclaiming the “feminine other”; on the tarima the identity of the non-Western female dancer is challenged and transformed. A reflection on this role that accounts for questions of race, culture, and ethnicity will help to understand fandango as a place and process of empowerment.

Facilitator: Kristina Clark

“Nuevos espacios para movimientos sociales: Música Comunitaria

(New spaces for social movements: Community-based music)”

The impact of social struggles/movements often depends on the unity of the community and an understanding of its context and connections to other local and global struggles. Two key factors make this possible: accessible spaces for dialogue and education. Both of these factors are being devalued by the current institutional structure of public education. These days, the creation of community spaces depends on the efforts of the community itself. Public education has frequently been a space for people to acquire the tools for understanding, reasoning, reflecting and acting. However, due to funding-priorities and a renewed focus on standardized testing, education has become more of a means of maintaining the status quo than teaching people to strive for the betterment of themselves and their communities. Music has long played an important role in strengthening cultural and community ties and has started to fill the void in institutionalized education by creating spaces to educate, communicate, dialogue, and provide catharsis for social movements. The Seattle Fandango Project brings community space and music together in a singular moment where people of different ages and backgrounds can gather and feel empowered. In doing so, we build both the personal and community strength to craft a better place to live…and have a great time conviviendo too!

Facilitator: Teresita Bazan

Breaking Gender Barriers Casey 516

Rendering visible the often unacknowledged work of women behind the scenes.

“Thunderbitch”

From DIY Xerox flyers for bands you’ve never heard of to big budget rock albums that sold in the millions, women designers have shaped the visual identity of music in the Pacific Northwest since at least the late 1960s. Some never considered themselves designers, simply making Xerox posters out of necessity to promote their bands. Some are artists and illustrators synonymous with various music genres and some are career graphic designers. Thunderbitch is the first attempt to document these women artists and their work. Taking its name from a pseudonym for Catherine Weinstein, an early rock poster maker in Portland, this exhibit spans the emergence of psychedelic rock, DIY punk, new wave, grunge, riot grrl, and today’s contemporary silkscreen gig poster movement from Washington and Oregon.

Facilitator: Daniel R. Smith, http://www.thunderbitch.com

12:00-1:30pm Lunch

1:30-3:30pm Roundtable Discussion Pigott Auditorium

In this plenary dialogue, designated representatives from each session will briefly report on

the themes that were discussed in their session. Guest facilitators will then draw out issues

and questions for larger discussion.
Facilitators: Alice Bag, Andreana Clay, Daphne Brooks, J. Kehaulani Kauanui, Sherrie Tucker

3:30-4:15pm Coffee Break: Sounds by DJ Lady Jane Pigott Atrium

4:30-6:00pm Keynote Performance Pigott Auditorium

“The Arts and Healing: The Road to Wellness Through Truth-Telling and a Song.”

Musician/Performance Artist, Maria Elena Gaitan “Chola Con Cello”

8:00pm-12:00am Fandango/Community Music Celebration Vashon Room

Republic of East L.A.

Also known as Chola con Cello, she has been a musician, linguist and cultural worker most of her life. Performance Artist. Scholar. Educator. Translator. Interpreter. Recipient of major foundation grants. Consultant for museums, art galleries, community arts and philanthropic organizations. She is a citizen of the world rooted in the experience of Mexican and Chicana cultures.

Chola con Cello has served the County of Los Angeles through her eclectic work on the school board, in the courts, and most recently in health care as a national Subject Matter Expert in healthcare interpreting and cultural competency, straddling the worlds of performance, community service and activism.

The first Latina invited and honored to explore the African Diaspora at the invitation of the Ford Foundation, she has also created five solo performances that have toured throughout the country. Her cello has graced audiences that stretch from raunchy bars in San Antonio Texas and community venues throughout the United States, to performances at every public hospital in L.A. County, stand-up comedy venues including the Belly Room at the Comedy Store, the Laugh Factory, and performances with community artists as well as with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

She has collaborated with artists from nearly every discipline including musicians Lalo Guerrero, Quetzal, Willie Herrón, Essa Pekka Salonen, Peter Sellars and Waldemar Bastos; master performance artist Denise Uyehara; circus performer and trapeze artist Maica Folch; ZaZa Dance Theater of San Francisco; poet Marisela Norte; painters Patssi Valdez, Gronk, Margret García, Alfredo de Batuc and Judy Baca; photographers Monica Almeida of The New York Times, Misha Erwitt, Adrian Arias, Tony Gleaton, and her son Octavio Tizóc.

