Category: The Big Top

Female Punk Musicians in the USA: The Anti-Star Figure and Feminist Statements

3 June 2024 / the-big-top

_{Emma Janssens, Lilas Brangeon and Delphine Guerin}

The expression “Punk” is linked to the music that appeared in the 70s in the United Kingdom. This word has a strongly sexual connotation in this language. Then it has evolved to mean “worthless”, “good for nothing”, and is claimed with irony by punks as they reject “established values”.

The Punk ideology brings together the currents of thought that emerged with the punk movement and its variants over time. Punk ideology is based on existentialist, anarchist, individualist, anti-authoritarian, egalitarian and even nihilist concepts. They strongly claim personal and social freedom in order to challenge the law and authorities. They are often anti-racist and anti-Nazi, openly fighting racism through artistic or musical expression.

The “punk philosophy” is characterized by a spirit of subversion, do-it-yourself, code-breaking, derision, the establishment of “alternative” structures, anti-capitalism and maximum individual freedom.

The movement of punks became huge in the United Kingdom and quickly spread all over the world. It has spanned the decades since the 70s, and reflects the various evolutions of ideological movements. It has evolved alongside political movements for equal rights for women, and some branches of punk carry this fight forward. Also, thanks to technological progress, it has become easier to obtain equipment for practicing punk music.

As Punk bands became famous sometimes, they had to play with their public image in a world where prestige is built up around a personality called a star.

Punkstars were known to be always rejecting this, and built the idea of being antistars. They preferred to be close to their public and to escape the mainstream world.

Women in punk bands have to face the consequence of stardom even more than men, because of the beauty standard that they had to embody once they became famous, and the fact they played music that was linked to masculine codes.

In the States, punks immediately knew how to play with gender codes, promoting a very androgynous appearance to avoid being a star in the system.

But this area of the world also experienced a lot of evolution throughout the end of the 20^th century, which led us to wonder: how did women invest in the American punk movement and embodied the anti-star figure?

The Birth of the American Punk Movement and the Women who First Experienced it

Where could you first find punks in the US?

As punk culture was spreading in the UK, where most of us think it was created (with bands such as The Clash or The Sex Pistols), punk was actually spreading through the USA too. There is one place where this movement and its aesthetics seem to be born in: The Factory.

Placed in New York City and created in 1963, Andy Warhol’s studio hosted many parties where some behaviors started to shape what punk was going to be about. A lot of drugs were taken at this place, since it happened after the hippie movement which really contributed to normalizing the use of psychotics. The Factory’s regulars were very famous or soon-to-be famous people from the 60s’ American art culture, such as Lou Reed, Debbie Harry, David Bowie, Liza Minnelli, Keith Harring… Plasticians, poets, and a lot of musicians frequented this place.

There you could discover what the sexual liberation was about, what a drag show was, and perform your homosexuality as much as you liked. It was a very provocative way-of-life, which, as you can guess, led to the proliferation of punk in other places, some of them more underground, such as Max’s, a bar in NYC.

In fact the Factory was mostly a place for rich, famous people who liked to talk about themselves and their art while doing drugs, people with a high esteem of themselves. The lack of authenticity makes us forget about the Factory being a punk place, since punk truly became after a couple of years more of a cheap, nihilist and popular movement.

Male Hegemony in Rock Music

Punk first occurred after the popularity of rock music, and the first to be called punk would now be called “punk-rock” artists. Since we are questioning the female punk star and anti-star, we should first wonder why there were so few women famous in music and in rock music especially.

First of all, it was mostly because of financial issues. To create a band you have to buy instruments, a car, rent a place to rehearse in, technical material… It is not new that women are underpaid compared to men, and tend to have jobs with less responsibility and therefore, less money in the bank account meant to be spent on some hobby that won’t ever make you earn anything, such as music.

Actually, lots of women didn’t have enough independence to start doing music and having a band: fewer women had their driver license, parents wouldn’t let them go out as easily as they’d do for their brother. Not everyone could access music classes either, especially if your parents were too poor or if you were too busy with domestic chores.

