Edgy Women 2013: Arts/Sports/Gender

• Because the Canadian Women’s Hockey League’s annual budget is equivalent to the annual salary of one (average) male professional hockey player.
• Because during the NHL’s ongoing lock-out, Radio-Canada has increased its coverage of other sports, while ignoring women’s sporting events. 
• Because when women’s boxing was introduced in last summer’s Olympics, the main debate that emerged was whether or not the athletes should be made to wear skirts.
• Because female athletes, even those who are practically unbeatable by fellow female athletes like skier Linsdey Vonn, are not allowed to compete with men. 
• Because Sports offer a fascinating angle from which to explore feminist issues around equity and culturally determined gender roles.

Our main event, Game on at the Blue Cat, will take place at the Blue Cat Boxing Club and features rising art-star Heather Cassils. This three-hour happening features short works, durational performances and interactive installations in the weight room as well as in and around the boxing ring. Interactive installations include a feminist foosball table and bodybuilder pony rides. Heather Cassils, known for her appearance as Lady Gaga’s prison yard makeout partner, is a Los Angeles resident who grew up in Montreal. She is Edgy Women’s poster girl for the 2013 festival, wearing makeup and using her body as sculptural mass for her artwork. Cassils will perform her latest work The Shape of Things to Come, an investigation into the catharsis of violence for entertainment. In complete darkness, the artist will beat a human-size bloc of clay illuminated only by a camera flash. Also during Game on at the Blue Cat, Coral Short, Montreal and Brooklyn-based artist, will perform Stop Beating Yourself Up, where she will box against herself until she collapses.

At the Edgy Lucha, fierce female fighters (including local superstar Super Hardcore Anime LuFisto) will duke out Good vs Evil in a creative wrestling match directed by renowned Belgian theatre artist Marijs Boulogne.

Following last year’s success, Edgy Women is once again putting on a game of feminist Unruly Hockey. This event is open to participants and spectators and is orchestrated by Meg Hewings, General Manager of the Montreal Stars, writer, video artist and self-proclaimed "art-jock".

Finally, we are bringing academics, artists and other free-thinkers to participate in an afternoon of exchange called Off-Side: Edgy Colloque, which will also take place at the Blue Cat Boxing club, with the lecturers  in the boxing ring!

About Studio 303
Studio 303 exists to promote the evolution of live artistic practices. Concentrating on the physical body, Studio 303 is a unique resource centre which offers cutting edge workshops, innovative administrative services and a flexible, intimate studio laboratory where new works may be created and presented. Studio 303’s programming aims to stimulate enriching exchanges between a variety of artists, art forms and the public. 
More information on EDGY WOMEN 2013, ARTS/SPORTS/GENDER is available on our website.
Studio 303 offices will be closed from Tuesday December 18th to Monday January 7th 2013.