Seven years, 100,000 women, and a dancefloor without fear

Femmazing Festival took over IJland in Amsterdam Noord on Saturday 5 September, three in the afternoon until midnight. Two stages, eighteen slots, women only, eighteen and over, tickets from €35.

The bill was women from the first slot to the last. Desibel opened the main stage at three and Kimberlee Ramirez closed it at midnight. Jennifer Cooke took the house stage out. Pearl Ramos and Cheyenne Toney hosted one room, Lil J the other, Showgirls Amsterdam worked the floor, and Lydia Lyon played violin for an hour in the middle of the afternoon. Two of the eighteen slots were live sets rather than DJ sets: Delany at seven, Tabitha at half past eight. I caught both, and Luun in between.

That is not a review of a nine-hour festival and I am not going to write one. What is worth writing about is why the bill looks like that.

The argument is the line-up

It would be easy to read an all-female line-up as a theme. Femmazing does not. Their reasoning is one sentence long and it is the best thing on their website.

"Because what women see helps determine what they believe is possible."

That is why the hosts are women and the violinist is a woman and the closing slot on both stages is a woman. The festival is not only making a space for women to dance in, it is making a stage for women to be seen on. Booking is the argument. Everything else is the party around it.

Where it came from

Femmazing is seven years old. By its own count more than 100,000 women have now been through its festivals, club nights and events, which makes it one of the largest female event communities in the country. Founder and creative director Joyce started it, in the organisation's own words, from "a simple need: to create a place where women could feel free, safe and connected."

Today it is explicitly for everyone: women "regardless of background, origin, faith, age, identity or sexual preference." Not because women are the same, the site says, but because all of them have a right to places where they feel safe, welcome, seen and valued.

Dance Without Fear

In March, Femmazing took the idea off the dancefloor and turned it into a foundation. Stichting Sorority works on safety, visibility and structural change for women in nightlife and entertainment, and its list of what it is up against is not softened: boundary-crossing behaviour, intimidation and abuse of power, unsafe working environments, a lack of representation, situations where women are not heard or protected. "Nightlife should be a place of freedom, expression and connection. Not of fear." The motto is Dance Without Fear, and one safe dancefloor, they argue, is not enough. What struck me on Saturday is that the floor already knows this. Women dancing with their girlfriends, right through the room, not in one corner of one stage. Once you know where Femmazing came from that reads as continuity rather than coincidence: one line on their own About page says it began as a community for lesbian and bisexual women before it grew into something much bigger. The doors opened to every woman and the women it started with stayed. A room with no men in it is a safe space in one way if you are a straight woman who would like an evening without a certain kind of attention, and in a different way if you want to dance with your girlfriend without first working out who is watching. Same door, two kinds of relief, and nobody at Femmazing asks you which one you came for.

What struck me on Saturday is that the floor already knows this. There were a lot of queer women in that room, not tucked into one corner of one stage but throughout, and once you know where Femmazing came from that reads as continuity rather than coincidence: one line on their own About page says it began as a community for lesbian and bisexual women before it grew into something much bigger. The doors opened to every woman and the women it started with stayed. A room with no men in it is a safe space in one way if you are a straight woman who would like an evening without a certain kind of attention, and in a different way if you want to dance with your girlfriend without first working out who is watching. Same door, two kinds of relief, and nobody at Femmazing asks you which one you came for.

Next: The Ring

The festival is done but the year is not. Femmazing Halloween Festival lands on Sunday 1 November at WestWeelde on the Klönneplein in Amsterdam West, two in the afternoon until eleven at night, tickets from €25. The theme is The Ring, the venue is being dressed for it, and there will be scare actors working the floor.

One rule worth knowing before you buy: costume is mandatory. Any theme you like, dark queen to glitter and gore, but you are not getting in as yourself.

The line-up has not been announced yet. On current form, it will be women, all of it. Femmazing Ibiza comes after that.

Quotes translated from Dutch.