july 7.2000 »
Michigan on my mind
In praise of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival,
still going strong after 25 years
by
H olly P r u e t t
AUGUST 8-13,2000
Michigan demonstrates what women can
txldess worshippers, stage divers, RV-ing
create
when provided the space—and, some say,
women, riot grrrls and women of every
what the world might he like if it were run by
preference and persuasion are gearing up
women. “The festival shows that it’s possible to
for the 25th Michigan Womyn’s Music
create a sustained reality with shared values,
Festival; upwards of 8,000 women from around
even when our ways of expressing those values
the world are expected to attend during the
aren’t all the same,” says Papusa Molina, who
week of August 8 through 13.
Over the last 25 years more than 50,000 will travel from Mexico for her 15th festival.
Lynne Breedlove, lead singer of Tribe 8, who
women have made the pilgrimage to this lesbian
phoenix that rises from the ferns
each August, and for them “Michi
"Michigan" represents a state of mind,
gan” no longer represents that
state in the Midwest sandwiched
a place where what's scarcely possible
between two giant lakes. Instead,
in the greater world becomes possible
“Michigan” represents a state of
rrind, a place where what’s scarce
and is celebrated for one week each year.
ly possible in the greater world
becomes possible and is celebrated
for one week each year.
feared “some kind of hippie-dippy experience”
“It’s an exuberant celebration of our lives
when the band first played Michigan in 1995,
where we can love who we are as women,” says
now considers the festival “a model for the
Krissy Keefer, collective member and artistic
whole world.” She says: “It’s my dream future.”
director of Dance Brigade and Wallflower
But first and foremost, it’s a party. Festival
Order.
attendees will enjoy 40 perfonnances, hun
dreds of workshops, a film festival, a crafts
fair and the 650 wooded acres that are
home to this perennial women’s village.
The lineup of performing artists will knock
your socks off, whether those socks are worn
in D k Martens, Birkenstocks, platform
thigh-highs or Keds.
We’ll get to the artists in a
minute. First, consider the
stages on which they’ll
perform. They are out,
way out, in the woods:
the lush green
woods, so full of
oxygen that.
anything can
happen.
“Women
get an
experience
here that’s
crystal
clear
Ju st out 2 5
because it’s so pure,” says 25-year veteran
Karen Dodson. “They can feel what it’s like to
have their energy less diluted.”
This sylvan territory is a place where sisters
were doing it for themselves long before
Aretha and Annie ever thought to sing a song
on the subject.
In 1978, still married but following her first
female crush to the festival, Amoja Three
Rivers marveled at the sight of “women taking
care of all the business themselves. It was the
year of the tornado,” she recalls. “There were
women up on the stage scaffolding and the
lightning was like a strobe light. These were
not scared women. These women were shout
ing back to the thunder.”
With women handling everything from
sound to security and plumbing to Popsicles,
the festival is an annual antidote to the culture
at large that, as far as many feminists are con
cerned, continues to deny women’s abilities,
ethics and basic worth. For the girls who’ve
grown up at the festival, says 17-year-old
Amber Jones, “It’s so empowering to know I
can do that! Seeing women so strong in their
womanness, living on their own without men,
is an incredible thing for a young girl to see.”
That’s not to say it’s a perfect place. Michi
gan has long been recognized as a petri dish: a
place where different cultural strains genninate
and grow into a larger, complex organism. The
storms that rock the land aren’t all on the
weather map.
Singer Holly Near observes:
“Since we bring all our
stuff to the party, it’s no
paradise— though
there are heavenly
moments.”
Longtime sound
engineer Boden
Sandstrom says,
“The issues brought
to Michigan are what’s
important to women,
issues that are discussed
and often resolved in a
way that doesn’t exist
anyplace else, and then
is taken back to
communities
around the
world.”
Continued
on Page 2 7
Ferron reunites
with her tribe
V
PHOTO BY VICTORIA PEARSON
CarlsonWagonlit JjsT Port|and’ °reg°n
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