Rock was a lot about owning the public space, making yourself heard which is why it was easier for men, in a patriarchal society, to monopolize all of the stages and radios. As rock was always about (not only, but still) sexuality – see Elvis sensually moving his hips while performing – rock was always about men, since a woman’s sexual life is much more taboo than a man’s. When punk started to get popular, women saw the opportunity to do music even though they couldn’t buy expensive instruments, even though they didn’t know anything about music theory, because that was what punk was all about. When men started to be more and more numerous to do punk music they didn’t get the chance to monopolize the genre this time: many women were already into punk music and recognized for it.

What is a Female Punk Star in the Early-Punk Era?

As we said before, artists considered as punk at the time wouldn’t actually be called punk today, as the genre evolved. It’s the case with the two women we are going to mention now: Patti Smith, and Deborah Harry, from the band Blondie.

When she released her album Horses, recorded in 1975, Patti Smith was a young artist but she was already popular. Her music was bold, electric, new, and furthermore, her album cover was pretty audacious too. She looks confident, has an androgynous style, and looks at us right in the eyes. She experiments musically with new sonorities, it’s grunger and dirtier than what rock used to be. This album and its cover were very innovative and that’s why people talked about it. It made female artists feel more confident with being experimental with music, being less feminine on pictures (and in life) and being more provocative… Although it sounds feminist and progressive, we must remember that Patti Smith wasn’t actually an activist for women’s rights and independence, and actually turned out to be quite aggressively conservative against some of the other women on her way to success.

Debbie (Deborah) Harry, the singer of The Stilettoes when she worked at Max’s, later became the singer of the famous band Blondie. Blondie definitely wouldn’t be called punk nowadays either, because their main inspirations were glam-rock and girls pop bands. She contributed to the empowerment of women too because she was considered punk but she has a sweet and pitchy voice, she dresses a feminine way and really fits the beauty standards as a long-haired, thin blonde. She showed the path for the female artists who wanted to play with their femininity.

Female Punk: An Aesthetic Movement through the DIY Ideology

The DIY ideology is very much alive and kicking in the punk movement. Inspired no doubt by the momentum of the feminist movement in the early 1970s, radical lesbians, unhappy with male dominance in mainstream popular music networks, set about creating an independent, all-female network, a perspective that had all the hallmarks of Do It Yourself. The DIY ideology thus became a hallmark of female punk. Indeed, it’s clear that even before the advent of punk, the concept of DIY had already been adopted in feminist circles.

From 1970 onwards, women lacking a voice in the punk industry decided to create fanzines as a means of asserting themselves in the industry and expressing themselves freely. It was also a way of responding to the sexist slogans that could be found in some fanzines, concerning the place of women in the movement.

The fanzine is a privileged means of expression for marginal cultures. They played a key role in the punk movement, and could be found everywhere: in concert halls, record shops and dedicated bookshops. It is the perfect embodiment of Do It Yourself, embracing both DIY and knowledge-sharing. The fanzine is in some ways, a way of promoting punk culture.

A fanzine, sometimes called a zine, is a contraction of the English expression “fanatic magazine”. It’s a periodical or non-periodical publication, printed or online, institutionally

independent. These publications are designed and produced by passionate amateurs for other enthusiasts. Fanzines are generally distributed free of charge or for a token fee. The term was coined in October 1940 by Russ Chauvenet in a science fiction fanzine, and became popular within the science fiction enthusiast community. It was later adopted by other communities, and the fanzine gained popularity within the underground culture of the punk movement in the 1970s.

Around that time, several small labels also emerged, all run by lesbians. These included Olivia Records, the most famous, but also Women’s Wax Works, Redwood Records, Galaxia and Pleiades. Their aim was to promote music produced entirely by women, from composition and performance to recording and sound processing. The separatist approach became the only conceivable way to achieve a form of autonomy and liberation.

It was also around that time that the first all-female or mostly-female festivals were organized in the USA, such as the National Women’s Music Festival and the Michigan Womyn’s Festival. In addition to concerts and performances by female and/or feminist artists, there were film screenings, discussions, workshops and more.

