iuly-7. 2000 »
Michigan on my mind
Continued from Page 25
Well-known musician Ferron confirms
Michigan’s vanguard role: “W hat starts at
Michigan ends up in the public in five or six
years.”
W hether it’s work on race and class aware
ness or insistence on sign language interpreta
tion, many of the practices that are taken for
granted in feminist enterprises around the
country were the subject of testing and turmoil
at Michigan.
Beneath the methodical process of eruption
and resolution of conflict lies an abiding com
mitment to connection that’s often missing in
the larger world. Susan Allborell says, “It’s my
family, tmly. We’ve stood around knee deep in
mud, we’ve screamed at each other, but it
never changed the fact that we love each
other.”
That abiding sense of connection— to a
place, to a vision and to one another—has
brought Michigan to its 25th year at a time
when the closing of lesbian-feminist hcxikstores
and other institutions is all too common. In a
sense, the festival is a time capsule, preserving
some of the energy of those years when “libera
tion” was still an overt goal.
“You have to understand what it was like in
1976,” says Karen Dodson, who traveled to the
first festival from Chicago. “It was lezzie fever.
It was an incredible upwelling of grass-roots
energy: You could put one lavender flier up in a
city of 3 million, and 500 women would find
out about it.”
The festival is an odd sort of time capsule,
though, one that’s popped open every year.
“The women who were there in the beginning
have kept in mind that the women’s move
ment is fluid and that it needs to change to sur
vive,” observes Breedlove. “There are constant
ly new generations coming up and the younger
women have taken the responsibility to make
Michigan theirs as well.”
The resulting diversity may be the key to
the longevity of the festival. From the range of
musicians— “The artistic span from Kay Gard
ner to Tribe 8 shows enormous breadth,” com
ments Krissy Keefer— to the smorgasbord of
athletic, cultural and educational activities—
try the ever-popular kissing workshop— to the
parade of differing ages, ethnicities and aesthet
ics, diversity at Michigan is a reality, not
rhetoric.
“It happens here on the land,” Keefer con
cludes, “in the mosh pit of our lives."
W hat makes this grand social experiment
work? Sandstrom, who’s doing doctoral
research on the subject after many years as a
pioneer in women’s music, has a theory: “None
of these things would happen if not organized
around women’s music. It’s a performance
space, and each of us is always performing our
identity. All of those hard issues can get played
out in performance.”
The transcendent energy of music that’s
connected to our experiences as women and
created in a space of our own making, this is
the beat of the festival’s heart. Which brings us
to the performing artists.
A sampling of artists scheduled to appear
includes longtime festival favorites Holly Near,
Toshi Reagon & Big Lovely, Teresa Trull and
Barbara Highie, Mary Watkins and
Kay Gardner, Suzanne West-
enhoefer, Edwina Lee
Tyler, Ferron, and Rhi-
annon. Newer to
Michigan but
beloved by today’s
multigenerational
audience are
bands such as
Tribe 8, the
Butchies, Straight
Ahead, Bitch and
Animal, Kindness,
and Latin Ameri
can All Stars. The
ater, dance and spoken
word will he well-repre
sented with Holly Hughes in
Preaching to the Perverted, Marga
Gomez in Jaywalker, Sister Spit’s Rambling
Road Show, the Dance Brigade, Between the
Lines Dance Co., Kathleen Hermesdorf and
1
Whether it's work on race and class awareness or insistence on
sign language interpretation, many o f the practices that are
taken for granted in feminist enterprises around the country
were the subject o f testing and turmoil at Michigan.
Dominique Zeltman. Solo music
sets to watch for are Melissa Fer-
rick, Catie Curtis and Kinnie
Starr. And a surprise set by the
Indigo Girls has recently been added
to Wednesday night’s lineup.
For many artists, Michigan’s 25th
anniversary is both a personal and cultural
milestone.
Toshi Reagon, now a popular headliner,
remembers: “I first came to Michigan when I
was 16 with my mom [Sweet Honey in the
Rock founder Bernice Johnson Reagon]. 1
couldn’t even get onto the open mike stage.”
For Ferron, “It’s the reunion of our tribe. It’s
the young meeting the elders; it’s the passing of
the torch in some way.”
Lynne Breedlove goes so far as to say, “My
entire life’s been changed.”
Life-changing experiences on a sliding-scale
ticket. “It’s magical," says Amoja Three Rivers.
“It’s like Christmas was when I was a child,
something I look forward to each year.”
For 15-year-old Jezanna Garza, going to
Michigan has been an annual event since she
was a baby swaddled on her mother’s back.
“Michigan moves you; adults, kids, we can all
feel it,” she says. “W hen I’m there, I feel free.
The festival taught me to stand up for my
rights. It comes from knowing 1 have that safe
place to go hack to, that I try to take with me
out into the world.”
As a woman who will come of age during
the festival’s third decade, Garza has one warn
ing: “If you go, you’re never going to he the
same.”
■ For more information about the MICHIGAN
W o m y n ’ s M u s ic F e s t iv a l , check out the Inter-
net at www.michfest.com; unite to WWTMC,
P.O. Box 22, WaLihalla, M l 4 9 458; or call
(231) 757-4766.
is a free-lance writer spending
the summer in Michigan; she still has a house in
Portland and swears she’ll be returning home
before too lemg.
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