BeatRoute Magazine Alberta print e-edition - November 2016

FEMME WAVE
FEMME WAVE 2016
cresting again in second year
Disclosure: Femme Wave feminist arts festival co-founder
Hayley Muir is BeatRoute print production staff.
words and photo by Amber McLinden
Femme Wave is going into its sophomore
year, and co-founders Hayley Muir and Kaely
Cormack are taking it all in stride for this year’s
festival.
Femme Wave’s mission is to “create an integrated,
encouraging arts scene with opportunities for women
and non-binary artists.” The festival incorporates music,
comedy, film, and visual arts to create this space.
The organization has a growing audience, and
they’ve expanded from the grassroots organization
they were last year. With a board, a large committee,
and a little more organization, this year’s festival
proves to be even better than the last. The growth is a
great thing for attendees, as the lineup gets bigger and
more diverse. Music headliners Peach Kelli Pop and
catl. are two examples.
“We have much more reach than we did this time
last year,” Muir says. “There’s a lot more people who
are aware of Femme Wave, and the overwhelming
majority of those folks are really excited about it.”
It’s clear that Femme Wave is making its mark on
the Calgary arts community, but there’s still a long
way to go. It seems that in the past few months, there
hasn’t exactly been a change in the number of women
being booked to play shows in the music scene, Muir
speculates. Despite this, some artists that played
Femme Wave last year seemed to have definitely
gained some traction in the music community.
The programming this year includes workshops
where people can come and have the opportunity to
play with various musical instruments. “We’re hoping
to kind of foster more people that would want to play
music that maybe haven’t yet, for whatever reason,”
Cormack says. “We’re trying to get into that role,
where it’s not just showcasing these existing artists but
we also want to foster people that want to do it and
get them doing it more too.”
Of course, negative feedback has emerged, but Cormack
and Muir don’t talk about specific examples. Instead,
they see any pushback as a positive. This is only
their second year running, and the feedback is the
perfect example of why something like Femme Wave
needs to exist. It also shows how far their reach really
is, and how many people they can affect positively.
“There’s been some kind of dark pushback against
us this year and I think that’s been a really hard thing
to overcome and to just refocus and think, ‘We do
a festival. That’s what we do,’ and as long as we do
that really well then everything else can kind of just
happen around it,” Muir says.
Both founders of Femme Wave also play in their
own band, The Shiverettes, and agree that breaking
into the music scene as a woman is definitely still a
challenge. The combination of a tightly knit arts scene,
low representation at shows, and sexism towards
women who do play make being in a band as a woman
look less than appealing. The festival is looking to
change that.
“I always like hearing about people’s daughters,”
Cormack half-jokes. “Every time someone is like, ‘I
have a daughter, and this is awesome, because she’s
going to grow up to be in a band’ or whatever, I really
like hearing stuff like that.”
Even though the goal is to focus on empowering
women, Femme Wave is truly for everyone, Muir
stresses. They hope all attendees can come away
learning a lesson, but it isn’t mandatory. Attending
Femme Wave means you can see a few acts you might
never have seen before, which is truly the point.
“If you want to keep seeing the things that you’ve
already seen, then keep going to the same shows
you’re going to,” Cormack says. “But if you want to
see something a little bit different and maybe learn
something and see something a little off the beaten
path that’s interesting and unique and new, then that’s
what this is for.”
Femme Wave takes place at multiple venues in Calgary
this November 17th to 20th.
All are welcome to “see something a little bit different” at Femme Wave.
24 | NOVEMBER 2016 • BEATROUTE