The Riot Grrrl Movement

The young women behind the Riot grrrl initiative felt that the punk music scene was too masculine and macho, and wanted to develop their own culture, combining feminism, DIY ideology, anti-capitalism and punk. How have women used DIY ideology to make their own personal revolution?

The Riot grrrl movement took root in Olympia, when two newly-formed bands, Bikini Kill and Bratmobile, began collaborating. The two groups discovered their affinity and created a fanzine called Riot Grrrls, which eventually gave its name to the movement. The name was originally coined by Jen Smith. It refers to the race riots that took place following police brutality in Washington in 1991, more commonly known as the Mount Pleasant Riots. This is how Jen Smith came up with the idea of creating a “girl riot”, reminiscent of these riots.

Through the fanzine Riot Grrrls, they gradually built up a network. In the third issue, the female contributors decided to advertise “an all-girl meeting to discuss the status of punk rock and revolution [and] ways to encourage higher female scene input and ways to help each other play instruments and get stuff done”. The meeting, which was to become a weekly event, was to occupy an important place in the Riot grrrls networks. It was very important for them to create non-mixed spaces. For some of them, it was the first time they met as women only. In April 1991, they created a manifesto:

BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways.

BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other’s work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other.

BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create our own moanings.

BECAUSE viewing our work as being connected to our girlfriends-politics-real lives is essential if we are gonna figure out how we are doing impacts, reflects, perpetuates, or DISRUPTS the status quo.

BECAUSE we recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as impractical lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming our dreams AND THUS seek to create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things.

BECAUSE we want and need to encourage and be encouraged in the face of all our own insecurities, in the face of beergutboyrock that tells us we can’t play our instruments, in the face of “authorities” who say our bands/zines/etc are the worst in the US and

BECAUSE we don’t wanna assimilate to someone else’s (boy) standards of what is or isn’t.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to falter under claims that we are reactionary “reverse sexists” AND NOT THE TRUEPUNKROCKSOULCRUSADERS THAT WE KNOW we really are.

BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock “you can do anything” idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours.

BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-hierarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.

BECAUSE doing/reading/seeing/hearing cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives.

BECAUSE we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists of all kinds as integral to this process.

BECAUSE we hate capitalism in all its forms and see our main goal as sharing information and staying alive, instead of making profits of being cool according to traditional standards.

BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviors.

BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.
Riot Grrrl Manifesto

In Olympia, a festival had a strong impact on the development of Riot grrrl culture. It was designed to promote independent artists in a very Do-It-Yourself spirit. The opening night, entitled Love Rock Revolution Girl Style Now or Girl Night, was devoted entirely to female bands. Although there were performances by experienced female musicians, the idea was to encourage other young women to come and express themselves on stage. That evening initiated an aspect that Riot grrrls musicians would later cultivate in their concerts, a mixture of traditions and performance conventions. Riot grrrl concerts are actually moments of intense interaction between artists and audience, but also moments of debate.

The Riot grrrls movement, emerging as a radical feminist punk force, was originally consolidated around a few bands and literary production in the form of fanzines. This combination offered a section of the female population a space to express their feminist and punk interests, while serving as a vital outlet for various frustrations. Many of them insisted, on the one hand, on the feeling of having been ousted from punk spheres during the previous decade and, on the other hand, on no longer really recognizing themselves or finding their place in the contemporary productions and scene of the late 1980s.

« It was mostly women trying to… or young girls trying to make punk rock more feminist but also trying to make feminism more punk rock, if you know what I mean, like just try to kind of holding on this intersection between punk rock and feminism and exist right there. »
Allison Wolfe, founder of punk rock band Bratmobile and leading voice of the riot grrl movement.

Hardcore Punk Culture and its Unisex Attitude.

During the 1980s, hardcore punk dominated in North America. In California, kids of the suburb felt connected to the aggressive rhythms that highlighted political statements in the lyrics. During concerts, fans would shout lyrics, and participate in mosh pits sometimes so virulent that it was pure violence.

What made hardcore punk also popular is its combination of other genres of music, like hip hop, heavy metal, and funk. All these genres linked the music with all the urban arts that were particularly made by men, such as skating or breakdancing.

