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DIVAfest

article in SF Independent
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Where the girls are

Performance festival celebrates the female psyche

 

The female spirit assumes forms ranging from vamps to cheerleaders to a Dada baroness in a performance marathon opening this week.

More than a dozen theater, music, dance, and visual artists will take part in DIVAfest, a two-week celebration performed mostly by, and saluting, women. The event is set for Thursday through Saturday, May 16-18 and Thursday through Saturday May 23-25, on four EXIT Theatre stages. Solo pieces, comedy shows, cabaret programs, and a literary reading are on the bill.

Programs include The Last of the Red Hot Dadas, writtern by Kerry Reid and performed by Christina Augello. The show focuses on the adventures of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, an early-1900s Greenwich Village personality known for her poetry, sculptures, and outrageous costumes.

Also on tap is Girlesque, in which Sean Owens portrays some of the women who had an impact on him when he was young. Libby O'Connell will bring stage and screen star Lily Marchand to life in Hellicous: Lily Marchand Rides Again. Vocalist Amy X Neuburg will present Songs About Life and Death and Love and Insects, a revue of cabaret, rock, opera, and Finnish folk music. And Thessaly Lerner will appear in Champion, about adult obsessed with cheerleading.

Additional shows include Dialogue Between a Prostitute and Her Client, written by Dacia Maraini and performed by Rica Anderson and Micheal Cheng; Boobs, Butts, and Thights, writtern and performed by Buffy Charlet; and Madam Noir's Fandango, performed by Carnival of Chaos and billed as a "western sci-fi cabaret."

The event will also feature a staged reading of Claire Boothe Luce's The Women performed by a cast of about 20 and Nocturne, an exhibit of paintings and lithographs of female subjects by Teresa Moore.

The EXIT Theatre is located at Eddy and Taylor Streets. For more information about DIVAfest, call 673-3847 or visit www.divafest.org.

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