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"We created this production company to give voice to a new aesthetic -- a girl gang, gender-fuck, engaged/enraged aesthetic. Not that the boy's aren't welcome...Look around. Where are the forums for sexy, angry multi-talented performers. Enough already of this limiting notion of spoken-word OR music OR readings OR film events. We want it all!"
- Dirty Babette's mission statement, 1995
Abrasive, class critical, sexually loaded performance is erupting again in the 90's in self-funded venues as an assault against the resurgence of evangelical "family values" and the scapegoating of poverty. Dirty Babette Productions is a sporadic series of cabarets produced by dyke writer/performer Christy Cameron. Bars and private houses are inhabited for evenings with long, shifting line-ups of performers. The programming emphasis is on dyke/core reading-rants and media art, transgendered performance, pseudo-sex shows, and audience dress-up (the audience's are huge, unruly and interactive). Shows produced include Cabaret LesboMonde (Toronto & Montreal 1994); Drag, Slag & Skag Bash (1995), In Harm's Way (1995) and Piss Elegant Wank (1996). The latter received "sponsorship" from CKLN in the form of free radio ads (CKLN provides this essential exposure resource to a wide array of self-funded, community-based ventures), and part of the proceeds went to Maggie's (Toronto Prostitutes' Community Service Project).
Dirty Babette's was formed in part because Christy Cameron was "banned" from "Buddies in Bad Times", which has evolved to become the official venue for local queer theatre. Exclusion from subsidized, artist-run centres has always been a powerful incentive for the formation of new programming venues and collectivities in Toronto. 'Exclusion' runs the gamut from outright banning, to systemic privileging of older artists (the generation who founded the space persists in showcasing its own peers), through the range of exploitational strategies (younger artists receive second-rate pay and treatment, emerging artists are used to advance the careers of established programmers, improper credit is given, young volunteers get Joe jobs and are denied decision making authority in matters of their own representation, selection occurs through personal favoritism and the casting couch, there is rampant racism and sexism, various art forms are excluded as naive or politically retrograde). Nomadic programming in bars eludes the rent problem. Some police harassment still occurs (a Dirty Babette event at the Cameron House was closed down for "overcrowding"). Programming in a bar may evade the internal and external censorship problems that have usually hounded this breed of work in heavily scrutinized gallery and performance venues including Buddies.
In the early and mid-80's, "Open Call" nights at the censor-harassed and now defunct Funnel Experimental Film Centre became an important venue for queerpunk performers and filmmakers. The queercore zine "Dr. Smith" promoted the screenings and called for submissions including "Pro-it home movies / lavender liberation flicks / films that don't make money / groovy films / wacky queer films". The Toronto zine "JD's" founded by dyke artist GB Jones, later including Bruce La Bruce as co-editor, is renowned as a prototypical zine for the queer-punk movement; it also marks a connection with no-budget film
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