Despite their political statements against the capitalistic system and racism, not much was said against sexism and in favor of equal rights between genders. The androgynous attitude that defined punks of the 1970s’ east coast is no longer popular, and hardcore punk is mostly unisex and masculine.

That’s a clue that makes us understand why there are not many women bands in riot punk in the 1980s.

The End of the 1980s and the Redefinition of Punk

We observe a comeback of women in bands in the end of the eighties with other genres of music such as grunge or alternative rock.

As hardcore punk increasingly became a cliche of itself, ingraining the stigma of a punk aesthetics, the punk mindset continued to spread in different variations of music. The will to provoke canons of beauty and consumerist lifestyle is also something that we can find in the grunge and alternative rock genres of the nineties. Their melodies and guitar solos made these genres popular. We then find some really famous bands with female icons like Kim Deal (the bassist of the Pixies) and Courtney Love (the singer of Hole).

The popularity of grunge made some of the artists iconic, which contradicts the values of punk culture but also defines new ways of exposing political statements.

The nineties is the decade of the press, paparazzi and obsession over celebrities. The fact that grunge celebrities would express political opinions influenced generations of teens who weren’t destined to feel connected to this mindset.

Courtney Love was the first woman in a mainstream grunge band who was promoting feminist statements in her lyrics and public image. She was mocking the beauty canon. She was famous for a glamor look, blond hair, juicy lips and she was proudly making fun of it, without being afraid of looking crazy, or ugly. She influenced the new generation of women by giving interviews and sharing ideas that women were meant to play music.

She played so much with codes of femininity that she got labeled as hysteric in her late famous era, which is interesting as this seems to be the burden of feminist icons.

In the nineties, another ideology of feminism was observed within punk groups. The L7 and the Lunachick were female punk bands that were famous and promoted some feminist attitudes.

However, their discourse is less radical than Courtney Love’s because they shared the idea that they believed in being musicians first and were more focused on talking about their creative process than feminist ideas. They preferred to make concerts for feminist organizations, which is where they differ from Courtney Love and her fractious feminism.

To conclude this journey through American punk music, let’s remember why punk women embodied so perfectly the antistar figure.

As we’ve seen, women were put aside when it came to surfing the popularity of rock music: they lacked independence, financial resources and self-confidence. When the punk movement occurred, first in the high classes at the Factory, then in more underground places, icons such as Debbie Harry and Patti Smith were already there to show the way to the newbies. Women understood punk was made for them: it is about rebellion, refusing to submit, advocating a free life, everything that can be felt when you are a woman in a patriarchy.

Some of them found a way to express themselves and protested against sexism via fanzines: auto-edited, auto-published, it was (and it still is) a way to express yourself easily and offer some DIY tips, educational content or feminist texts. When the Riot Grrrl movement was created, punk stars started to be perceived as activists, and politics and feminism really got mixed up with music and performances.

When hardcore punk got popular, we observed a resurgence of male monopoly over this music genre. Despite the diversity of the political statements made by these bands, few were about feminism and gender equality. Women were more present in genres such as grunge and alternative rock, and some of them, like Courtney Love, used their popularity to promote a feminist message. As they became mainstream, these star figures didn’t match the underground/hidden punk musician aesthetics anymore but surely spread punk ideology massively.

Eventually let’s remember punk is a very large movement, that contains many genres, and all of its artists weren’t living it the same way: some claimed to be apolitical, unlike most of the artists we’ve been citing in this article, and the mainstream/underground separation appears to be very thin.

Bibliography

Larson Jen, Hit Girls: Women of Punk in the USA 1975-1983.

Video, Zines and the punk side of publishing, Flyover culture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5Qa0SqAZRc&ab_channel=FlyoverCulture

Video, Riot Grrrl : The 90s movement that redefined punk, Polyphonic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAbhaguKARw&ab_channel=Polyphonic

Gai, Frédéric. « Tentatives (désespérées) pour définir le fanzine », La Revue des revues, vol. 62, no. 2, 2019, pp. 92-109.

