City of Woman, 7-13 October, Ljubljana

[epistolaris at freemail.hu]

7th international festival of contemporary arts 
7 - 13 October 2001
Ljubljana, Slovenia


Wed. 3   10 am
cankarjev dom
Lili Novy PRE-FESTIVAL EVENT: Open Press-conference and round table on the occasion of the Slovene publication of Assia Djebar's (Algeria) novel »L'amour, la fantasia« (1985). The varied opus of this world-famous author and film-director revises traditional history-writing by de-centering the coloniser's version of Algerian history and making space for the diverse voices and expressions of women. She complicates the notion of linear history, presenting an alternative view of the interdependence of the personal and the national, the past, present and future. 
Djebar, a distinguished professor and director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Louisiana State University, has received extraordinary honours and awards. Among many others: the International Peace Prize of the German Book Trade Foundation, 2000, the Medal of Francophony from the Académie Francaise de Paris, 1999, the Fonlon - Nichols Prize of the African Literature Association, 1997. 
With Aleš Berger (editor at Mladinska knjiga) and Suzana Koncut-Verdellis (Slovene translator of L'amour, la fantasia ). On the press-conference also the novel "Die Mansard" by Marlen Haushofer will be introduced. It was translated by Lucka Jencic. 
  6 pm
kinoteka
 La Nouba, des femmes du Mont Chenoua, 1978, 117 min., dir. by Assia Djebar. Since 1975 Djebar has been taping the voices of Arabic-speaking witnesses of the Algerian war in order to juxtapose with the images, the sound and the timbre of the Arabic with oral translations and/or subtitles in French. Djebar's film keeps women's speech and oral history safe from the danger of extinction, from the danger of a definitive cultural silence. International Critic's Prize, Biennale Venice 1979. 
Mon. 8  all day
Cankarjev dom
I. preddverje WOMEN/ beyond borders - Artists received an identical, miniature wooden box as a point of departure. The boxes (reminiscent of a womb, gift, shrine, treasure, and hope) have been transformed in a myriad of ways via painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and mixed media. WOMEN/ beyond borders is an unprecedented grass-roots collaboration involving 500 artists, curators, and critics from 36 countries, that began in Santa Barbara, California in 1992. City of Women presents a permanent slide installation with a selection of exhibits from Argentina, Bosnia, Croatia, Cuba, Ecuador, Fiji, Guatemala, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, the Philippines, Tibet, Uganda, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Zambia… and Slovenia. The participating artists from Slovenia are: Marija Mojca Pungerèar, Ema Kugler, Janja Vrabec. Open until October, 13th .  
  7 pm
Cankarjev dom 
Štihova hall  Women Can't Wait - spoken word by Sarah Jones (USA), New York's prize winning slam poetry diva, actress and playwright. In this one-women show Jones impersonates 8 women from around the globe, all living under laws that violate their human rights. Written for the international women's rights organisation 'Equality Now', this fusion of art and activism was performed at the United Nation's Conference on Women's Rights, 2000. With her widely celebrated talent for sharply portraying a broad range of characters in a humorous as well as emotionally charged tour de force, she gives an insight into the multicultural condition of today's societies, discrimination and prejudice. Jones performs widely, appears in diverse TV productions, and recently in Spike Lee's Film Bamboozled. 
  9 pm
Cankarjev dom
Gallusova Mahotella Queens (South Africa) - opening concert. One of the legends of urban South African Music with Mahlathini, heroes of the cultural resistance to apartheid, the Mahotella queens have returned along with a band of young musicians Mbaquanga's torch. »The Mahotella Queens represent so much of what is the best in the music of South Africa: the finely honed art of passionate singing, the latticework of funky rhythms, and the breathtaking art of spectacular live performance.« (WOMEX 2000 Award for outstanding contribution to world music). 
  11 pm 
Klub Gromka 
Metelkova Mesto  The Couple in the Cage, A Guatinaui Odyssey, By Coco Fusco and Paula Heredia, Video, 30 min., 1993 The Couple in the Cage documents the travelling performance of Guillermo Gómez Pena and Coco Fusco, in which they exhibited themselves as caged Amerindians from an imaginary island. While the artists' intent was to create a satirical commentary on the notion of discovery, they soon realised that many of their viewers believed the fiction, and thought the artists were real "savages". The record of their interactions with audiences in four countries dramatises the dilemma of cross-cultural misunderstanding which we continue to live with today. Their experiences are interwoven with archival footage of ethnographic displays from the past, giving an historical dimension to the artists' social experiment. The Couple in a Cage is a powerful blend of comic fiction and poignant reflection on the morality of treating human beings as exotic curiosities. 
DJ evening with Latino - sounds + sublime electronics: DJ Nicolaj Jeffs & POLIFONICA 
Tue 9  all day
Cankarjev dom
I. preddverje WOMEN/ beyond borders - slide exhibition 
  8:15 pm
Moderna galerija 
 London Today: London Today brings together artists (performance poets, visual artists, storytellers, rappers) from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds, all living and working in London. 
Virtual Exiles - opening of the digital print & internet exhibition by Roshini Kempadoo (UK). Virtual Exiles is an online-curated, constantly changing art project / archive consisting of researched and contributed photos, sounds, videos. It explores the experience of individuals who have left their country of origin and who are now at 'home' in another. How and what is it that triggers us to make journeys from one place to another? How is the country we travelled from remembered? What is it that is taken away to recall the country that was once called home for us or our parents? See the Digital Prints, Surf the Archive, or contribute your own version of what it means to step between two spaces at once. Kempadoo is a visual artist in the field of digital art and photography and lecturer in digital photography at University of East London. She exhibits and lectures internationally. Open until October 21st  
  9.30 pm
Moderna galerija 
 Such Stuff As We Are Made Of - a choreography by Lia Rodrigues (Brazil). "Developed in collaboration with my company's eight dancers, Such Stuff As We Are Made Of displays bodies in intriguing configurations, as if they were human sculptures, translating ideas, convictions and criticisms that are part of the collective imagination. There is no separation between stage and audience: the public is part of the performance. The dancers appear in solos, duos or ensembles, dressed or stark naked, to the sound of music or in complete silence." Prizes of Best Choreographer and Best Soundtrack of the third edition of Rio Dança 2000 Prize, awarded by the city of Rio de Janeiro. 
Closed performance for guests and journalists: at 7pm.  
  11 pm
kinoteka
 I.K.U. is a Japanese Sci-fi porn digi-movie by media artist and filmmaker Shu Lea Cheang (Taiwan). It's about a shadowy enterprise called the Genom Corporation bio-engineers, a strain of replicants who collect orgasm data by fucking as many people as possible so that the information can be sold as microchips in vending machines on the streets. I.K.U., with its intersection of sex and technology, is one long lavish visual metaphor for the sexual freedoms afforded by the internet, fantasies you can indulge in with others regardless of gender, social constraints or even physical possibilities. The film was premiered at The Sundance Film Festival, 2000. 74 mins., English + Japanese. 
Introduced by the director.  
  11 pm
Menza pri koritu
Metelkova Mesto  festival night bar and programme 
Wed. 10  all day
Cankarjev dom
I. preddverje WOMEN/ beyond borders - slide exhibition 
  
