Fun with Feminism (2): People who created a music festival for women
By Park Ju-yeon
Published: November 6,
2017
Translated by Hoyoung
Moon
(※
“Raise a
ruckus”
[kung-kwang-kung-kwang]: Initially used to denigrate feminists, this phrase
originates from the utterance “Megalia pigs are raising a ruckus”,
which first appeared on a certain misogynistic website. However, some
feminists, including members of the Bora X Music Festival planning committee,
have begun to use this phrase subversively.)
Women musicians and
audiences meet each other
At the end of Chuseok
holiday this year, on Sunday, October 8th, a women’s music festival was held at
the Hongdae West Bridge Live Hall. Created as an occasion where women who make
music and women who enjoy music come together, this was the very first Bora X
Music Festival.
 |
| Exterior view of the hall where the first Bora X Music Festival took place. © Bora X Music Festival Planning Committee |
Debates on the topic of
women-only spaces have been ongoing. While discussion is still in process, some
question the necessity of a women-only music festival. In addition, some
criticize that a ‘women-only’ event fails to look beyond a framework in which
men and women are separated.
In fact, the Michigan
Womyn’s Music Festival, a well-known women’s music festival that began in 1976,
has received much criticism from the transgender community as well as LGBT
organizations for restricting participants to “women-born-women”. However, in
tandem with a discussion around the category of ‘woman’, there have been
continuous demands for women-only spaces, including a women-only music
festival.
Last year, Glastonbury
Festival, a British music festival which is one of the largest in the world,
operated “The Sisterhood” zone for the first time, which “all people who
identify as women” could enter. And in July, it was announced that a men-free
music festival will be held in Sweden next year.
Within this context, a
women’s music festival was held in Korea: the Bora X Music Festival. “Let go of
your stress from Chuseok!”, encouraged the festival’s advertisements; from 1
p.m., a number of feminist organizations set up booths that participants could
enjoy before the performances began. The National D.Va Association, Fireworks
Femi-Action, Eunhasun Toys, Vagina Victory, Anti-Discrimination Act for
All and other organizations operated
booths selling feminist goods and hosting programs.
Then at 2:30 p.m., the
feminist pungmul band Feakjil opened the festival with a street performance.
Performances by DEAD GAKKAHS, SLEEQ, Siwa, Choi Sam, A-FUZZ, Oh Jieun, and DJ
SEESEA followed at the underground live hall.
 |
| Singer-songwriter Oh Jieun and rapper SLEEQ, during their surprise collaborative performance. © Bora X Music Festival Planning Committee |
Indie singer-songwriter
Oh Jieun and rapper SLEEQ’s surprise collaboration, and fusion jazz band A-FUZZ
and rapper Choi Sam’s collaboration were both performances you cannot usually
see in other spaces. The sight of these women artists performing together in
solidarity and embracing each other afterward conveyed the intentions behind
the creation of the Bora X Music Festival.
After performing, the
artists participated in a signing event and connected with members of the
audience as well as other artists, exchanging gifts and words of gratitude and
support. This scene was not simply a meeting between fans and singers, but seemed
emblematic of something ineffable yet enduring, the happiness that organically
develops between someone who tells an authentic story, and its dedicated
listener.
The organizers estimate
that about 500 women attended the event. In addition to sharing memorable
experiences over social media, many participants expressed the hope that the
festival would be held again next year. What made the festival such an
enjoyable event for people? For the second installment of this series “Fun with
Feminism”, where we seek out individuals who have fun through feminism, we met
the creators of Bora X Music Festival—members of the festival’s Planning
Committee.
 |
| The winning entry of the 1st Bora X Music Festival review contest. ©Bora X Music Festival Planning Committee |
Translation:
“Festival” / Yeonju
I dreamed of a world of
lyrics that did not hurt anyone
I was a child who liked
to hum
As I grew taller
the weight of the words
I carried in my mouth grew as well
and when there weren’t
any more songs I could sing
We didn’t do anything
wrong, but why are we always the guilty
On days I asked this
question
I dreamed of being
endlessly pushed to the back
Because I couldn’t climb
the stairs
I couldn’t go to any
performance halls
But today is our
festival
We can sing along to
every song
We can play as much as
we want without any worry
I was glad but tears
kept welling up
I hummed with joy as if
I were a child again
“Maybe I’m in a dream
now
But if I am, I never
want to wake up”
That autumn night, we raised
a ruckus (*Bora x Music Festival’s Slogan)
Promise that we will
meet again
The desire to create a
space to have fun without self-censorship, in comfort
The beginnings of Bora X
Music Festival lay in the ‘2030 Femicamp’ that was held in February this year.
