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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1988)
Women's night at OILA Women walked off with prizes in nearly every category S A N D R A DE HE L E N he Oregon Institute of Literary Arts’ second annual Oregon Book Awards ceremony was a special night for women writers. At the first book-awards ceremony, Ursula Le Guin had asked the judges, “ Where are the women?” Apparently they were all busy writing, because this year women walked away with awards for playwriting, poetry and creative nonfiction; a special award was given to Calyx and a lifetime award to historian Dorothy O. Johansen as well. Carolyn Gage, winner of the playwright’s award for The Second Coming o f Joan o f Arc, said that although “ Awards are arbitrary as judges vary from year to year,” women “ are living in very exciting times.” Gage took the opportunity in her acceptance speech to come out as a lesbian artist. She said, “ I am proud to T receive this award as a lesbian writer for a lesbian play which was performed at a women’s theater company. . . our art needs to be seen. . . especially at a time when women are becoming the poorest class of people in the world, when one of four adult women are raped, when one of three girls are victims of sexual abuse . . . ” Gage explained to Just Out why acknowledg ing herself as a lesbian writer is so important: “ Every woman writer I had read or heard of turns out to have had a woman lover: Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, all these famous women, Eleanor Roosevelt. When I found this out, through my own research, and realized this had been hidden from me as a reader, I was outraged. Women writers being lesbian is no accident — being a lesbian is the only way to commit to doing women’s art.” Margarita Donnelly of the Calyx collective said the award “ couldn’t have come at a better time for us.” Calyx, the only nonprofit women’s press in the United States, has just completed another book. “ OILA gives more money to the literary arts than the Oregon Com mission for the Arts,” Donnelly said. “ Mr. Booth has taken responsibility for increasing the amount of money available to the literary arts, and I applaud him for that.” Donnelly said she was “ just delighted that Ursula gave the award.” Le Guin, in her presentation to Calyx, spoke of the two ways to attack the citadel: to storm the gates and infiltrate it, or to establish cities outside it. Calyx lives outside it — as Gage does also. “ Unfortunately, those cities don’t have much money in them,” Le Guin said. Calyx is proud of its connection with Oregon women writers. It was the first to publish the title poem from winning poet Ingrid Wendt’s “ Singing the Mozart Requiem.” Donnelly said that when Calyx was standing in line to receive the award, “ A guy in front of us was mumbling, moaning and groaning about women’s publishing while Ursula was giving her speech.” Donnelly was amused. The “ guy in front’ ’ may not have been so amused when he realized he was doing his complaining right before the women’s publishers’ eyes. Last year women were nominated — Andrea Carlisle for her magical “ Riverhouse Stories,” for example — but didn’t win. This year women walked off with the prizes in nearly every category. No one asked the question, “ Where are the men?” OILA had an egalitarian roster of nominees. Donnelly pointed out that the Oregon Commission for the Arts, while actually increasing the total amount of money awarded, gave this year’s increases only to groups that have over $400,000 per year and none to literary groups at all. OILA is doing revolutionary work for Oregon literary artists. This year alone, OILA contributed $ 15,000 to six writers and five small publishers. # P le a s e Si th a n k y o u a r e n 't t h e only m agic w o rd s: W hen s u p p o r tin g o u r a d v e r tis e r s m ention J u s t O u t. Let your body speak its mind. • Massage Therapy • Body Awareness • Body-centered Counseling Women take to the stage ortland’s fall theater season has been dominated by retro (Civic’s Hair), sorta- homo (ART’s The Fox) and full-blown hetero (ART's Pump Boys and Dinettes). How refreshing, then, to have women dominate the alternative theater scene in November with a wide variety of shows. Echo Theatre will host the Portland premiere of Jane Smith, Jane Smith, a highly visual music and theater collaboration starring leading innovators Diane Schenker and Thomas a Eckert, composer Roger Nelson and actor Carlo Scandiuzzi. The four reveal the private distress of a public woman through an unravelling tapestry of musical and visual events and imaginings. Rich vocal anthems (Eckert is an accomplished singer) share the stage with haltingly personal moments in this performance study of the many sides of “ today’s woman.” The show premiered last June at On the Boards’ Northwest New Works Festival in Seattle and received great acclaim. The Seattle Times said, “ Jane Smith fulfilled every wild expectation that such a generic title was bound to raise.” Certainly not for everyone, Jane Smith, Jane Smith should prove to be an exciting evening for the adventurous theater goer. The show runs Friday through Sunday, November 11-13. For ticket information, call 231-1232. Four women artists will bring their collabora tive vision to Portland State University's Shat- tuck Studio Theatre with Cecilia's Daughter: Conversations from the Kitchen. This multi disciplinary performance piece combines the talents of video artist Elaine Velazquez, composer Barbara Bernstein, performance- movement artist Susan Banyas and actress Marie Selland-Taylor. Cecilia's Daughter is about the different stages of a woman’s life and her coming of age. In it a woman goes on a journey through her memories and dreams in order to come to terms with the present. At the heart of Cecilia's Daughter are Selland-Taylor’s stories — some times funny anecdotes, sometimes poignant observations, evoking the intimacy of kitchen chatter. The piece explores the variety and contradictions of women’s roles as mother, daughter, sister and grandmother, and inter- Gwenn Cody. B.A.. L.M.T. 2625 SE Hawthorne Blvd. P 2 9 7 -6 9 9 2 Rem inder—Call Thomasa Eckert and Diane Schenker in Jane Smith, Jane Smith at Echo Theater Nov. 11-13. weaves live theater and movement with projected video images, recorded sounds with spoken words, in a juxtaposition that shows — like Jane Smith does — the contrast between what we keep private and what we make public. Judging from these women’s past works, Cecilia’s Daughter promises to be an enriching experience. It plays for three weekends: November 11, 12, 17, 18,19, 25 and 26, at 8 pm. Tickets are $7. For more information, call 294-0321. Short Cuts. Playback Theatre is presenting a comedy-drama entitled Jack. No, it’s not the sequel to Jerker; rather, it’s all about Jack the Ripper. It plays at 8 pm. Mondays and Tuesdays, through November 8, at The Long Goodbye, Northwest 10th Avenue and Everett Street. 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