10 Years later

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?