The 2030 Femicamp, which was created to provide an occasion for feminists to
gather, raised 283% of their funding goal on Tumblebug (an online crowdfunding
platform)—about 8,500,000 won [7,850 USD]—and received enthusiastic support.
Rakku, a member of the Committee who participated in Femicamp, said with a
smile that “I was so glad that feminists who might have died lonely, in
isolation, gathered and shared their experiences with each other.”
“When you study feminism
and become a feminist, your relationships are shattered, right? (laughs) The
relationship with your father becomes strained, then also the relationship with
your mother. You become the sensitive one among your friends. So I was spending
time alone, and then when I went to Femicamp, it was so great. Meeting
feminists who I had previously only been able to meet in rallies or
demonstrations in this setting—I thought, I can meet them in this kind of
space, too. That made me so happy.” (Rakku)
Even after Femicamp
ended, the participants felt an afterglow. At the camp, there had been a party
where people could dance and hang out together. Many participants recalled this
as a fun event. In doing so, they began talking about the violent gazes, sexual
assault, unpleasantness, and fear that they experienced because of men in music
performance spaces. Why do we keep having such experiences at a festival you
are supposed to enjoy, and why have these experiences made us hesitate to go to
live shows? The discussion continued.
Around that time, there
was an announcement that there had been numerous incidents of sexual violence
at Sweden’s largest music festival, Bråvalla, and that next year’s festival was
cancelled due to these crimes. This announcement was followed by several media
reports of a men-free music festival in the making. The Bora X Committee were
inspired. ‘Why don’t we give it a try?’ A committee largely consisting of
Femicamp participants was formed, and together they began to recruit other host
organizations.
 |
| A live performance at Bora X Music Festival. © Bora X Music Festival Planning Committee |
Bora X had two major
goals. The first was to create a music festival without violent gazes,
nonconsensual filming, and sexual assault, so that the participants would be
able to enjoy the performances in comfort and freedom. In order to do so, they
decided to create a festival for women only.
“It’s not that those
things don’t happen at all when there are only women participating, but there
is a sense of stability that a women-only space brings. In middle school, I
went to a co-ed school, and it wasn’t really common for a female student to
raise her hand during class. When a girl raised her hand and talked or gave her
opinion, the male students made fun of her by saying she was showing off. But
when I started going to high school in a girls’ school, the atmosphere was
entirely different. It was great to be able to express my thoughts without
having to censor myself or worrying about what others would think.” (Mihyeon)
The second goal was to
give women artists a stage they could enjoy. Many women artists don’t often get
a chance to perform on stage. In addition, they are at times sexually
objectified or harassed while performing. The Bora X Committee sought to create
a music festival free from those elements. In fact, the women artists who
performed during the festival said they were so glad to be on a stage like
this, and talked about their experiences as women artists. “The people who are
here are the 1%. The 1% that are Hell Feminists,” said the artists, addressing
the audience.
Because so much thus far
has followed a male standard…
Moreover, Bora X Music
Festival had unique elements not found in other music festivals such as an
entry policy asking participants to sign an anti-discrimination and
anti-violence agreement, a Barrier Free Zone, a Vegan Food Zone, and a
Childcare Zone. Some might wonder why signing an anti-discrimination and
anti-violence agreement is necessary when you’ve come to see some performances,
and even think that feminists are fussy, but the agreement was an element of
the festival that the committee prepared with utmost care and thought.
“Some people might feel
that signing a pact like this is annoying, but there are probably others who
are happy to see it. Because they can be protected. These are things that need
to be respected as a matter of course (without signing an agreement), but so
far they haven’t been.” (Mihyeon)
Since Bora X Music
Festival promoted itself as a festival that any woman could participate in and
enjoy, the Bora X Planning Committee deliberated over how they could make the
festival accessible to diverse women. For example, they took into consideration
the experience of a vegan committee member who recalled that she’d had to fill
her stomach with beer at a rock festival because she couldn’t find anything
else she could eat. In addition, a number of organizations were consulted in
the creation of the Barrier Free Zone, Vegan Food Zone, and Childcare Zone.