Moderna galerija 
 London Today: Virtual Exiles digital print & internet exhibition  
  5 pm 
Moderna galerija   London Today: Differences Electronic Lecture by Roshini Kempadoo (UK). "Increased digitalisation and enhanced electronic communication is impacting on almost every definition of our cultural selves - from the public sphere of collective, social activism and citizenry through to the notion and defining of the private, individual self. Using my own work as illustration, the presentation will explore three areas that contribute to some of the debates surrounding the digital experience and definitions of race. It will explore our relationship to the colonial documentation of the past and how this is reformulated into a contemporary electronic context. Explore notions of individual and collective definitions of migration, identity and transnationalism as applied to a digital and networked environment. And to raise specific aspects of electronic media and enhanced notions of visuality that impact on our experience and understanding of notions of difference and issues of race." 
  6pm
cankarjev dom London Today: Fatimah Kelleher with a lecture and poetry reading on Sudan. Fatimah Kelleher is a performance poetry artist, who is a founding member and main producer of the Urban Griots Open Floor Sessions, which gained a reputation as one of the finest underground spoken word venues in London. Her own poetry performances are strongly linked to music, she has worked with several bands and musicians, and performs at various open floor spots in London and Atlanta. In this reading she will give an insight into her recent 9-month stay in Sudan, where she taught language, literature and oral poetry. She will also present the new pieces she wrote there.  
  8.30 pm
cankarjev dom
linhartova Astrid Hadad and Los Tarzanes in concert. The Mexican show-diva creates »one of the most provocative stage acts since the Weimar Republic was in bloom« (New York Times). Her self-created 'Heavy Nopal' style is a fusion of old songs combining ranchera, bolero, rumba, rock and jazz, performance art, political barbs and a mix of the most surreal and extravagant costumes and settings. She embodies every lyric, switching from carnival dancer, to Aztec Nun or the Virgin of Guadeloupe. Subversively turning upside down the symbols, stereotypes and traditions of Mexican and Latin popular culture she calls attention to the social and political realities of today's world. Whether Hadad performs on Central Park's Summer Stage, at International Theatre Festivals around the world, or at the Bodega in Mexico City she attracts a mixed and passionate audience: old, young, straight, queer , trans-cultural... . 
  10.30 pm
kinoteka  Nargess -dir. by Rakhshan Bani Etemad (Iran), 1992, 100 mins. Afagh --an ageing thief whose beauty and attraction is fading-has been sharing her love and petty crime life with the adolescent Adel. One day in the slums of the capitol, Adel meets the beautiful, poor and honest, Nargess. He desperately falls in love with her and decides to change his life. But before he can marry her, he agrees to Afagh to carry out his last burglary job… Nargess is an excellent social crime-drama, that brilliantly portrays multi-dimensional characters -their complex relationships, their hopes, loves, dignity, anger and despair -- living on the fringe of society. Prizes for best score, best director at the 10th Fajr International Film Festival 1992.  
  11 pm
menza pri koritu
metelkova  Festival night bar and programme
London Today: book a Wig Therapy session with Barby Asante (UK) and try out a new look, a new identity. Prior bookings required on 386/1/4381580  
Thu. 11  all day
Cankarjev dom
I. preddverje WOMEN/ beyond borders - slide exhibition 
  
