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The lovely Amy Raina wasn't able to make it to Boston for our shows this year, but she put on a beautiful show in Portland and performed her new piece, Trust A Femme there. I'd love for you to read it on her website. This is my favorite part: I imagine her sitting on a lavender couch with Oscar Wilde He has a flower in his pocket and writes poetry Her pen is a needle Piercing through the taught fabric like a page Pulling the floss through again and again It was her grandma that taught her, how to separate The threads, How to back-stitch, And dot the I’s with french knots. 
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Thank you for an incredible run of shows in Boston and Portland!
The Femme Show: More is More! Saturday, April 21 The Apohadion Theater 107 Hanover St, Portland, ME 04101 $13 advance, $15 cash only at the door Tickets at https://moreismoreportland.bpt.me 7:00 Doors, 7:30 show The Femme Show returns to Portland for one night only to celebrate queer femininity and the rich history of fem(me) identity. We’re proclaiming that “More is More” and showcasing the over-the-top, the absurd, the flamboyant, and declaring that, at least on our stage, there is no such thing as “too much.” The 2018 edition includes dance, spoken word, burlesque, etiquette advice, drag, storytelling, and more!  Alicia Greene (emcee) is a plus size model, educator, performing artist and activist. She is an alumna of Kansas State University, Brown University, the Improv Asylum and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts-NYC. Past performances and emcee events include: The Chicago Improv Festival, Montreal Fringe Festival, Company One, Big Moves dance troupe, Boston Dyke March, comedy clubs and open mics. Alicia has slayed on the runway for Boston Curvy Fashion Week, Rebdolls, Smart Glamour and Curvy Magazine's NYFW Curvy Night Out to name a few. Ms. Greene is also a sought after speaker who frequently facilitates social justice education initiatives at conferences and workshops across the country. Instagram: @aliciaoshun Twitter: @LadyOshun1 Amandaconda has been performing burlesque since the steamy summer of 2006. She grew into a performance artist known as Rosie Rimjob, one of the founding members of The Dirty Dishes Burlesque Revue(2009-12). As part of the Revue she collaborated to organize variety burlesque shows and community events. From there, she independently curated and hosted two sultry, bi-monthly burlesque series that brought together performance artists & venues across Portland & Biddeford, ME. Over the years, Rosie grew weary of rimming expectations and put herself to rest... Only to be born of the East End's soft, ocean foam as Amandaconda. Amandaconda can be seen looking cozy, cruising down Congress Street on her FUJI 450SE, contemplating her latest calling: to reinvent the Bond Girl. Upcoming is the third generation of Naked People Reading, July 7, 2018 at a military fort on Peaks Island. As part of the WONDERWOOD music series, naked readers will share literature that raises awareness around the ecology of the land that this militarized site was erected upon.The mission of Naked People Reading is to provide a platform for people to openly & honestly share through literature, without the obligations of preening or dressing up in order to talk the talk and walk the walk." Amber Aliyah Williams aka SublimeLuv is a black lesbian womanist who always speaks her truth and believes "the personal is political." She is a Boston born and bred spoken word artist. SublimeLuv attended both private and public schools and became an activist through words at an early age due to her contrasting experiences in those institutions. She is a member of 'Team Be Spoken' showcasing their 'If you can Feel it you can Speak it' Open Mic at the Milky Way the second Thursday of each month. She aims to empower women of color to impact positive global change through her art. Instagram, Twitter and Facebook: @MsSublimeLuv Amy Raina (Portland Producer) is a facilitator and writer at The Telling Room, a literary arts education organization in Maine. Raina is a licensed teacher, a consultant for the National Writers Project, a self-taught tarot reader, and author of the parenting blog Queer Maine Mama. Raina lives in Portland, Maine with her boifriend, and together they parent two children, two cats, and a chihuahua named Chicken. Visit