It’s International Women’s Day on Friday 8th March, and to celebrate many arts venues are putting on special events. Below is a selection of what’s on over the next few weeks…
Watch a Dirty Thirty International Women’s Day special
Degenerate Fox Theatre’s ever-changing attempt to perform 30 plays in just one hour will be marking International Women’s Day 2019 with a weekend of shows in celebration and interrogation of all things femme and female.
Degenerate Fox create new material to add to the menu each week, creating an ever-changing smorgasbord of theatrical delights. These plays could be anything – comedy scenes, dramatic monologues, intricate dances, games, songs, experiences, and stuff there just isn’t a definitive name for. And perhaps most excitingly of all? You get to decide the order in which the plays are performed!
IWD Dirty Thirty shows will take place on 15th and 16th March at The Rosemary Branch Theatre in London. Donations will be collected after the show for Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust.
Try a spot of yoga for charity
Celebrate International Women’s Day with a yoga class, hosted by The Four Elements at the Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen. Four female yoga teachers will explore this year’s IWD2019 theme, Balance For Better. Join Debs, Fred, Fran and Vix for an all-inclusive gathering, which is open to any gender to attend, and honour the campaign for a future of a gender-balanced world.
All proceeds will be donated to Ourmala: Healing Yoga for Refugees, Asylum-seekers and Displaced People, based in East London. The class will take place on 12th March at 7pm and tickets cost £15.
Attend an exhibition celebrating feminism and women of colour
Successful former underground artist Stephen Acosta sheds his anonymity to lend his skills to a gallery exhibition celebrating feminism and women of colour.
Commenting on the exhibition, Acosta said: “Oil portraits line the halls of everywhere from galleries to universities; and if a woman is featured at all it’s for her beauty. I wanted to explore my own biases and open up a dialogue on the significance of portraiture and how I as a male artist can lend my skillset to exploring these spaces. Even if I get this all wrong it’s opening a dialogue about why more it’s up to women to celebrate women, and why men aren’t engaging with being part of the feminist movement in arts.”
The exhibition of oil portraits will take place at The Book Club in Shoreditch from 11th to 13th March.
Champion female farmers by scoffing a three-course dinner
To celebrate International Women’s Day, D&D London are launching a series of dinners entitled The Secret Diary of a Farm Girl, championing women in the farming industry. The first in the series will take place at New Street Grill and will welcome Caroline Wheatley-Hubbard as resident farm girl for the evening. Wheatley-Hubbard will speak about her experiences working as a female in the farming industry while guests are treated to tasty dishes.
On 12th March, the three-course menu will be paired with wines from female winemakers. The meal costs £25 per person.
Join the girl fans kicking off
Celebrate International Women’s Day at the Museum of Liverpool on 9th March as they share the stories of women football fans. There will be a selection of vintage football tops on display, inspired by the female fans who followed their teams with pride.
The day will be used as a call to arms for the city’s female football fans to get involved in a story sharing event on 23rd March. Girl Fans Kicking Off is a drop in event, no booking required.
Discover women artists at the Walker
Join the curators at the Walker Art Gallery on 8th March for a talk on two female artists in the gallery’s collection.
Anne Holt (1821-1885) was a Liverpool amateur artist who travelled in Britain, Europe and North America, drawing for pleasure and recollection. She represents many other women of her time who loved to draw and paint but who have often been neglected by historians of watercolour and landscape art.
Elisabetta Sirani (1638-1665) was a successful seventeenth-century artist working in Bologna, Italy. She began painting professionally by the age of 17 and her talents soon earned her fame across Europe.
The event includes a rare chance to see drawings and watercolours by these two women which are usually kept in storage.