Moderna galerija 
 London Today: Virtual Exiles digital print & internet exhibition  
  9.30am-5.30pm
Moderna galerija London Today: Virtual Exiles Workshop (1) with Roshini Kempadoo. Participants are invited to contribute their own artwork to this ongoing internet exhibition. Whether it is a audio, video or multimedia piece, or a series of images or texts, the person is invited to contribute their own experience of being 'settled' within one culture and yet having a sense of belonging to another. Prior registration is requested at +386/1/4381580 
  2 pm - 6 pm
hair salon Mic styling
Zidovska 6 London Today - Barby Asante is a multimedia artist and producer with an interest in performance, arts education and art theory. In her recent projects Asante has been working with ideas of identity and self expression, often through offering interactive experiences to the viewer. On the basis of her performances, Asante develops works that are very much within the boundaries of visual arts practice. At City of Women she will offer her interactive Wig Therapy in a working hair salon and at the festival bar. Book a session and try out a new look, a new identity...Asante is exhibiting, performing and teaching since 1994. 
Prior booking required on +386/1/4381580  
  6 pm
kinoteka A Litany For Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde celebrates a visionary woman and a gifted poet, who in her life and literary work embodied the intersection of three social protest movements: anti-racism, the women's movement and gay-lesbian rights. Lorde's charismatic personality and her importance as a dynamic force and role model for younger generations make for an informative and enlightening documentary. The film was premiered at Sundance Film Festival 1995. Ada Gay Griffin (producer / director), Michelle Parkerson (director), colour, 60 min., English. 
Photo-Exhibition A selection of private photos of Audre Lorde by Dagmar Schultz, Alice-Salomon-Fachhochschule Berlin, Founder and Director of the women's publishing house Orlanda (Germany) - Menza pri koritu / Metelkova Mesto, 08.10. - 13.10.01 
  9 pm
menza pri koritu
metelkova mesto London Today: Fatimah Kelleher will introduce a video recording of Urban Griots Open Mike Session as an example of the current spoken word scene in London.  
  11 pm
menza pri koritu
metelkova mesto Festival night bar and programme: 
London Today: book a Wig Therapy session with Barby Asante and try out a new look, a new identity  
Fri. 12  all day
Cankarjev dom
I. preddverje WOMEN/ beyond borders - slide exhibition 
  
