{{Short description|Annual festival}} {{Infobox recurring event|name=Edgy Women Festival|genre=Arts Festival|date=On or around March 8th, International Women’s Day|location=Montreal, Canada|years_active=1994 - 2016 (23 years)|founded=1994|website=edgywomen.ca}}

The '''Edgy Women Festiva'''l (also referred to as '''Edgy Redux''', '''Femmes Au-delà''' or '''Women from the Edge''') was an annual festival of "short, highly physical works by women, often characterized by a transdisciplinary approach and politicized content." which ran for 23 years from 1994 to 2016.<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal|last=Cowan|first=T.l.|date=2019-11-01|title=Edgy + Hysteria: Not Like Sisters, or How Montreal's Edgy Women and Toronto's Hysteria Festivals Got It On Across Space and Time|url=https://utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/tric.40.1_2.118|journal=Theatre Research in Canada|volume=40|issue=1_2|pages=118–134|doi=10.3138/tric.40.1_2.118|s2cid=240959710|issn=1196-1198|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Presented by Studio 303, a dance and interdisciplinary-arts centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Edgy Women focuses on feminist perspectives with workshops and forums, performance events, and socializing. Studio 303's artistic and general manager Miriam Ginestier programmed Edgy Women from 1995 to 2014.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Al-Solaylee|first=Kamal|date=October 28, 2005|title=Going Out: Women on the verge of Hysteria|work=The Globe and Mail|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/women-on-the-verge-of-hysteria/article989082/|access-date=2019-03-30}}</ref>

== Origins & History == Edgy originated in 1994 when dancer, choreographer, and Performance Mix-producer Karen Bernard from New York City came to Studio 303 with 2 other artists to present a shared program. Bernard called this first program "Women from the Edge' but Ginestier changed the name to 'Edgy Women' for the next iteration.<ref name=":02" />

=== Early years === 1994 - 2005: 1 night event, expanded to 4 nights.<ref name=":02" />

2001: 10 pieces, 2 days. Artists from NYC and Montreal included Alexis O’Hara, Women With Kitchen Appliances (Veg-Omatic) and Marie Brassard (Jimmy, Creature De Reve)<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Moore|first=Nathaniel G.|date=2001|title=Montreal: Edgy Women Festival|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1458606616|journal=Broken Pencil|issue=16|pages=8|id={{ProQuest|1458606616}} }}</ref>

=== 2005 - 2012 === 2005: featured (among others) Nathalie Claude, Dayna McLeod and Alexis O'Hara,<ref name=":12">{{Cite news|last=Swoboda|first=Victor|date=February 25, 2016|title=Edgy Women has reached the brink: The festival, renamed Edgy Redux in 2014, bows out by celebrating 23 years of "unusual practices.|work=Montreal Gazette|url=https://montrealgazette.com/entertainment/edgy-women-has-reached-the-brink|access-date=Dec 13, 2021}}</ref> expanded to three venues to accommodate visiting all-woman art band, Les Reines Prochaines from Switzerland.<ref name=":02" /> Canadian Heritage provided the funding that helped Edgy grow to a 1 week event as well as add performers from outside of Quebec.<ref name=":12" />

2006: Edgy officially became a festival of 10 days to three weeks after Canada Council, Inter-Arts office provided festival funding for 2 years.<ref name=":02" />

2009: Jess Dobkin - Being Green<ref name=":12" />

2011: Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens - Adventures of the Love Art Lab.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Johns|first=Merryn|date=1 March 2011|title=Annie Sprinkle & Elizabeth Stephens: why these "love artists" are making the environmental movement sexy and fun.(TOP TEN REASONS WE LOVE...)|url=|journal=CURVE|volume=21| issue = 2|pages=80|via=Factiva}}</ref>

=== 2013: 20th Anniversary - Theme: Art / Sport / Gender === Source:<ref name=":02" />

Cassils - Becoming An Image<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Horvat|first=Ana|date=2018-05-04|title=Tranimacies and Affective Trans Embodiment in Nina Arsenault's Silicone Diaries and Cassils's Becoming an Image|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/08989575.2018.1445588|journal=A/B: Auto/Biography Studies|volume=33|issue=2|pages=395–415|doi=10.1080/08989575.2018.1445588|s2cid=195016827|issn=0898-9575|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Edgy Lucha featuring professional female wrestlers<ref name=":12" />

=== 2014 - 2016: Edgy Redux === 2016: Edgy: The End (final edition)<blockquote>''“Edgy: The End included an obituary (honouring the 500+ artists involved), a memorial service (where I selected video archives to screen and offered live commentary during Montreal’s Nuit Blanche), and a funeral cabaret-wake where the co-hosts Nathalie Claude and Dayna McLeod took the audience through the five stages of grief. It was an amazing finale.”'' - Miriam Ginestier, former artistic director<ref name=":02" /></blockquote>

