Feminist Icons Come to Life In 'Bring Us Your Women'

On Friday, February 27, composer Catherine Capozzi presents "Bring Us Your Women" to ART's Oberon Theater, with an international cast and crew of musicians, filmmakers, visual artists, dancers and poets. The show looks to share the untold, recontextualized, or reimagined stories of iconic women who have often been overlooked or defined only by their role in the context of men. By giving these women a voice, the project hopes to shed light on their importance in history, religion and myth, and to empower women to recognize their essential role in shaping our modern world.

"I want to tell the untold stories of iconic historical, holy, and mythical women, with a focus on their strengths, sensuality, and wisdom," said Capozzi. "The essence of this work expresses the power of three -- unity, tolerance, and hope."

The icons represented in the show via song, dance and film include Joan of Arc, the Queen of Sheba, the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, Sirens, Arya Tara, K?l?, Delilah, Eve, Ishtar and Isis. Each icon will be presented via a performance that includes a song by the live rock ensemble, a dance and a film, each created specifically for the project. The show also serves as a release show for a complete studio recording of the song set (produced by Rafi Sofer) and a DVD of the film anthology.

"I got tired of listening to news reports of women in 2015 being thrown under the bus, their rights squashed for unbelievable reasons," said Capozzi of her inspiration. "I wanted to walk back and look at the powerful iconic figures whose stories were not told in forthcoming way or were altered to suit whatever filter they were told through, either religion or fiction. The show is called 'Bring Us Your Women,' but I wanted to show them as strong individuals regardless of gender; there is no need for filters to divide us."

Capozzi got the idea for the project after traveling through Europe and visiting these magnificent structures, and feeling the shock and awe of something immense, "a real power that makes you want to believe in something," she said. She looked into stories of women from Christianity, Judaism and Islam that crossed into each, like the story of Isis.

"Her story could be that she was the Virgin Mary," said Capozzi.

Next, she looked for artists who had an affinity for a particular iconic figure that they might have been connected to from their upbringing. It was a stretch, she admits, as she wasn't looking for fanatics, but those who had reverence with a reasonable distance.

In the end, she found a good mix of people from different religions, genders and disciplines, creating music, finding a filmmaker who could work to the lyrical story they were telling, dancers who could interpret these elements and visual artists contributing original works of art.

Capozzi is working with musicians including Mali Sastri, Johnny Blazes, Christine Zufferey, Sophia Cacciola, Michael J. Epstein, and members of her band Azemunkee, including Tamara Gooding, Jason Adams and Yuri Zbitnoff. Other musicians include Susannah Plaster, Rachel Barringer, Rachel Leah Blumenthal, Johan Sacks, Emilie Cavallo and Marnie Hall.

Filmmakers include Celine Fernbach, Dan St. Germain, M.E. Steeman, Igor Chekachkov, Nicole Witte Solomon, Izzy Lee, Anastasia Cazabon, Andrea Wolanin, Norah Solorzano, and Michael J. Epstein.

Dancers and choreographers include Jane Allard, Honey Pie, Alliz Mortis, Porcelain Dalya, Mali Sastri, Jane Doe, Chien-Hwe Carol Hong and Maggie Maraschino.

Although each story had a special quality and was strong and powerful, said Capozzi, she admitted that a few emerged as her favorite. She loves the intro song "The Big Bang" with singer/songwriter Mali Sastri. The profile of Kali was another favorite because she composed it with a longtime collaborate from Paris. She favors the film Igor Chekachkov did in the Ukraine, and she also enjoyed working on the song with Sophia Cacciola and dancer Maggie Maraschino for the Mary Magdalene profile.

"It's very interesting because she's been portrayed as a prostitute, but now people think maybe she was Jesus' wife or an apostle -- a woman who was involved more in his life other than something to be put down," said Cacciola. "When I wrote the songs I wanted to write them from her perspective, like 'you call me names but I'm more than that.'"

Cacciola was also drawn to the story of The Sirens, who lured men to their death, the archetypal icon of the evil men think women are, saying, "we actually turned her into a vigilante superhero."

"The overall project was very interesting for the ways we think of these women," she said. "We think of them as evil, as virgins or prostitutes, but they were fully realized people. The only thing we know about the Queen of Sheba was that she tricked Solomon into having sex with her. Why don't we know more about her? She was the ruler of a nation."

They worked with a dozen filmmakers to visualize these icons in locations ranging from France to Holland to Ukraine to New York City, and they went after some big issues with their films. They also recruited a large number of local dancers from Boston's vibrant burlesque community.

After the Boston debut, Capozzi hopes to take the show to New York City or Paris, and work with artists in those cities to get international collaborations in local art spaces.

"Even though it started here, it's got its roots in different places on the planet," said Capozzi. "Film and CDs can go beyond live performance, but being able to visually present this live in a city beyond Boston and work with local arts communities there to do it would really be part of the connectedness I was looking for with this project."

"It would be cool to submit these films to festivals and see about distributing them," added Cacciola. "That's the future of this show: letting it live on the Internet. So many women were kind of shaded throughout history, and made to seem less important than they were. The list is endless."

"Bring Us Your Women" will be held on Friday, February 27 at ART's Oberon Theater, Harvard University, 2 Arrow St, Cambridge, MA 02138.