The Symbolism of Dance in Collective Sports

3 June 2024 / the-big-top

_{By Mila Noyer, Charlotte Bourguignon et Anna Bouillot}

Have you ever noticed that some football players make a dance to celebrate their goal? Have you ever noticed the silence during Haka before starting a game of rugby? These dances are not insignificant. They have a specific meaning and an important place in sport, both for the country and for the international image.

In this article, we decided to understand the symbolism and the representation of dance in sport, particularly in football, rugby and during the Olympic Games. We decided to focus our topic on this question: to what extent does dance in collective sports represent cultural and political issues at an international level?

First of all we will talk about the cultural and political symbols and second we will study dance as a celebration.

The cultural and political symbol

The Cultural and Historical dimension of Haka

Haka is a dance executed by the All Blacks rugby players of the New Zealand team. It has always amazed us and aroused our curiosity before rugby matches. This dance is really known all over the world, almost more than the rugby rules themselves. At first, this impressive dance seems to show the strength and the power of the All Blacks and probably to disturb the opponent players. Except for the three islands Fiji, Samoa and Tonga located next to New Zealand, the All Blacks are the only ones to dance before beginning a game. It’s thus specific to their country.

What does this specific dance represent?

Actually, Haka expresses the strength and the courage of the players, but it also has a spiritual dimension. Indeed, the players call upon the God of war to help them win the battle. In reality, this dance constitutes an important part of the history and traditions of the indigenous people of New Zealand: the Māori. It’s really common to do this dance during important events like weddings, funerals or welcoming ceremonies to uphold Māori traditions and to symbolize the unity of their people.

Originally, Haka is a war dance used during colonial wars against the British Empire in the 19^th century. It was inspired by the story of a Maori leader, Te Rauparaha, who had been captured by his enemies but who managed to escape. As he was prosecuted, he repeated “Ka mate, Ka mate” and after escaping “Ka ora, Ka ora” which means “I may die, I may die” and “I see the sun, I’m alive”. He created the dance introduced into rugby in 1905. Today, it is connected to national identity and cultural pride.

Two Hakas are used in rugby: the “Ka mate” which is the most famous in the world and the “Kapa o Pango”, the most aggressive form of Haka which was written for and about the All Blacks by Derek Lardelli in 2005. This artist promotes the Māori culture. He maintains a strong commitment to the culture, language, and customs of his ancestors, always keeping connections with his land. We can highlight the artistic dimension because Derek Lardelli created a choreography for an audience. However, “Kapa o Pango” has been criticized because of the aggressive and violent gesture, specifically in the end, when the players mimic a throat slitting gesture. In consequence, it has been forbidden and today All Blacks only do the “Ka Mate”. It’s still interesting to listen to the Māori signification of this gesture. In a Youtube video, All Blacks players explain another meaning, that is more introspective and therapeutic:

“It means the breath of life. The section here, bringing it across the body is energizing the vital organs – the heart, the lungs, all those things that need to be functioning well for a game. So that means getting their energy back into the system before they start their game.”

Beyond the spiritual and the social aspect, the Haka is a real show: the players have a large audience composed of the opposing team, the spectators in the stadium and the television spectators. Everybody is excited about the magic moment which gives them the chills, they pay particular attention and respect during that quiet time.

Thus, the Haka born in the context of the Māori history and culture reflects a national identity for the All Blacks and has become a real show for the rest of the world.

The Political Dimension: the Example of the Olympic Games

Organizing the Olympic Games is an opportunity for the countries to show their power to other nations. The opening ceremony of the Olympics plays an important role in “soft power.” Soft power is the ability for a country to influence others with their opinions, culture, etc. It’s a way of attracting and convincing without the use of force.

Thereby, the opening ceremony of the Olympics is crucial. For the hosting country, the international visibility offered by this moment allows the sharing of its culture, history, and values. Openings are often astonishing and spectacular because it’s the first thing seen by other countries.

So, the opening scene of the Olympic Games sheds light on a particular culture, especially on art and dance.