Moderna galerija 
 London Today: Virtual Exiles digital print & internet exhibition  
  9.30am-5.30pm
Moderna galerija London Today: Virtual Exiles Workshop (2) with Roshini Kempadoo  
  5 pm
Moderna galerija
Info center Public reading with Coco Fusco: Fusco is a New York based interdisciplinary performance and video artist as well as a writer. Her performances, videos, essays or photo-novellas take viewers/readers on a tour of the current trans-cultural landscape. Approaching the dynamics of cultural fusion from many angles, Fusco's work forms a sustained meditation on how the forces of globalisation impact upon the making of art. Coco Fusco will read from her forthcoming book The Bodies That Were Not Ours and other writings.  
  8 pm
Cankarjev dom
linhartova Fatou Traoré with Vegetal Beauty + Mad Spirit - a dance / hip-hop / jazz fusion from Brussels. What happens if a contemporary dancer, a group of hip-hoppers and a jazz group meet? » It's a trip where the landscape is mobile and changing. The consciousness of oneself, the others, the music, the space and the time allows a particular level of consciousness peculiar to improvisation. We wish to develop a common language which evolves and feeds inside the group where each person's experience is shared. Our core principle is to open to other cultures. Mobility and adaptability are the driving forces to work in different contexts which allows the evolution of dance, of music and oneself.«  
  10 pm
Galerija Kapelica Coco Fusco - presents a performed reading of her latest play "The Incredible Disappearing Women" about art, sex and death on the US-Mexico border. The Incredible Disappearing Woman was commissioned by the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art and will begin an international tour in 2002. 
   
11 pm 
Menza pri koritu
Metelkova Mesto Festival night bar and program: 
Poetry Performance by 'word smith' Fatimah Kelleher accompanied by Belgian jazz group Vegetal Beauty.  
Sat. 13  all day
Cankarjev dom
I. preddverje WOMEN/ beyond borders - slide exhibition 
  
Moderna galerija 
 London Today: Virtual Exiles digital print & internet exhibition  
  8 pm
KUD F. Preseren London Today: Bittersweet - Contemporary Black Women's Poetry event with Jamika Ajalon, Malika Booker and Karen McCarthy. Bittersweet is a highly acclaimed collection of contemporary black women's poetry bringing together best-selling authors alongside the powerhouse of new British writing, like Jamika Ajalon, Malika Booker, Karen McCarthy. Since the book was first published in 1998, a tour with the contributing authors was organised and has been staged at over 20 venues in Europe. Each writer is unique in her style of presentation; together they create a highly charged and dynamic stage presence, which brings the book to life.  
  10 pm
KUD F. Preseren Solo concert by Saadet Türköz (Kazakhstan/Turkey/Switzerland). Saadet, who was born as a second-generation Kazakh immigrant in Turkey, living since the 1980s in Switzerland, performs traditional and contemporary songs and improvisations from Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. Looking to transform memory, Saadet seeks to evoke pictures and atmosphere by means of voice and music which transcend cultural boundaries. In addition to her frequent solo concerts, she regularly performs in duos, trios or bigger formations with free improvising jazz musicians, working with musicians such as Joëlle Léandre, Elliot Sharp, Gianni Gebbia, Carl Rüdiger, and Werner Luedi. 
   