amyraina.com for stories, tarot readings, and more! Maggie Cee (founder and artistic director) is an artist, activist, dancer, and educator committed to community, social change, and pinning stuff to her head. Onstage, Maggie strives to offer provocative, inspiring performances and writings that speak to the heart of contemporary queer experience. She has been seen at PortFringe, MondoHomo, the HOT Festival at Dixon Place in New York City, the 2008 and 2012 Femme Conferences, and the Stonewall Inn. She is the 2011 recipient of the History Project’s Lavender Rhino Award for an emerging LGBT history maker. J Dionne is a recent transplant from Boston. He is an educator studying to be in school leadership. As a former dancer, J is continuously striving to link up the artfulness to the academic, the poetic within the everyday. J is honored to be involved in this project, and excited to be exploring femininity...the beautiful space in between any sort of expectation. April 19-20, 2018 7:30 Doors, 8:00 PM show $12-20 Advance Tickets Available Here OBERON, 2 Arrow Street Cambridge, MA The Femme Show celebrates queer femininity and the rich history of fem(me) identity by proclaiming that “More is More.” We’re showcasing the over-the-top, the absurd, the flamboyant, and declare that, at least on our stage, there is no such thing as “too much.” The 2018 edition includes politics, step dancing, etiquette advice, fan dancing, drag, storytelling, spoken word, burlesque, and more! Friday night’s show is ASL interpreted. Following Friday’s show keep the party going with dancing with DJ Lady Spindrift and super friendly mixing and mingling with MadFemmePride. The after party is free for ticket holders - if you come to the show on Thursday but want to hit up the party, just bring your ticket stub. Or admission to the party without the show is $5. Alicia Greene (emcee) is a plus size model, educator, performing artist and activist. She is an alumna of Kansas State University, Brown University, the Improv Asylum and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts-NYC. Past performances and emcee events include: The Chicago Improv Festival, Montreal Fringe Festival, Company One, Big Moves dance troupe, Boston Dyke March, comedy clubs and open mics. Alicia has slayed on the runway for Boston Curvy Fashion Week, Rebdolls, Smart Glamour and Curvy Magazine's NYFW Curvy Night Out to name a few. Ms. Greene is also a sought after speaker who frequently facilitates social justice education initiatives at conferences and workshops across the country. Instagram Twitter Amber Aliyah Williams aka SublimeLuv is a black lesbian womanist who always speaks her truth and believes "the personal is political." She is a Boston born and bred spoken word artist. SublimeLuv attended both private and public schools and became an activist through words at an early age due to her contrasting experiences in those institutions. She is a member of 'Team Be Spoken' showcasing their 'If you can Feel it you can Speak it' Open Mic at the Milky Way the second Thursday of each month. She aims to empower women of color to impact positive global change through her art. Instagram Twitter Facebook Amy Raina is a facilitator and writer at The Telling Room, a literary arts education organization in Maine. Raina is a licensed teacher, a consultant for the National Writers Project, a self-taught tarot reader, and author of the parenting blog Queer Maine Mama. Raina lives in Portland, Maine with her boifriend, and together they parent two children, two cats, and a chihuahua named Chicken. Visit amyraina.com for stories, tarot readings, and more! Instagram Facebook Chicava HoneyChild (Thursday night only) is a burlesque danseur, historian, teacher, and producer. She is the proprietress of Sacredburlesque.com, New York City's Brown Girls Burlesque and The Broad Squad Institute. A scholar of performance art, women of color in burlesque heritage, and sacred sexuality and spirituality, she received her MFA from Goddard College. She is currently working on Sister Shake, a documentary and companion book on the legacy of Women of Color in burlesque. Twitter Instagram Facebook DJ Lady Spindrift (Friday night DJ) started her musical career at the age of 16. Known as Boston's Queer Turntablist, DJ Lady Spindrift always keeps the dancefloor moving. Her budding career began with hosting her own hip hop radio show at WNHU 88.7FM, the in-house