To achieve this, many countries have asked for the help of famous artists, in particular dance choreographers. The first choreographer to create an opening ceremony was Philippe Decouflé in 1992 in Albertville. Decouflé is a contemporary dancer and choreographer. He revolutionized the history of Olympic openings by creating a monumental show, with circus, theater and, most importantly, dance. Decouflé wanted to place art and dance at the center of the ceremony.

https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceinter/en-images-il-y-a-30-ans-a-albertville-philippe-decoufle-revolutionnait-la-ceremonie-d-ouverture-des-jo-6643408

According to the scenographer of Albertville games, Jean Rabasse, dance and sport are connected: “We wanted to say: Look, gestures in sports have a meaning and they’re very close to dance”.[1] For example, one of the acts in the opening presented hundreds of skiers deconstructing the skiing motion in order to create a dance choreography.

After Decouflé, other countries were inspired by Albertville for their openings: Dimitri Papaioannou in Athens, Akram Khan in London, and even “Swan Lake” in Sochi. The idea now is to create a total artistic performance to show the culture and open-mindedness of the country to other nations.

_{Olympic Games 2014, Sotchi}(https://images.app.goo.gl/pm27C2BwZpUeH1yE6)

For these choreographers, dance and sports are interconnected. Akram Khan said, “In both, we desire to test the limits of what we are capable of. In sports, human endurance; in art, human imagination.”[2]

Dance as a celebration

The importance of celebration in football

To show the importance of dances in celebrations, we are going to take the example of football. Winning a game in sports is more than an individual victory. It is a collective achievement. For instance, scoring during the World Cup is more than just one player scoring – it is a country, a nation, a generation. Footballers have the power to draw attention to their country in front of thousands of viewers. It is a perfect moment to make an impression on others. It can create an identity, a kind of brand signature.
With the development of media and especially social media, some critics argue that dance-based goal celebration started during the 2010 World Cup with the South African team as they scored the opening goal while hosting the World Cup. That does not mean it was the very first time it happened, as there had been rhythmical celebrations prior to this one, such as Roger Milla’s celebration in the 1990 World Cup or even Papa Bouba Diop’s celebration in 2002. Still, Siphiwe Tshabalala’s goal for South Africa and the team’s synchronized dance remains an important event of football history.

*Three football players dancing after winning the game*

Nowadays, a lot of football players celebrate by dancing. For instance, Raphinha, a Brazilian player, made the following statement to a journalist during the last World Cup : “To tell you the truth, we’ve already come up with ten dances. They aren’t specific to one player. The first dance is for the first goal, the second dance for the second goal, there’s also for the third… we have dances up to the tenth goal. After ten? We will have to innovate and come up with something else. When the time comes, we will think of something”. In this quote we can see the dimension of these celebrations: they are something players reflect on and prepare for, especially when it comes to Brazilian players, as dancing and celebrating is a part of their culture.

Even though it is very popular, these celebrations are not consensual. Some people enjoy them, learn them and reproduce them. Others criticize them as they struggle to see the legitimacy of elaborating dances to celebrate. Some go as far as considering it humiliating. Roy Keane for instance, an extremely famous ex-footballer, criticized Brazilians for their comment on coming up with many dances when the team was eliminated from the World Cup. Some players have been heavily criticized for celebrating in this way and still most of them, if not all of them, keep doing it.

We can see that dance-based celebrations take a different dimension when they happen during an international competition. Still, there are a lot of players who celebrate when they play for their team in another country: Griezmann, Neymar, Pogba, Vinicius, Lingard, Paqueta… they have all done it. Whether it is in Spain, France or England, they convey their happiness after scoring through their dances and more often than not, their teams follow.

We can see that the celebration takes a different dimension according to the level of the competition. The celebrations of the World Cup have more importance than those of a small championship like the French Cup for example.

Dance-Based Celebrations and Marketing

Celebrations bring a lot of visibility to football players. And with social media, this phenomenon is amplified. Videos are massively being shared, so player celebrations become more and more famous. The advertisement industry has been quick to understand that footballers can symbolize victory and strength – like the ad for Puma starring Antoine Griezmann to put to the fore their new deodorant.

