I’m a little nervous as I sit in the Albany airport. Just what is a Hullaballoo? I guess I’ll find out. Since I’m stage managing I know the line up, lots of heavy feminist hitters on-deck waiting to take their swings. Company I never felt 100% comfortable in, even though some of my best friends are radical lesbian feminist intellectuals. I usually represent the working class contingent. That’s because I’m usually working at these events. I’m not really comfortable standing at a podium and delivering a speech. Although give me mic and I’ll entertain you. So I sit here wearing my Frank Sinatra hat, thinking wouldn’t it be funny to do a drag king show at the Hullaballoo. I’m not sure women there would get it.
I arrived at Albuquerque airport, picked up by Shaba who drove me to the James Little Theater for the deaf in Santa Fe an hour away. I rushed up the stairs struggling with luggage and walked on to MY stage. As a stage manager, you must have that mentality. It’s your turf; you own it and you are responsible for what goes on there. I take it quite personally and am very passionate about my job. I know in the next three days I will be hustling my butt off, keeping the stage moving and making hard decisions that will make some women happy and some not. My responsibility is to the producers who have hired me. I’m there to make their vision happen. And happen it did.
The Feminist Hullabaloo
The Feminist Hullabaloo was and idea conceived by Sonia Johnson and her partner Jade Deforest who headed a group called Estrogenerations Inc. As producers their vision was to invite feminists from all over the world to Santa Fe, New Mexico and have a revival; an exchange of ideas, with a focus on “what’s next?” Women came from far and wide to be there, some coming all the way from Australia including Spinifex, international book publishers. They spoke from the stage about the grave situation facing feminist publishers and bookstores today.Sonia Johnson as you may know is a former Mormon who became a feminist icon after she wrote the book From Housewife to Heretic. She ran for president of the United States in 1984.
Early Feminist Icons
Friday night opened with Sonia Johnson speaking and Alix Dobkin singing. Both were inspirational, talking about women taking power and of course, Alix talked and sang about Lesbians as she always does. She opened her set with “The woman in your life” followed by “Mary B,” her horse riding instructor who was a strong powerful woman role model. Sonia had been away from the public feminist scene for years, so it was really good to see her back in the public eye. She talked about power and control and how they operate in the feminist community. She assembled quite a collection of feminist scholars and writers. But she was clear that all our ideas are important and that we need each other to survive in the unreal world. The producers set up a chat room for women to sit and exchange ideas and email addresses.
The one criticism I heard was there was no workshops where participates could go and discuss all the ideas and information presented. It might have been better if there were Q and A’s scheduled after the presentations. The only venue was the stage. This structural problem can be easily remedied. I think this first Hullaballo was organized to bring us together. So in a sense it accomplished the goal because about 225 women made their way to Sante Fe to attend.
Suzanne Bellamy an Australian feminist scholar and artist, did a PowerPoint presentation called “The Lost Culture of Women’s Liberation the Pre-Dynastic Phrase 1969-1974.” It was funny and clever and one of the highlights of the conference. It’s a satiric archeological dig of a Women’s liberation site 500 years in the future, which stimulated lots of ideas and conversation, not just about the past but the future as well.
Some of the other presenters of note were: Cherrie Moraga, a Native American writer who gave a passionate speech dealing mostly with racism within the feminist community. Also Sally Gearhart, Hye-Sook Hwang and Shaba Barnes. Paula Gunn Allen could not make it at the last moment and that was a loss to the program. Kim Duckett led us in an opening ritual; it was both moving and grounding at the same time. Connie Kurtz and Ruthie Berman were the emcees for the entire hullabaloo.
And there was Mary Daly who read from her book Amazon Grace. She received a standing ovation. Some women had traveled a great distance just to hear her.
Julie Penelope was my roommate. She is funny and smart and like Sonia had disappeared from the lesbian feminist scene. She edited Lesbian Culture: an Anthology[/i] which is a great collection of material and wrote the book Speaking Freely among others. We ate ribs together and caught up on our lives. We were drifting off to sleep one night when she said, “We have to do something about Christianity.” Ok cool, but can we wait until the morning?
