The well-established, 37-year-old Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (or Michfest) was held Aug. 7-12 outside of Hart. Despite two days of nearly constant rain, women's voices and laughter could be heard at all hours of the day and night across the expansive 650-acre wooded area where women had pitched their tents for a week of music, performances, workshops and, most of all, freedom to be themselves without judgment.
"This is my third year," said Kim (no last name), who was attending the festival with her girlfriend. She said that the festival offers her a week of total freedom to be an out lesbian, which she is not able to be back in her Midwestern community. She said there are still many women like her who visit the festival each year for that promise of being able to be out in a completely accepting and comfortable environment.
"A week of total freedom as a lesbian with no judgment," Kim added. "I think we really need a festival like this. There is nothing else like it in the world this size, with the foundation it has. I think it's important to continue to realize the struggle, the fight and the success. Whether it's for gay rights or for all women's rights and that continues to be real important issue that we continue to struggle with in the real world. So it's just not about being a lesbianit's about being a woman.
"This is the part that I really love," Kim said. "It allows one woman to come here totally by herself, never been here before and feel safe. When she comes she will not only leave with a feeling of rejoice, she will leave with friendships and she'll want to come back."
In addition to friendships and a place of solace and retreat, the festival offered a morning-through-night roster of performances and workshops. There were three venuesthe acoustic, day and night stagesall of which offer a tree-lined backdrop and lawn seating. This year's list of musicians included both well-established and up-and-coming artists, many of whom are veterans to the festival: Amy Ray, Chris Williamson, Holly Near, Team Dresch, Mazzmuse, Gina Breedlove, Leslie & the Ly's, C.C. Carter and Sistas in the Pit, Dar Williams, Tender Forever, Mary Gauthier, Scream Club and several others.
Comedians Elvira Kurt, Karinda Dobbins, Jennie McNulty, Kate Rigg and Marga Gomez also performed as well as writers Dorothy Allison and Staceyann Chin, both of whom read unpublished pieces during their sets.
The festival's official kick-off was held Aug. 8; Chicagoan C.C. Carter hosted, and was attending the festival for the 12th time. It included performances by many of the performers who would return throughout the week to give hour-long shows, including Ray and Chin.
Musician Cris Williamson attended the first festival and has been coming back regularly ever since.
"I don't want to miss it," Williamson told Windy City Times. "It keeps growing. It's so elastic in the center of it. It's my only chance to encounter music that I wouldn't know about otherwise because a lot of this music is still underground, a lot of the poetry, a lot of the work because women don't have any money so here everything is to scale so we women can go around and discover groups and music, for me as a musician, music that is just knocking my socks off. And it makes me so proud. My, how we've grown."
Williamson also mentioned that the festival offers an important opportunity for performers to interact with their fans. Throughout the week performers mill about with the crowds, camping alongside of them and sharing a very similar experience to what their audience are having there.
"I've always loved coming to festival, but now I have a daughter," Chin said. "She is seven months old; she is floating around here somewhere. I think people who have common experiences, common struggles, common issues, common triumphs even need to be able to sit at a common table. This is not the only table that I come to for that commonality, but this is a table I come to for women who were born as girls, who were raised as girls, who lived a particular kind of life, and I am so happy my daughter gets to experience it. I hope it is around for a long, long time to come."
This year's festival was smaller in size than some of the previous years, which often average 6,000-8,000 attendees, and almost all of the performers reiterated from the stage how important it is for women to keep coming back and to bring their friends.