With this ad we can understand that ads use footballers for the brand’s image. Celebrations are very important because they define footballers and help them distinguish themselves.

Conclusion

The examples of the haka in rugby games, the opening ceremony of the Olympic games and the dance-based celebrations in football show that dance in collective sport can have political and cultural meanings. It contributes to highlighting a country, a team, a culture, or a person. The Discofoot event which was created by the CCN (Centre Chorégraphique National) in 2018 in the Lorraine region is a great example of an interesting and humorous association between dance and sport.

Sources:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/new-zealand-haka-world-cup-30601658

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/new-zealand-haka-all-blacks-rugby-world-cup-b2409214.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haka_in_sports

https://www.leparisien.fr/sports/football/football-celebrer-un-but-c-est-toute-une-histoire-20-04-2019-8057091.php

https://www.rtl.fr/sport/football/coupe-du-monde-2022-dix-danses-preparees-par-le-bresil-pour-celebrer-leurs-buts-7900213011

https://www.premiere.fr/Cinema/Akram-Khan-la-caution-choregraphique-des-JO-londoniens

[1] https://www.premiere.fr/Cinema/Akram-Khan-la-caution-choregraphique-des-JO-londoniens

[2] https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/spectacles/il-y-a-30-ans-le-choregraphe-philippe-decoufle-sublimait-la-ceremonie-d-ouverture-des-jo-d-albertville_4938141.html

Let’s Leave the Decks to Women!

14 January 2024 / the-big-top

_{By Clémence Léo and Lyna}

In this article, we are going to talk about the place of women DJs in electronic music. We are a group of three students who chose to work on this subject because we regularly go to electronic music events and we have women DJs as friends. We are witnesses of the difficulties they face as women in a predominantly male sector and we want to understand the causes for the underrepresentation of female artists in electronic music scenes.
In this context, we came up with the following question: why is it so hard to be a woman DJ in the electronic music world and what difficulties do they have to face? Then, we will see what actions are set up to make women DJs visible in the city of Toulouse.
To answer these questions, we first did research about the history of electronic music and about the statistics that identify inequalities in programmation. We also went to an event and we did an interview to learn more about the actions that are put in place in Toulouse to make women DJs more visible.

Since the 1960s, with the arrival of the electric guitar, there is a link between technology and masculinity. Mavis Bayton, the author of the book Frock Rock: Women Performing Popular Music (2011) talks about the fact that, historically, “many girls played the acoustic guitar and sang […] but the idea of playing the electric guitar was alien to them.” The electronic dance music scene evolved in the early 1980s and the use of machines and digital music technologies became an essential precondition for DJ music making. As we can see, there is a symbolic association between technology and masculinity, men and machines in society in general and in electronic dance music scenes in particular.
In chapter 3 of the book DJ Culture in the Mix: Power, Technology, and Social Change in Electronic Dance Music¹, the authors explain that “across historical, local and cultural contexts, DJ cultures have been, and continue to be, overwhelmingly “male dominated”.” The authors conducted a fieldwork among DJs in Berlin, Stockholm, London and Vienna, and observed that “male DJs constituted the majority of DJs in the electronic music scene […] The majority of the “big names” among international and local DJs remain male, scoring the top positions on DJ lists and representing music genres despite the growing presence of female DJs.” In the same book, a female DJ based in Berlin declared that “there are a lot of girl DJs but the thing is that there are still a lot of men in business […] most of the party organizers, the club owners, promotion people are guys.”

A study of the CNM (Centre National de Musique) shows that in 2019 in electronic music, only 11% of the gender lead are women.

_{Graph 1 – Gender lead (issued by the CNM, Centre National de Musique)}

There is no equality between men and women in the programming of electronic music events, but also in the profession of programmers. Indeed, the job is largely dominated by men. In this context, it may be hard for women to dare to start as DJs and to feel confident and legitimate in a male environment full of stereotypes. The authors of DJ Culture in the Mix: Power, Technology, and Social Change in Electronic Dance Music explain the scarcity of women artists by the “gendered social construction of technology” and the “images of male artist/musician/producer/entrepreneur and the sexualized images of (young) women […]. The history of music, regardless of genre, has been shaped by a mutually constituting relationship between technology and masculinity, with exclusionary effects for women who wish to become musicians, DJs and/or music producers”.

