LADYFEST resurrected as ESTROJAM Aug. 7-10 at the Park West, Historic Vic Theatre, the Metro, Subterranean and Bottom Lounge.
Confirmed Estrojam performers include Concrete Blonde, Cat Power (with her band), Bitch and Animal, Laura Love, Bahamadia,
Lydia Lunch, Lori Barbero of Babes in Toyland, Via Tania, Analogue Tara, Princess Superstar, Sweet Heat, Panda Panda, Jenny
Choi, Katia Moraes (Brazillian), Dyamond Havana, Anne Harris, Lexi Bloor, Ember Swift, Staceyann Chin, C.C. Carter, PMS, Big
Smith, Lyricist and many more. info@estrojam.com
Filmmaker and Estrojam organizer Tammy Cresswell has a lot to celebrate. An original organizer of the highly successful 2001
Ladyfest Midwest, Creswell has subtitled Estrojam 'Ladyfest Resurrected,' and has packed the four-day event full of top-notch
female-driven entertainment. Where Ladyfest focused on performance venues in the Wicker Park/Humboldt Park neighborhoods,
Cresswell and company have expanded the event's reach to the North Side with shows at Park West, The Vic and Metro, as well as
The Subterranean. Well-known performers such as Concrete Blonde, Cat Power, Laura Love, Lori Barbero (of Babes In Toyland),
Bahamadia and Bitch & Animal, are only a few examples of the quality of entertainment that can be found at the event. Additionally,
Cresswell's documentary Coup d'etat, which features interviews with Amy Ray, The Butchies, Kathleen Hanna and filmmaker Harriet
Dodge to mention a few, as well as live footage of Le Tigre, Joan Jett and others, is having its premiere during Estrojam.
Gregg Shapiro: How did you come to be involved in Estrojam?
Tammy Cresswell: I was one of the organizers of Ladyfest. I was amazed at what a great impact Ladyfest Midwest had on our
community. I wanted to create something like that on an annual basis. With Ladyfest there was this great flow of inspiration that
happened for our community all across the United States and beyond. There were over 40 Ladyfests. Ladyfest only happened once;
they (the organizers) only wanted it to happen once. Each group pf people who organized a Ladyfest took it on as a one-shot deal. I
wanted to do Estrojam because there were people that I met after Ladyfest who wanted to sustain the energy that it created and have
a place for women, and everybody, to go to on an annual basis in a community setting that would be a safe environment to show their
work.
GS: Hence the name change to Estrojam: Ladyfest Resurrected.
TC: Estrojam is a totally different entity from Ladyfest. Although Estrojam has much to do with the process of making a festival, our
goal is to create a space for women to come to on a continual basis. Also as far as diversity, Ladyfest made such a positive impact on
our community that the goal of Estrojam is to continue opening that dialogue even further. It's about exposing people to things they
would have done or didn't know existed before. It's about creating community and finding a positive outlet to channel your energy and
creative expression. I think you have more power to effect if you do something continually and you do it on a level where you are
teaching people how to change things. Showing women how to do wiring or plumbing or how to start your own business or how to be
in the music industry.
GS: There was a two-year gap between Ladyfest and Estrojam. Do you now plan to do this on a more regular basis?
TC: We're going to do it every year at around the same time.
GS: What was your goal in assembling the musical line-up?
TC: We wanted it to be as diverse as possible. Last time we had the festival, we tried to make it diverse, but there wasn't a lot of
world music or jazz. It seemed to be geared toward a younger crowd. It was just harder for us to tap into some fields that we didn't
know a lot about. With this festival we wanted to give everybody out there something to identify with. In that case, we brought in Laura
Love. It's not a younger, punk crowd that listens to Laura Love, and we wanted to tap into that so those people can be a part of the
festival, too. We have Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings. They are a nine-piece funk and groove band. They are coming from New York
and they play the most soulful music I've ever heard.
GS: Which came first—your involvement in Ladyfest or the idea for your movie Coup d'etat?
TC: Coup d'etat came first. This all is happening out of this passion that drove Coup d'etat. I got out of school and I went through
this crisis where I didn't know where to channel this energy that I'd built up studying for four years. I'd studied women's roles in other
countries all over the world. I had lived in the Amazon in Brazil and I saw their roles and how different it was from women's roles in
Chicago and in America, and I wanted to document that.
GS: The movie premiere of Coup d'etat is happening at Estrojam—how do you feel about that?
TC: I'm very excited. It's a perfect place for people to see it. It's based around the same principles behind Estrojam and what
drove me to get involved with Ladyfest. The first step in re-socializing attitudes towards gender roles is education. That's what the film
was intended to be for—to educate people about what women are doing in non-traditional roles. When we reach that point where we
understand and we see what women are doing and it becomes normal, then we can move on to other issues about humanness.
There isn't equal representation of men and women in all fields. We want to create a space for women to see other women
succeeding in these fields.
GS: The 2001 Ladyfest figures prominently in Coup d'etat. How much of it was filmed at that time?
TC: Ladyfest was being organized over a whole year. I started filming Coup d'etat and got into Ladyfest about five or six months
later. I'd been working on the film for about two years, so while Ladyfest was being organized I did some interviews and gained some
connections to further the process of the documentary. I continued filming it after Ladyfest was over.
GS: What are your plans for Coup d'etat after it premieres at Estrojam?
TC: I intend on touring it and showing it in as many places that I possibly can all around the United States. I really want to show it
at the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. I went to that with Catherine (Crouch) because I worked on (the short) Pretty
Ladies. That was the most amazing film festival I've ever seen. The caliber of work and the people that attend it and support it are
unreal. I just want to get the word out as much as possible. It's my intention to educate people, so that's what I want to do—show it.