“I think all of it is
feminism. So far, so much has been created with an able-bodied man as the
standard. But we wanted to talk about how we need to consider situations that
disabled women and married women are in, and furthermore think about how much a
female dairy cow is exploited, to include veganism as something to think
about.” (Mihyeon)
 |
| A booth selling vegan tacos. © Bora X Music Festival Planning Committee |
The day of the event,
audience members who use wheelchairs enjoyed the performances in the hall’s
Barrier Free Zone (an area free of the physical and psychological barriers that
hinder individuals such as disabled people and elderly people from living a
social life; the Bora X Planning Committee marked spaces for wheelchair-users,
those with hearing disabilities, and children to safely take in the event).
In addition, an audience
member who arrived with two children entrusted the children to the Childcare
Zone before heading to a performance. Later on, she and her children enjoyed
the performance together, dancing and playing in the Barrier Free Zone. These
were moments that confirmed that ‘a fun festival for women’means a ‘festival
which all women can enjoy, without barriers’.
‘Now I know what real
fun is’
The Bora X Planning
Committee emphasized multiple times that what they were most happy about was
the fact that the festival provided a space for feminists to meet through play,
since it had seemed as though feminists only met each other in rallies, street protests,
or seminars. They stressed that they created the festival in hopes that more
people would participate in such playful spaces. In addition, they noted that
it had been easy to invite friends and acquaintances to the festival.
“It’s not easy to say to
a friend, ‘Let’s go to a street protest, a rally.’ But it was easy to ask them
to come to the festival. My friends who came also said that the
anti-discrimination and anti-violence agreement felt refreshing, and that they
appreciated it… They said they didn’t know they could act politically through
participating in an event like this.” (Mihyeon)
Now, it’s difficult to
imagine life before feminism or before they were feminists, say members of the
Bora X Planning Committee. They say that feminism gave them confidence. This is
because they learned that they were neither alone, nor people with strange ways
of thinking.
“Before Femicamp, I
think I didn’t know what real fun is. In college, when you go to gatherings or
MTs [“membership training”, i.e., student club overnight trips], the male
students would make sexual jokes, and make fun of other people. You’d get swept
up in that atmosphere, and think that’s what fun is… Living as a feminist, my
friendships have become uneasy, but I have come to know that the ‘fun’ before
wasn’t (really) fun. Now, I think I’ve found a lot more fun. I’ve made new
friends, and I’m so happy to learn that you can live in many different ways.”
(Sejeong)
I was tentative in
asking the Bora X Committee members what their future plans were right after
their first event, but to my surprise, their answers came easily.
 |
| A staff t-shirt which shows the agreements that participants must abide by. © Bora X Music Festival Planning Committee |
“However my life
unfolds, I won’t die alone! The desire to live a fun life, to meet more
people—I want to make those things reality. I was so glad to meet feminist
friends in real life at Femicamp. I want to create more spaces with such
opportunities.” (Rakku)
“Next time, I want to
lower the barriers further. We could make an event you can afford after working
just a couple hours on minimum wage, for example, or add events at the booths
that can help people get to know each other more. Like ‘queer holidays’, I hope
that there can be ‘feminist holidays’ that are sustainable. I want to continue
to do things that show ‘this is feminism’.” (Mihyeon)
“I want to make Youtube
videos like a women’s version of the TV show Encyclopedia of Useless Facts; I
want to create events that have connections to popular entertainment.”
(Sejeong)
Bora X Music Festival
demonstrated that the realm of feminist gatherings can be much larger than the
typical spaces we know. The hope that we can continue to play and raise a
ruckus together—this hope makes my heart beat louder, raising a ruckus.
※
Audience-recorded video of the Bora X Music Festival:
Roll! Gurumi https://youtube.com/watch?v=OEOiKXaJovE
Thoughtful Second Unni https://youtube.com/watch?v=d-eQdt_bwJI
* Original Article:
http://ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=8044
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