11 pm 
Menza pri koritu
Metelkova Mesto Festival night bar and programme
Closing party of 7th City of Women festival with a special show of Purlesa: 'The girls with the matches' (a Theatre Gromki production) and DJ club night  
Mon 15  6 pm
Kinoteka POST - FESTIVAL - EVENT 
in collaboration with Autumn Film School: 
The May Lady, dir. by Rakhshan Bani Etemad (Iran), 1998, 88 min., farsi (Eng. Subtit.). Forough Kia, a 42 year old filmmaker, is a single mother who lives with her teenage son Mani in the capital. She's successful in her work, but is at a turning point in her private life. Mani - with whom she has an affectionate, yet stormy relationship -- considers himself the man of the family. When Forough starts thinking about engaging in a new relationship, a war of nerves between mother and son brakes out. But she asks herself: "Why should the gift of motherhood deprive me of another gift--love?" The May Lady won the FIPRESCI Award at the Montreal Film Festival (1998) 
Wed 17  3 pm
Klub Metropol Lecture by Rakhshan Bani-Etemad (Iran), who graduated as film director from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts and joined Iranian TV in 1973. She began her career as a continuity girl and assistant director. Later on, she made a number of short documentaries and directed her first picture, "Off the Limits" in 1988. Films: Zir-e poost-e shahr (2000, Under the Skin of the City); Baran-O-Bumi (1999, Baran and the Native); Banoo-Ye Ordibehesht (1998, The May Lady); Rusari Abi (1995, The Blue-Veiled); Nargess (1992); Pul-e Khareji (1989, Foreign Currency); Zard-e Ghanari (1988, Canary Yellow/ Off the Limits); Kharej az Mahdudeh (1986, Off-Limits)  
  8 pm
Kinoteka Baran-O-Bumi (1999 Baran and the Native) dir. by Rakhshan Bani Etemad Iran, 20', farsi (Eng. Subtit.). Baran, a teenage tourist, meets a young native boy on a one-day-trip to an idyllic island. She asks him to get her a pearl. The native dives, sends up a full basket of pearls but, he himself doesn't resurface. Did Baran really see the boy? Or was it just a fantasy? 
Zir-e poost-e shahr (2000, Under the Skin of the City), dir. by Rakhshan Bani Etemad Iran, 92', farsi (Eng. subtit.). "Beneath Tehran's surface there are class divisions, dim economic prospects and exploitation, domestic violence, mistrust among neighbours, runaway girls living on the streets dressed as boys, and political violence. In this environment, Tuba tries to inject a quality of life for her family, while keeping them safe and secure. These two sometimes contradictory desires collide in severe ways. (…) we are reminded that systems of violence sometimes force those closest to our hearts into complicity." Zir-e poost-e shahr won this year the Netpac Award at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, as well as the Special Jury Prize at the Moscow International Film Festival. 
Both films will be introduced by the director  
Thu. 18  10 pm
Kinoteka Rusary Abi (The blue - veiled), 1995, 85', dir. by Rakhshan Bani Etemad. "The main character of my film, Nobar, belongs to that social class in which working women bear the major share of responsibilities. Rusariye Abi describes the relationship between a man and a woman whose differences in age and social status -- unacceptable in our country -- make them outcasts." Introduced by the director  

update 23 september 2001.
this program is still subject to minor changes.


besides the festival-program, City of Women would like to draw your attention to the following exhibitions.

3.10.  8 pm
cankarjev dom
mala galerija Alenka Vidrgar: Behind the table / in situ 
photographic exhibition 3.10. - 20.10.2001 
 25.10. 8 pm
ŠKUC Gallery Róza El Hassan & Milica Tomic - exhibition
25. 10. - 31. 11. 2001