=== Partner Venues === 2005: La Sala Rossa<ref name=":02" />

2009: Tangente

2013: Blue Cat Boxing Club

2016: Lion d’Or cabaret<ref name=":12" />

== People ==

=== Artists === Dayna Mcleod (performance & video artist / curator) - 10x, Alexis O'Hara (spoken word / sound / performance artist) - 10x, Nathalie Claude (theatre artist / clown) - 9x,<ref name=":02" /> Karen Bernard (dancer / choreographer) - 9x, Tonija Livingstone - 6x,<ref name=":12" /> Jess Dobkin (performance artist) - 4x,<ref name=":02" /> Karen Sherman - 4x,<ref name=":12" /> Lamathilde<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Lavoie|first=Rébecca|date=2014|title=Pratiques artistiques féministes et queers en art vidéo : propositions politiques post?-identitaires|url=https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/rf/2014-v27-n2-rf01646/1027924ar/|journal=Recherches féministes|language=fr|volume=27|issue=2|pages=171–189|doi=10.7202/1027924ar|s2cid=193990246 |issn=0838-4479|url-access=subscription}}</ref> (video artist), Marie Brassard (theatre artist), Céline Bonnier (actress), Coral Short (performance artist), Les Fermières Obsédées (Quebec City), Jennifer Miller (USA), Mirha-Soleil Ross, Edwige Jean-Pierre.<ref name=":02" />

=== Curators and Artistic Directors === 1994: Karen Bernard & Paul Caskey

1995 - 2013: Miriam Ginestier

2014: Miriam Ginestier & Andrea Joy Rideout<ref name=":02" />

2015 & 2016: Andrea Joy Rideout<ref name=":12" />

== Funding & Closure == In 2006 festival funding was secured via the Inter-arts office at the Canada Council. This lasted only 2 years due to eligibility criteria and changing programs. Over the years, funding ranged from $0 to $20,000. In 2013 when Studio 303 lost its Canadian Heritage funding, Edgy was reduced down to 3 events and renamed Edgy Redux until its final season in 2016.<ref name=":02" /> There is speculation that this massive loss of funding was due to the Conservative government targeting organizations that specialized in working with women, queer and racialized artists.<ref name=":2" />

== Ethos & Curatorial Approach == Despite the name, Edgy Women was not gender exclusive, neither to audiences nor performers. Although infrequent, it was not unheard of to see either cis and trans male performers on the line up.<ref name=":12" /> Regarding her curatorial approach to the festival, Ginestier has said, “I was actively seeking weirdness, stuff that’s subversive, or a bit controversial, that might upset some people.” Queer-feminist artist, activist and scholar, T.L. Cowan says, “There was a sexual culture that was central to the aesthetics, the audience energy, and to the commitment both to provocation and safety.”

Theatre artist, scholar and Hysteria: A Festival of Women curator, Moynan King has said, “I think there’s an element of camp, for sure. There’s also an element of disidentification (Muñoz) in a way, like an awareness that sometimes we’re reclaiming and reconfiguring our own phobic stereotypes. It’s a way of inhabiting history, maybe, or having a history?”<ref name=":02" />

Cowan described similarities in the multidisciplinary, cabaret-focused approach taken by Edgy, Hysteria and Counting Past 2, a Toronto trans arts festival created by Mirha-Soleil Ross. King and Cowan agreed that each festival pushed against the perception that work by marginalized artists, such as women and trans performers, didn't exist.<ref name=":02" />

== Legacy & Influence == According to Montreal Gazette journalist Victor Swoboda, “Edgy’s provocative feminist and gender-bending performances have helped define Montreal as an open-minded, inquisitive arts town” and may have helped launch the career of Dana Michel with an early solo at the 2006 edition.<ref name=":12" />

Edgy collaborated often, intimately and aesthetically with Moynan King’s Hysteria: A Festival of Women from 2003 - 2009.<ref name=":02" />

Ginestier once took Edgy artists to Ljubljiana, Slovenia to perform in The City of Women festival. The creative kinship was strong but the inter-continental logistics were too prohibitive to subsequent collaborations.<ref name=":02" />

Edgy is mentioned as one of Canada’s few LGBT2Q performance festivals in Paul J. Halferty’s 2014 journal article for Theatre Research in Canada.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Halferty|first=J. Paul|date=2014-05-16|title=For the Future, the Past: LGBT2Q Theatre, Performance, and Scholarship in Canada|url=https://utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/tric.35.2.255|journal=Theatre Research in Canada|volume=35|issue=2|pages=255–258|doi=10.3138/tric.35.2.255|issn=1196-1198|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

In June 2016, Karen Bernard invited Miriam Ginestier to curate the event “EDGY NYC + MTL” In honour of the 30th anniversary of Performance Mix Festival produced by New Dance Alliance at Abrons Art Centre in New York City.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Barone|first=Joshua|date=26 Mar 2016|title=Performance Mix Festival: [The Arts/Cultural Desk]|work=New York Times|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1775764849|access-date=Dec 13, 2021|id={{ProQuest|1775764849}} }}</ref>

== References == <references/>

==External links== * [http://www.edgywomen.ca/en/ Official website] *[https://edgywomenblog.wordpress.com/ Edgy Women blog] *[https://soundcloud.com/studio303montreal Edgy Oral History Project] *[https://vimeo.com/search/page:2/sort:latest?q=studio+303+Edgy Edgy on vimeo] *[https://www.flickr.com/photos/studio303/ Studio 303 flickr]

Category:Festivals in Montreal Category:Women's festivals Category:Women in Montreal Category:Theatre festivals in Quebec