Seven Women or Non-Binary Artists You Probably Don’t Know But Should

Festivals

/ Apr 11, 2018

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As part of Storefront Theatre’s Feminist Fuck It Festival, we asked the festival’s five curators to tell us a female artist they think more people should know about. Some are in the festival, some aren’t, but they’re all worth checking out.

Bahia Watson

Dainty Smith, also known as Dainty Box, is a Toronto-based storyteller, playwright, actor, speaker, emcee, producer, and burlesque performer. Founder of Les Femme Fatales: WOC, Canada’s first burlesque troupe for women of colour, Dainty is a feminist, a community builder, and a true polymath who creates works and spaces where vulnerability, risk, bravery, and unbounded sexuality can flourish with raw emotion and style. Through burlesque, she reclaims her body as sacred and practises self-love, which, as a Black woman, becomes a powerful act of resistance. Her vintage dress collection deserves a piece of its own, and her love of red lipstick is a true inspiration. She is a hard-working, ever-expanding artist who lives by the motto: “Black thighs save lives.”

Bri Proke

Naomi Rachel Vogt is a performer and theatre-creator from Vancouver. In her writing, Naomi demands answers to difficult questions about topics such as patriarchy, gender, death, and unconventional bodies, taking a comedic, clever, and original spin. Her acting credentials span the country, from performing larger-than-life characters in theatre for young audiences in Nova Scotia to going full frontal in a kitchen in an East Vancouver theatre on a sweaty summer night.

Naomi’s words, whether delivered as a playwright or performer, always hit hard. She never shies away from expressing details of the female experience, she aims to impress through language, not looks, and she isn’t afraid to expose the real, everyday difficulties of modern-day women.

Claire Burns

Let’s give a shout out to a couple of beautiful drag performers, shall we?! Drag’s been challenging gender stereotypes for ages, and lez be real, queerness is all around us. Fay Slift and Fluffy Souffle are early childhood educators who are popping up all over Toronto at venues like the ROM, AGO, the Gladday Bookstore, and the 519, introducing messages of love and inclusion to kids at a young age. We are stoked to have them introduce notions of queer identity to youngsters through Drag Queen Storytime. 

Michaela Washburn