Red Dawns in Amsterdam!

Yup, at the Eclectic Tech Carnival!

May 25th – 31st, 2008, Amsterdam

»When we move, it's a movement!«
Feminist and queer festival Red Dawns (http://www.kudmreza.org/rdece/)
Presentation by Tea Hvala

Red Dawns festival happens annually around March 8^th in the Autonomous Cultural Center Metelkova mesto (http://www.metelkova.org/) in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Since 2000 and the 1^st Red Dawns, the organizers have shifted from self-defining it as women’s to feminist and finally in 2007, to a feminist and queer festival. The presentation is going to outline the reasons for and consequences of Red Dawns’ constant need for (re)articulation. Welcome!

Reaction

by Nino Jaeger

Noha Ramadan: Body as the Site of Action
Discussion/Workshop

…in the end we stand half naked in the center of Ljubljana - the capital city of Slovenia! Before that we saw each other kissing while walking over the three bridges - again and again. Most of us - I think - were women. How I consider my own person - I am not sure. Maybe I am no man either?

How could all that happen to us? I think it started when we all attended this workshop with Noha Ramadan. She is an Australian performer, "fauxlosopher" and street activist. Noha is researching the revolutionary necessity of liberating the body in public. The body is conceptualized as a means and site of activism that disturbs predetermined meanings of public space.

From her we learend about performances at public spaces, like the subway, that try to involve the people around. This political motivated actions don't want to use "signs" for the content they want to bring in the public awareness, eg. "don't smoke", "no war", "no rape". Because such (no-)signs are based on the concept of black-and-white, bad-and-good. So people are used just to obey this signs. As there is no such thing as a truly good or truly bad you have to decide in many situations of your life what is maybe the best action for a certain situation. What is sad to be truly good or bad is more a matter of power or dominance than truth. So it is necessary for all of us to learn and do what is not very popular: To think, decide and act on the basis of using my brain and body and senses in an autonomous way.

The output of our discussion was a feminist and queer action on a bright Sunday noon.

We tried to involve the "audience" from a public space - like at the center of Ljubljana - by actions of us and our bodies that are unexpected, unusual or improper. Behaving as "normal" couples we walked over the Tromostovje for about one hour - only: there were too many women among us kissing each other in public.

Kaj je narobe z Rdečimi zorami?

Članek Anne Ehlermark Kaj je narobe z Rdečimi zorami? je izšel v 5. št. revije Narobe. V njem je objavljen tudi intervju Suzane Tratnik z aktivistkama skupine Lambda Instanbul.

http://www.narobe.si/stevilka-5/rdece-zore.html
http://www.narobe.si/stevilka-5/turcija.html

Rest in peace, Pippa

6th Girls are Weird Fest, Kutina

Klaus (One-woman-band iz Rijeke koji čine Nora i njezin laptop ...)
Kimiko (Zagreb; indie electro (dream) pop bile bi ključne riječi za opisivanje nesvakidašnje muzike koju Kimiko stvara ...)
Ž Buka (Zagreb, punk rock)
The Rock Flock (Pleternice kod Pozege, indie rock grunge)

Girls are weird festival (GAW) dekonstruira rodne stereotipe i djeluje neovisno o uobičajenim muško-ženskim društvenim ulogama. Namjera nam je promijeniti uobičajeno mišljenje o ženama kao pop-ukrasima, back vokalima i vrištećim fanovima!

Saturday, March 22nd at 21:00 in Baraka, Kutina (Croatia)
Entrance fee: 15 kuna

http://www.gawfest.net/
http://www.myspace.com/girlsareweirdfest

Photo stream

Photo: Nada Žgank

Lots of new photos on Rdeče Flickr!

Exercise in interpretation »If you're a woman, become a man!«

Thursday's discussion on gender in Balkan fairy tales added
to fairytale opening of Red Dawns festival in Wednesday by
providing with theoretical frame and background. Lilijana
Burcar explained how fairy tales which challenge the binary
construction of masculinity and femininity were told by
women in literary saloon in Ludvik XIV palace as a direct
critique of his rule. Women who were forced into marriage
due to economic and political reasons found an escape in
fairy tales. Even though fairy tales are organic forms, they
do not change spontaneously only. Little Red Riding Hood, at
first sexually independent girl who manages to escape the
wolf, Perrault turned into a helpless child who ends up in
wolf's stomach, being saved only with a help of a male figure.
A strong moral dictum can be drown out of it: women, do not
wander in wood on your own, and do not be surprised if/when
you're violated if you chose to do so. With a different aim,
in the 19th century the fairy tales were transformed to serve
the strengthening of the national consciousness and
consequently the widening of the gap between public in private.
Grimm's Snow-White is in the latest versions asked to perform
more and more household work (also more explicitly determined)
for the seven dwarfs than in previous ones. It seems as that
the fairy tales lost its role in challenging the patriarchal
system.Those who attended the discussion had an opportunity
to listen to Zdena Gajser telling Balkan fairy tales where
distinctions between genders are shadowed and female figures
really are heroines. Nonetheless, even this stories to certain
extent confirm heteronormativity: the princess
(otherwise dressed as a men) has to change into the man to lie
with her wife. Neither homosexuality nor transvestism are
acceptable. What is then the possibility for a lesbian marriage
in the fairy tales, Suzana Tratnik asked herself, and in the
next breath answered: it is an utopia.
Not only that the heroines in fairy tales are not able to
maintain their homosexual relationships as such, also in real
life so-called 'virginjesha' assume on themselves a masculine
gender and do not really establish homosexual relations. Balkan
fairy tales which challenge the heteronormativity then do so
only to certain extent. I am ending with two questions that
appeared to me in relation to the discussion: to what extent
(will) contemporary Balkan writers and story tellers use the
potential of the fairy tales for a subversion of the patriarchal
system?
And why there is no known old Slovenian fairy tale that would even
attempt to do so?

Tanja Škander