Voices of Women celebrated Entanglement at Government House on International Womens Day, March 2022 to acknowledge the contribution women make to uphold, improve and change society.
To celebrate the day, and the diverse community of storytellers in Entanglement, we launched on Gadigal Land at Government House in Sydney, acknowledging First Nations storytellers of the past, and continuing storytellers today. We showcased a short excerpt from the upcoming feature documentary hosted by Her Excellency Margaret Beazley AO QC Governor of NSW and Dennis Wilson.
Margaret Beazley (above) is the first woman appointed to the New South Wales Court of Appeal and, subsequently, the first woman to be appointed as its President.
In her address, she said that it’s time women stopped listening, stopped being the passive listeners in the room, and speak out for themselves.
Voices of Women Artistic Director Lliane Clarke (above) responded, and said: ‘I started this program in 2018 because I love celebrating our differences, the power of a woman’s story told in the first person, the incredible impact that imagination transformed in theatre and music can have on our lives.
It’s been my great pleasure and privilege to lead and collaborate with over 300 women in Australia and the USA who responded to the call out – what’s your story?
Many women said they had never told anyone their story before. Many women’s formal educational experience left them lacking in confidence, literary competence and feeling they have nothing to say or that no-one is interested.
We want to challenge that belief.
The power of community is strong and enabling. We want to encourage a woman to have a place and a reason to tell her story
Because it promotes self esteem, value and identity. The telling of stories creatively provokes questions, requests understanding and compassion and creates change.
I was encouraged to continue this program in collaboration with First Nations women, particularly through my sadly brief but strong relationship with Aunty Kerry Reed Gilbert a respected and much-loved Aboriginal Elder, Matriarch, and Warrior of the Wiradjuri Nation, a writer, activist, poet, and the inaugural Chairperson of the First Nations Australian Writers Network now headed up by the award-winning poet and artist Yvette Henry Holt.
Kerry told me that sharing our life experience together encourages us all to live with a greater understanding of who we are.
The full length film is our second, and will submitted to film festivals across the USA and Australia. It will also be shown at a private screening in May and there we will launch our next storytelling callout, which takes its first steps on tour this week to regional NSW with rural and First Nations women artists in residence in Dubbo, Wagga Wagga and Goulburn.
Thank you to Sightline Productions and our photographer Noni Carroll.
The best is yet to come!’
Read about Entanglement here.