About us:
The International Womyn’s Theatre Festival (IF*TF) has a feminist and collective approach and is organized by womyn from the association protagon e.V. international performing arts and the independent theater ensemble antagon theaterAKTion. It was initiated by ensemble member Bárbara Luci Carvalho. She is a member of The Magdalena Project, an international network of womyn in contemporary theatr,e and artistic director of IF*TF Frankfurt. The IF*TF Frankfurt is an event to strengthen the position and perspectives of womyn in contemporary theatre and the performing arts, to confront gender injustice in the cultural sector and to establish a network for the further development of womyn theater makers. For eight years, the IF*TF Frankfurt has been providing important impulses for strengthening feminist projects at federal and national level. As part of The Magdalena project network, it is internationally connected. It has set itself the task of making this network better known in the independent scene in Germany.
Why a womyn's theatre festival?
Why a womyn’s theatre festival?
The IF*TF is the first contemporary womyn’s theatre festival in Frankfurt am Main. Since 2017, it has been creating space for feminist processes in an international and self-organized framework. Anyone can be on stage and in the audience, but we explicitly want womyn as directors and in other key positions.
Why are we doing this?
I’m sure some of you have already asked yourselves this question.
Our answer is:
Because womyn are still disadvantaged in the performing arts.
Here are some numbers:
– Only 32% of directors and script writers in the theatre are womyn, but in costume and make-up it’s 70%. [2020]
– Womyn in professions such as dramaturge or production manager in
theatre, film and television earn up to 26% less than their colleagues – the
gender pay gap is therefore much higher than the national average. [2018]
Source: Deutscher Kulturrat – Frauen und Männer im Kulturmarkt -Bericht zur wirtschaftlichen und sozialen Lage. https://www.kulturrat.de/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Frauen-und-Maenner-im-Kulturmarkt.pdf
We want to change that! But how do we do that?
In 2017, we at IF*TF started a festival that:
– puts womyn in the center of attention. We want key positions such as director to be filled by women and we want the overall focus to be on womyn.
– Each year we choose a theme to guide the content of the contributions. We ask questions related to feminism and want the discourse to evolve and a community to emerge through your answers and ideas.
– We want to work intersectionally: Womyn outside the cis-experience, with a migration background, disability or class-specific discrimination are at a particular structural disadvantage. We want to include these perspectives to a greater extent.
– We invite men to leave the role assigned to them by society and to be listeners.
– We promote workshops for womyn and girlz that are specifically designed to empower them.
2024 „SAFER SPACES - The Feminist Culture of Peace “
We are happy to welcome all of you to the the International Womxn’s Theatre Festival (IF*TF) in Frankfurt am Main! At IF*TF 2024, which is taking place in Hessen, Germany, for the 8th time in a row, we ask ourselves the question of ‘safer spaces’ for the sustainable work of womxn.
The aim here is not to exclude people in order to create safety for oneself or to permanently install exclusive spaces in order to guarantee the safety of others, but to create a basis for a common feminist culture of peace that includes diversity and respect for our differences and lives from the participation of everyone.
We want to encourage our visitors to think about how they can act as co-creators of a space that is safe to. In this sense, a space in which womxn and girlz feel empowered to express themselves authentically in collective processes – a brave space.
Together with international artists from theatre, performance, video, visual arts and music, we are searching for moments of intergenerational dialogue that are radical and utopian. Moments that heal, inspire and create more trust and acknowledgement for the work of womxn. As victims of structural violence, womxn and girlz have an important voice in building a culture of peace.
As independent artists, everything we do revolves around creativity, shapeability and change. That’s why the question of transformation and innovation is always part of our work. This year, we are focusing in particular on the dialogue between Black feminism and the performing arts in connection with the topic of peace culture.
In a cross-generational, feminist dialogue between theatre and politics, the IF*TF focuses on the positioning of womxn in the world within the work of protagon e.V. Since its foundation, the festival has worked on the visibility of feminism in the performing arts, offers a platform for this dialogue and aims to be a pioneer and a space for exploring feminist practice in the future.
You are also warmly invited to ask questions at IF*TF 2024, to take part in performances yourself and to develop future concepts for the theatre stages!
I wish all of us a powerful, peaceful and solidary festival!
Bárbara Luci Carvalho, Artistic Direction, and the IF*TF team
The asterisk (*)
… stands for people who define themselves as female. The International Womxn’s Theatre Festival is a platform for all womyn. Respecting which gender identity or sexuality a person ascribes to themselves is just as much a part of the feminist empowerment process as promoting people regardless of their background, religion or age. We explicitly want womyn at the centre, as directors and in other key positions. All genders are welcome in the evening programme.