radio station of her Alma-mater: University of New Haven. Upon returning to Boston in 2010, Lady Spindrift made frequent appearances spinning at many of the Boston Area's major venues, including The Middle East, ZuZu, Machine, Club Cafe, The Good Life, Wonder Bar, and House of Blues. DJ Lady Spindrift is a member of Boston's DJ Collective Table Manners and has performed alongside world renowned DJs such as DJ Enferno, Rob Swift, Mista Sinista, and DJ Precision, and Redbull Thre3style US Champion Trentino. Twitter Instagram Facebook Essence Revealed is a lap dance engineer of the upscale gentlemen's club scene. She tours the USA, Canada & Europe solo and with Gesel Mason's “Uses of the Erotic as Power Anti-Thesis”. She was crowned 2016 Queen of Classic Burlesque Milan Extraordinaire. When not on stage, Essence empowers women to proudly embrace their personal sense of sexuality through her writing, including her upcoming book HUSTLE: A Stripper's Guide to Winning at Life and through teaching seductive dance & twerkshops. Her goal is to help encourage women to dare to be their most sensual, authentic and most self loving selves both on stage and off! www.theessencerevealed.com Twitter Instagram Facebook GeeGee Louise is the Burlesque Impersonator, using the beauty of burlesque to captivate, and enchant, tell stories and transport you to a world of wonder. Jo Troll, a trans dancer, has recently finished their Graduate Diploma in Dance Studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Over the years, they have created work for amateur queer dance performance, the UCLU Dance Society, and as one of the first DUCKiE upstarts at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London. Originally an Irish dancer, Jo engages with challenging questions of tradition and identity in contemporary dance spaces in order to find an unapologetically queer, honest, and accessible means to present their work. Maggie Cee (founder and artistic director) is an artist, activist, dancer, and educator committed to community, social change, and pinning stuff to her head. Onstage, Maggie strives to offer provocative, inspiring performances and writings that speak to the heart of contemporary queer experience. She has been seen at PortFringe, MondoHomo, the HOT Festival at Dixon Place in New York City, the 2008 and 2012 Femme Conferences, and the Stonewall Inn. She is the 2011 recipient of the History Project’s Lavender Rhino Award for an emerging LGBT history maker. Pampi is on a mission to conquer lust myths. They embody how racialized and caste-d adolescent sexual fantasies, when conflated with childhood bullying, can blur the lines between fantasy and reality when negotiating consent in adult bodies. How the body is church and that church has a hot box that is underestimated as a ruse of patriarchy's egregious violent policing and silencing of othered bodies. Poison Ivory is a New York based burlesque performer who has made her mark on the international burlesque scene. She is part goddess, part femme fatale, part hedonist, and was crowned Miss Exotic World- Reigning Queen of Burlesque at the 2016 Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender. With a background in theater and dance, Poison Ivory combines her thoughtful musicality with sultry and sensual movements that always leave her audience wanting more. She is brown sugar and spice; she is a deadly device. www.misspoisonivory.com Instagram Rachel Kahn is a Boston-based writer and performer. Her work has been heard at the Apocalypse Lounge, the Ear Inn Poetry Series, ImprovBoston's Queer Qomedy, The New York Writers' Coalition 'Writing Aloud' series, and The Buttcracker, among others. As part of The Femme Show-- and the cape-wearing half of SPPSSM, alongside Maggie Cee-- she has performed at MondoHomo, PortFringe, the 2012 Femme Conference, the HOT Festival at Dixon Place in New York City, and offered etiquette advice to readers of The Toast. Rachel believes strongly in the importance of talking about messy, ridiculous, things and has a deep affinity for small dogs wearing sweaters. Twitter Instagram  This weekend I was honored to premiere a section of “Starting from Fem”, a work-in-progress exploring the construction of femme identity US working class bars of the 40s-50s. The piece will eventually become a full length solo performance. I am so grateful to everyone who has supported me on the 2+ year journey to this piece.