We met Camille Mathon, the artistic director of the feminist association “La petite”, created to highlight women artists. In our interview, she told us about the resistance to programming women.

“Resistance was observed among programmers. What came up a lot was that people said: ‘We would like to program women but there are none’.”

Camille Mathon
Artistic director of “La Petite”

The association “La petite” runs the “Girls Don’t Cry” project. They act for a larger representation of women on the electronic scene and want to show that women DJs exist, that they are active and talented contrary to what some programmers may say.

La petite organizes the Girls Don’t Cry festival which is an exclusively female festival. They act by creating events but also by fighting against sexual and gender-based violence. In the world of electronic music by setting up training workshops for example.

During our interview, Camille told us how precious the associations that specialize in feminist actions are:

“We prefer several independent actions. This is consistent with our values of self-determination. It is the strength of our feminist network in France, to have different structures. This does not prevent us from being connected, we know each other’s associations.”
Camille Mathon
Artistic director of La Petite

In Toulouse, some feminist initiatives are put in place to help women artists to be more visible and more confident. We went to an event called Les Halles de la Cartoucherie X Kaonashi dedicated to women and non-binary or trans people in electronic music in Toulouse. A workshop was organized to introduce the female audience to mixing and there was a round table about the representation of women on the Toulouse electronic scene in the afternoon. A lot of feminist collectives were present, including programmers, artists, media, university researchers etc. This discussion allowed professional women in the electronic music sector to exchange experiences and findings to provide solutions.Among them, a member of the collective Freessons which acts to create inclusive events to talk about feminist movements in rave parties, noticed an adjacent problem : “Today, programmers invite women DJs just to give a positive image of their event with a female quota but women still get booked for the warm-up and are not recognized for their talent.” Indeed, we noticed that most of the time, when women are programmed, they play at the beginning of the party and men do the closing. This fact shows that women are not enough considered for their music and not much valued in electronic music events and they might feel illegitimate to professionalize as DJs.

“If we program at least 50% of women or show a 10% change from the previous year to reach parity, we have access to fundings from the local authorities. But all culture fundings in the area have this rule so instead, it is if people do not follow the rule that they’re going to lose money”
Camille Mathon
Artistic director of La Petite

Therefore, women DJs feel they might be programmed to an event just to fill in the “female quota” and not for their talent because programmers could get funding by respecting women-men equality in their programming. This may be considered as a step forward, but it is important to question the place of female artists beyond their mere presence.
The presence of several members of women collectives in the event Les Halles de la Cartoucherie X Kaonashi shows that the city of Toulouse is committed to give a place to women artists.

Here are some examples of the collectives that were present, with the objectives of their actions:

FREES.SONS:
It is composed of five women. Their objective is to create inclusive events to talk about feminist movements in rave parties (for example eco-feminism).

S.OROR:
This collective is composed of 8 women. They are artists and organizers and they create events to program and to gain visibility.

WOMEN BASS:
This association creates events promoting the place of women in the world of bass music.

WOMEN METRONUM ACADEMY:
This initiative was created by The Metronum, a concert hall in Toulouse. It’s a training workshop intended for women who would like to develop a personal musical project. In this training, it’s possible for women to meet programmers and legitimize themselves to build their career as artists and also to be more confident in their artistic practices.

=> All these initiatives exist in other cities in France and Europe and testify of changes in society to create a movement for the place of women DJs in electronic music. By making round tables, creating women-only events, making women artists more visible, we progressively create changes. All these initiatives such as feminist events, vindications and the creation of new collectives and training contribute to make things evolve. The studies and the statistics help to highlight the remaining inequality, and it’s important to talk about these problems which are found in many areas of society.

DJ Culture in the Mix: Power, Technology, and Social Change in Electronic Dance Music, Bernardo Alexander Attias, Anna Gavanas, Hillegonda Rietveld, 2013, Continuum Publishing Corporation. ↩︎