She began performing at age of two with her mother on the piano in the living room of their home in East L.A. Over a lifetime, her deep knowledge of the improvisational traditions in various cultures makes her an exceptional musical collaborator. Her cello playing is always sensitive, imaginative, powerfully in synch with her fellow players, and reflective of her studies with masters of the use of sound as a healing force.

Past board member of the National Performance Network, she has won awards from the Coleman Chamber Music Society and Anonymous Was a Woman, a $25,000 award that has become synonymous with important recognition at a critical juncture in their lives or careers, to continue to grow, recover from traumatic life events, and pursue their work.

As the singer of seminal Los Angeles punk band The Bags in the late 1970’s, ALICE BAG is credited with originating the West Coast hardcore style. A self-described Chicana feminist, Alice performed with groups such as Castration Squad, Cholita and Las Tres. Her work was featured in the films The Decline of Western Civilization, Punk=Attitude and museum exhibitions including American Sabor and Vexing. Her memoir entitled, Violence Girl – From East LA Rage to Hollywood Stage will be published by Feral House in October 2011.

Maylei Blackwell is an interdisciplinary scholar activist and oral historian. She is author of Retrofitted Memory: Contested Histories of Gender and Feminism in the Chicano Movement. Her teaching and research also explore the possibilities and challenges of women’s transnational organizing around various axes of difference. In her work with indigenous women’s organizers in Mexico, Latin American feminist movements, and sexual rights activists, she’s involved with cross border organizing and community formation. She’s collaborated with farm worker women and indigenous migrants seek to better understand new forms of grassroots transnationalism. She is currently a faculty member in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies and Women’s Studies. In addition, she is affiliated faculty in the American Indian Studies and GLBT Studies programs. Born in Long Beach, California, professor Blackwell received her B.A. from California State Long Beach and her M.A. and Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Daphne A. Brooks is professor of English and African-American Studies at Princeton University where she teaches courses on African-American literature and culture, performance studies, critical gender studies, and popular music culture. She is the author of two books: Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Durham, NC: Duke UP), winner of the Errol Hill Award for Outstanding Scholarship on African American Performance from ASTR and Jeff Buckley’s Grace (New York: Continuum, 2005). Brooks is currently working on a new book entitled Subterranean Blues: Black Women and Sound Subcultures–from Minstrelsy through the New Millennium (Harvard University Press, forthcoming). She is the author of numerous articles on race, gender, performance and popular music culture.

Kim Carter Muñoz (Ethnomusicology) studies revitalization of Huastecan music and dance and women, men, mestizo and indigenous identity in performances in religious and family fiestas, national folk festivals, (trans)national communities’ dances and the music industry in the US and Mexico. She’ s the Women Who Rock Oral History Digital Archive intern.

Andreana Clay is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at San Francisco State University, where she teaches courses on hip-hop culture and music, popular culture, queer studies, and contemporary theory. Her book, What Are Fighting For?: Youth, Activism, and Post-Civil Rights Politics (forthcoming, NYU Press) is based on her research with youth of color activists in Oakland, CA. She has also published articles on Black youth and hip-hop culture; hip-hop feminism; and queer sexuality and hip-hop. Her current work focuses on race, gender, and sexuality in popular representations of Michael Jackson and the “queering” of Black male sexuality. You can also find her

waxing on current events at http://queerblackfeminist.blogspot.com.

Monica De La Torre is a PhD student in the Women Studies Department. Her interests involve the development of racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual identities and the expression of these identities through cultural productions. Monica is a member of Soul Rebel Radio, a radio collective based in Los Angeles.