In the introduction to the landmark butch-fem anthology The Persistent Desire, fem* author and activist Joan Nestle dedicates the book to Jeanie Meurer, a fem friend who passed away in 1991 before ever sitting down to record an oral history for Joan’s Lesbian Herstory Archives. Joan laments “I realized that I had spent many long hours listening to butch women tell their stories, but I had put off listening to Jeanie. My own femme self-hatred had made me a careless listener.” If even Fem Superstar Joan Nestle admits to overlooking fem history and stories, imagine all the many ways in which misogyny and self-hatred affect the stories we know and tell. I love studying history to help my understand my queer community. But I suspect we are not getting the full story of fems in this community, just as I know we are often not hearing the full story when it comes to the stories of people of color, enslaved people, transgender people and Native people. Much of my research for this piece relies on The Buffalo Women’s Oral History project and Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, a history of butch-fem community from the 1930s-1960s in Buffalo, New York. Despite the efforts of authors Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis to interview fems, the narrative is skewed decidedly towards the butch side. Fems are referred to as “not around any more” or as having “gone off and gotten married.” I’ve spent over a decade in the queer community talking, writing, and performing about fem. I believe that some of the roots of fem-phobia in the queer community can be traced back to the beginning of modern LGBT history. This section of “Starting from Fem” is a coming-out and coming-of-age story about a fictional young woman finding a lesbian community in the 1940’s. Because the voices of fems are so obscured by history, I have created a story based on facts while using fiction to explore the emotional landscape of a fem’s journey. I know there are anachronisms, that my character might be articulating thoughts and feelings that would be foreign to someone at the time. But I’m not trying to create a perfectly accurate portrait. I invite you to imagine with me a fem-friendlier world, one where fems were able and welcome to articulate their feelings, needs and desires, where they valued themselves as a central part of their communities. A note on music – All three songs with lyrics I chose for this piece were popular songs prized by gay women at the time for their double meanings. The word “gay” had long been used to mean same-gender loving. “Secret Love” comes from Calamity Jane, a movie with a very butchy-seeming main character and some decidedly Sapphic overtones. *I’ve recently decided to reclaim the older spelling of fem after seeing use of “femme” by straight cisgendered people explode in the past year. I am all about an expansive definition of femme/fem across all kinds of people and bodies, but I am not here for straight women appropriating a term with very specific queer meanings. Thank you to everyone for an amazing show in Boston! I really can’t describe what it felt like to perform again with these amazing folks and celebrate 10 years and many miles on the road together. We were also joined incredible Femme Show first timers Neon Calypso and Kathleen Delaney and some fave artists who are more recent additions.  I am thinking a lot about sustainability and what it will take to keep this show going. We’ve moved from a collective-ish model in the early years to really being a one-woman headed organization where almost all of the behind-the-scenes work is done by yours truly. After a weekend celebrating and looking back, I am thinking about what a more community-centered show looks like and wondering if there is energy out there for other folks to get involved and what that might look like.  The Femme Show has received little institutional support or recognition – not from local arts organizations, not from queer organizations. But this weekend, as I came very close to crying during bows while Alicia talked about what it means to create anti-oppressive queer community space, I thought about how important community recognition is. I feel recognized and loved by community here in a way that I haven’t always been able to connect with. It’s powerful, and humbling, and it has refueled me to keep doing this. Maybe not for 10 more years, but who knows?  Friday June 2 and Saturday June 3 7:15 Box Office/Doors, 8:00 PM show $15 students, seniors, Boston Dance Alliance Members $20 general admission http://aqueertimeandplace.bpt.me/ Original dance/theatre from Queer Choreographers Maggie Cee, Grant Jacoby, and J Michael Winward.  Over the past few years producing The Femme Show and GenreQueer, I let my own projects (besides SPPSSM) fall to the wayside. In 2014 I realized that if I was going to continue the Femme Show, I needed to get back to centering one of the reasons I started the show in the first place: My own art.
Since then, I’ve gone back to therapy, performed solo at BarWotever at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London, performed in Peter DiMuro’s Gumdrops and the Funny Uncle, applied for a grant I didn’t get that helped me focus my project, and found a director to collaborate with. The end result will eventually be a full-length solo show exploring how femmes found and connected to butch/femme community in the 1940’s and 50’s. Butch/femme or fem bar culture was an important precursor to the gay liberation movement that followed. By being visibly queer and taking up public space, femmes and butches alike created space for same-sex loving women to find and support one another in the face of virulent homophobia from the outside world. “Starting From Femme” imagines and explores the queer past and passions between people who loved, fought, and created space to be themselves out of sheer necessity and determination. “A Queer Time and Place” features a 20-minute excerpt from the piece. You can be part of the first audiences to see this work! More info: A Queer Time and Place showcases original work by choreographers Maggie Cee, Grant Jacoby, and J Michael Winward. The three artists draw inspiration from sources including pop culture, history, and queer theory. Audiences will be moved, provoked and entertained by the unique blend of contemporary and modern dance, physical theater, and original monologues. Guest artists include power//PLAY, the collaborative partnership of Claire Johannes and Jordan Jamil Ahmed. With a variety of perspectives represented, A Queer Time and Place celebrates the theater as a space of inclusion. The Dance Complex will provide a fitting venue: as the mission statement reads from its window at 536 Mass Ave, “We welcome you whatever the dance you bring…There are no others here.”  Two important announcements: PLEASE buy your tickets early and be on time! We want to get as many happy people into the audience as possible! And VENUE CHANGE for the after party – it’s now at the Brahmin – see below for details.