Rebekah Farrugia (Ph.D., University of Iowa) is an Assistant Professor. Dr. Farrugia’s research focuses on digital culture and the interconnections between gender, technology and popular music. Her work has been published in such journals as Canadian Woman Studies, Women’s Studies in Communication, Current Musicology and the Journal of Popular Music Studies, where she is an editorial board member. Rebekah is also co-producer of the documentary , Copyright & Creativity in the Digital Age, which screened at a number of film festivals and won second place in the documentary category at the East Lansing Film Festival (2009).

Mako Fitts is an Assistant Professor of Sociology, Global African Studies and Women Studies at Seattle University. Her work on women in hip-hop, gender images in media and women’s activism has been published in popular and academic journals. She is a contributing blogger for Ms. magazine and has provided commentary for the The Seattle Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle Weekly, Freedom Socialist, GRITtv, and KBCS 91.3 Community Radio.

Quetzal Flores is an artivista from East Los Angeles who is dedicated to using art as a tool for redefining and reconstructing community. He is the musical director of the band Quetzal, who will be releasing their 5th studio album this summer with the Smithsonian Folkways.

Martha Gonzalez is a third year PhD student in the Women Studies department. She previously earned an undergraduate degree in Ethnomusicology from UCLA. Her interest in music has been fueled by her own musicianship as a singer and percussionist for East L.A’s Quetzal for the last fifteen years. Gonzalez was awarded a Fulbright fellowship for her research on transnational musical social movements across the Americas and Europe, with a specific focus on innovations of women in the music and dance in the genre of son Jarocho as practiced in fandango.

Michelle Habell-Pallán, associate professor in the Department of Women Studies and at the University of Washington in Seattle is author of Loca Motion: The Travels of Chicana and Latina Popular Culture. She is guest curator of the American Sabor: Latinos in U.S. Popular Music exhibit. She facilitates the Women Who Rock Research and Oral History Project and makes music in the Seattle Fandango Project.

Lady Jane DJ has been a DJ in the Seattle scene since 2001. The genres of music that she has spun through the years have been Drum n Bass, Break Beats, House Music, Hip Hop, Salsa, Bachata, Merengue and Reggaetton. Lady Jane DJ has an eclectic love for music and over all enjoys performing for a crowd that loves to express themselves on the dance floor, meeting and tag teaming with other DJs, inspiring people, passionate performers, collaborating with other artist/s and traveling.

J. Kehaulani Kauanui is an Associate Professor of American Studies and Anthropology. She received her BA from UC Berkeley (1992), and PhD (2000) in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz. She is the author of Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (Duke University Press, 2008). She is currently writing a new book, The Kingdom Come? Hawaiian Nationalism and the Politics of Gender and Sexuality. Kauanui has co-edited three special issues of Pacific Studies, The Contemporary Pacific, and Women’s Studies International Forum (1998). Her work appears in South Atlantic Quarterly, American Studies, Comparative American Studies, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, American Indian Quarterly, Amerasia Journal, Mississippi Review, The Contemporary Pacific, The Hawaiian Journal of History, `Oiwi: Native Hawaiian Journal, and Social Text. Kauanui is a co-founder of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) where she serves as an acting council member. She also serves on the Advisory Board for the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. Kauanui is the producer and host of a public affairs radio program, “Indigenous Politics: From Native New England and Beyond,” which airs on WESU, Middletown, CT. Past episodes are archived online: http://www.indigenouspolitics.com. She is also spins a seasonal post-punk and contemporary indie music show, “Going Underground” as DJ Pineapple Krush.

Carrie Lanza is a doctoral student in Social Welfare at University of Washington. Her work integrates participatory digital culture, filmmaking and performing arts into community based practice and research. Lanza earned her MSW at University of Michigan in Community Organizing, her BA in Cultural Anthropology at Ohio University and also holds a certificate in Independent Filmmaking from University of Washington.

Tiffany Ana López is an Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of California, Riverside. Among her professional contributions, she is editor of the anthology Growing Up Chicana/o; coeditor of Chicana/Latina Studies: The Journal of Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social; Dramaturge and Community Outreach Scholar with Breath of Fire Latina Theater Ensemble; and a Teaching Artist for the Mark Taper Forum’s Performing for Los Angeles Youth program. She has published widely on Latina/o performance and issues of trauma and violence in numerous anthologies and journals, including Art Journal, Theatre Journal, and Paso de Gato Revista Mexicana de Teatro. Her presentation today is taken from her book project, The Alchemy of Blood: Violence, Trauma, and Critical Witnessing in U.S. Latina/o Theater (Duke University Press).

Angelica Macklin is a filmmaker, coordinator of Digital Media, and an affiliate faculty in Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell. She holds a Master of Arts in Cultural Studies with research interests in the role activist media production plays in shaping society and social movements. Angelica and her husband Scott Macklin are the co-directors of “Masizakhe: Building Each Other” a film about cultural activists in the Nelson Mandela Metro of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. She is currently working on a new feature documentary that follows the life work of several activists, including Maria Lira, in the town of Aracuai, Brazil.

Kate Mottola is PhD student in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department at UW. She received an MA in Gender Studies from Central European University in 2009 and her research interests include queer theory, transgender studies, anti-racist feminisms, biometrics, and the politics of visibility and cultural representations.

Sonnet Retman is an associate professor of American Ethnic Studies at the University of Washington where she teaches courses in African American and Comparative Ethnic American literary, cultural and popular music studies. Her book, Real Folks: Race and Genre in the Great Depression, is forthcoming on Duke Press, fall 2011.

Nicole Robert earned her M.A. in Museology at the University of Washington and is currently a PhD student in Women Studies, also at the UW. Her research takes a critical feminist approach to representations of non-normative gender and sexuality in U.S. history museums. Nicole has worked in several museums, including the Wing Luke Asian Museum and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, and volunteers with the Pacific Northwest Lesbian Archives.

Georgia M. Roberts is a PhD candidate in English at the University of Washington and teaches in the Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Program at UW Bothell.

Noralis Rodríguez-Coss is a second year PhD student in the Women Studies Department at the University of Washington. Her interests include theories of the imagination and its relation to create strategies of political action by the feminist movements in Puerto Rico. Other interests are women of color feminist theory, theatre as an educational tool, and women in science. Noralis has a Master’s Degree in Women Studies from Southern Connecticut State University and her Thesis is titled “Challenges of the Third Wave: Mobilizing Young Women to the Feminist Movements in Puerto Rico.”

Sherrie Tucker (Associate Professor, American Studies, University of Kansas) is the author of Swing Shift: “All-Girl” Bands of the 1940s (Duke, 2000) and co-editor, with Nichole T. Rustin, of Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies (Duke, 2008). She is currently completing a book entitled Dance Floor Democracy: the Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen. She was the 2004-2005 Louis Armstrong Professor at the Center for Jazz Studies, Columbia University .

Shuxuan Zhou earned a BA in Finance from Central University of Finance and Economics, in China. As a first-year PhD student, she has no fixed dissertation topic, but she is currently broadly interested in China Studies, globalization, feminist ethnography and oral history.

Tonight’s “Central Sounds” w/ DJ Wordlush will feature Dr. Mako Fitts of Seattle University talking about the Women Who Rock Conference: Making Scenes, Building Communities, 9-11pm, listen online at this link and call in at 206-905-1250.
Hollow Earth Radio

http://loudcity.com/stations/hollow-earth-radio/files/show/listen.html

Updated Women Who Rock: Making Scenes, Building Communities Film and Conference Program

or

link to film festival and conference program here:  https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B8pkiYSOby_lYjM4NzRkZTgtMDc1MS00OGY5LTk5ODMtOTA1ZDRlZTE4MWFj&hl=en

Women Who Rock: Making Scenes, Building Communities Film Screen and Conference, Thursday February 17, UW and Friday February 18, Seattle U

All events are free and open to the public. Register at https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/summary/quetzal/111906

Thursday film screening: “Women Who Rock! Making a Scene On and Off Screen.” 5 to 7 pm. University of Washington. Communication 120.

Friday Keynote Performance. “The Arts and Healing: The Road to Wellness Through Truth-Telling and a Song” Musician/Performance Artist, Maria Elena Gaitan “Chola con Cello.” 4:30-­‐6:00pm. Seattle University. Pigott Atrium.

Fandango/Community Music Celebration. 8-12pm. Seattle U. Vashon Room. Bring your instruments!