We dearly want to fit all your gorgeous faces at the show! We have 80 tickets per night available for pre-sale and we will have a very limited number of seats at the door. We MUST start the show on time at 7:30 SHARP in order to be out of the venue for their next event. Therefore: Please buy your advance tickets asap! http://femme10yearslater.bpt.me/ Advance ticket sales end at 12 PM each day for that day’s show. Arrive EARLY! whether you have advance tickets or are buying them at the door. If ticket-holders do not arrive by 7:15, we reserve the right to offer their seats to people who are standing by. MadFemmePride Femme Show after party 4/29 PLEASE NOTE VENUE CHANGE!!! After the Saturday performance of The Femme Show: 10 years Later at Club Cafe, head over to the Brahmin at 33 Stanhope St for a Mad Friendly Pride get together. We’ll have mingling and games, plus FREE cake to celebrate The Femme Show’s Anniversary. You can also order food and drinks off the Brahmin menu. (which you should totally do because it will help us meet the bar minimum!) Feel free to come by around 9:30 even if you don’t make it to the show on Saturday.
With SublimeLuv, Pampi, Johnny Blazes, Madge of Honor, Maggie Cee, Chicava, Rachel Kahn, Ginger Rita, Amy Raina, Havalah, Neon Calypso, and Kathleen Delaney. Friday’s performance will be ASL interpreted. Saturday night join MadFemmePride at the Brahmin after the show and raise a toast to 10 years of celebrating femmes!  Get advance tickets to The Femme Show, April 28-29 at Club Cafe. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 cash only at the door. (if you want to see the show for free, you can volunteer!)
 Just the Facts: Queer Ballet October 15, 22, 29 from 2:00-3:15. $5 or pay what you can. Advance registration available. Come for the whole series or once or twice! RSVP on Facebook to spread the word! Queer Ballet Class is for LGBTQ folks of all ages, regardless of gender, body type, fitness level, or experience. Whether you want to re-live childhood hours spent at the barre or are interested in exploring this dance form for the first time, this is your invitation to experience ballet in a fun, non-judgmental environment. Despite the strictures that are sometimes drawn around this art form, we can reclaim it and make it our own, discovering the subversive potential of movement. This workshop includes basic ballet terminology, gentle stretches, an introduction to proper alignment and lots of joyous movement. Presented by In The Streets Productions (the folks who bring you The Femme Show) with support from the Boston Pride Foundation.  A few more thoughts: I started teaching “Ballet Is For Everyone” when the Femme Show toured to youth conferences and retreats. We were hearing that these events wanted interactive, experiential workshops for their participants, and this was my contribution. I didn’t really know if it would take off, especially when it was scheduled for 9 AM the morning after the big drag show. But it turns out lots of people like to dance and move their bodies, and people whose genders don’t line up with the ballet stereotype were eager to try it. I have wanted to do a version of this workshop in Boston so my friends and community here could enjoy it! Our human bodies are made to move. Queer people often have additional barriers to finding the ways our bodies enjoy moving. But we can’t have a revolution if we aren’t taking care of ourselves! Queer Ballet gives you an option to try another way to make your brain and body happy! I love this art form and I want to share it with you! We’ll cover some of the basics that you would learn in any adult ballet class, but I also plan on including lots of joyful, expressive movement that will make you feel like you’re dancing! We’ll warm up focusing on individual movements and body parts – fingers, arms, feet. We’ll do lots of traveling steps to classical music and classical covers of pop music. We get to do all of this in the beautiful studio at Integrarte at Hope Central Congregational Church in JP. I can work with injuries and physical needs including taking the class from a chair, scooter or wheelchair. Email the femme show at gmail if you would like to discuss specific needs. What you can wear:
What not to wear:
Here are some bonus ballet shots from back in the day!
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