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: Making Scenes, Building Communities”

February 17-18, 2011 at the University of Washington and Seattle University Call for Session Proposals Deadline: November 30, 2010

Women have been a powerful presence 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, will highlight both contemporary and past movement(s) in and outside of Seattle by bringing together musicians, activists, writers, advocates, educators, and scholars to explore questions of female representation and access for women within music scenes. This conference is intended to reach an academic and public audience. Scholars and educators will contextualize their explorations of women within various music scenes by engaging broader discourses of feminist, critical race, and class analyses. Musicians, activists and others will demonstrate how innovations in the
creative arts link to social justice movements.

Photo of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, ca. 1930, © Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images 1970

This conference, which aims to be an annual event, will also introduce the initial phase of the Women Who Rock Oral History project. At the conference, we will generate contacts for future oral histories.

We invite activists, scholars, musicians and artists to submit proposals for topic-focused breakout sessions that will promote dialogue about women, music, and social justice, taking into account issues of gender, race, ethnicity, class and sexuality. We encourage session proposals that explore the ways that Chicana and Black feminist thought have expanded “who” counts as women and “what” counts as rock. In your session proposal, please include the names of facilitators, participants and/or performers; a short description of your topic; a list of the key points you would like to address in dialogue with conference attendees; and a plan for how you will address them. Group and individual session proposals will be considered. We move away from traditional panel sessions with the aim of promoting dialogue. We are particularly interested in creative, non- traditional, and/or musical session formats.
Possible topics include, but are in no way limited to:

Performing Community:
Photo of Alice Bag, ca. 1978, © Ruby Ray 1978
• The role of music scholars, critics, performers and archivists as well as Chicana and Black feminist theorists in crafting a feminist narrative of hip hop, punk, and indie rock
• Women performers and the art of DJ-ing, breakdancing, rhyming, graffiti art, vocalizing and spoken word • Building community at the intersection of Hip Hop and Indie Rock • Autonomous women-focused art collectives (ex. Mujeres de Maíz) • Queer musical practices and interventions

Making a Scene:
• Music making as a local site of feminist community-building (examples include Home Alive, B-Girl Bench, Seattle Fandango Project and others)
• The role of performers, advocates, and educators in creating musical communities • Creating a space for building connections between women in hip hop, indie rock/punk, and alternative rock
cultures that share a similar ethos but rarely connect
• Connecting the women who use music culture as a platform for pleasure and politics • Linking local music communities and transnational musical movements (de CAJóN Project , Afro-Peruvian percussion)
• Musical and creative responses to immigration debates (SB 1070) • Creating spaces of autonomous music making and sharing
• The role of community radio • Internet and social networking

Communal Archives/Oral Histories:
• The politics of the archive; the archive as a site of community-making and historical praxis • The archive as resource for performers, advocates, and scholars • The archive as foundation for digital online and museum exhibits • Presentation of oral histories
Collaborative networks of production, performance, and distribution:
• Use of digital technologies for in-home production and recording • Use of digital technologies for musical and scholarly collaboration • Music communities as a vehicle for public humanities

Please submit your session proposals by November 30, 2010. Proposals should be 500 words or less and include a description of the session format. Please also include a 50-word biography. Send proposals for sessions to quetzal@uw.edu. Group and individual proposals or performances will be considered.

Questions? Contact Quetzal Flores, quetzal@uw.edu.

Conference registration at: https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/quetzal/111906

Conference organizers: Mako Fitts (fittsm@seattleu.edu), Quetzal Flores (quetzal@uw.edu), Michelle Habell-Pallan (mhabellp@u.washington.edu), Sonnet Retman (sretman@u.washington.edu), Nicole Robert (nrobert@u.washington.edu ), Georgia M. Roberts (gmr2@u.washington.edu).

This conference is co-sponsored by the American Music Partnership of Seattle (Experience Music Project, KEXP 90.3 FM, and University of Washington), Women Studies, American Ethnic Studies, School of Music, and the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington as well as Anthropology, Sociology, Social Work, and the Women Studies Program at Seattle University.

To download pdf version, click https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B8pkiYSOby_lZjU0ODlkODgtODMyOS00MDEzLWFiZjktYTM4OWZhZmVjYzlh&hl=en