“It was a joke at first,” Nicole Santiago, the head organizer of the event, said. “I was [at DiPiazza’s] with a bunch of women one night and we were all saying, ‘Why don’t we do a show in the honor of Women’s History Month? There’s a girl here whose name is Esther. Let’s call it “A Night of Esther-gen.”’ The name stuck.”
In one month, the collaborative brainchild rolled into an exhibition featuring 16 artists who grabbed friends, friends of friends, a lady-led theme and a pay-it-forward cause along the way.
At $10 per ticket, Santiago decided to donate half of the proceeds to the WomenShelter of Long Beach after taking a few pointers from Nicolassa Galvez, the Chief Executive Officer of Long Beach’s East Village nonprofit ArtExchange who helped organize the raffle portion of the event.
From soulful singer-songwriters to quick-witted comedic shticks, the four-hour set covered a motley mélange of talents.
Slam poet Shy But Flyy ebbed and flowed punchy, lyrical verse, while the coin-skirted quartet emblazoned in sequined bustiers of Maha & Company, a cultural awareness nonprofit, closed the set.
Equipped with veils, sticks and occasionally improvised choreography, the dance group channeled the Middle East, Afro-Caribbean influences and Bollywood in numbers honoring the past and the present.
Since suffragettes swinging picket signs at political polls in the late 19th century and the contraceptive controversy of 1960s pill-packets, gender equality continues to flex at the forefront of American social revolutions, red-bandana and all.
So, why is it still important to have women-centric showcases?
“No matter what the field is, I feel like women still struggle to be taken seriously,” hostess of “A Night of Estrogen” and local comedian Heather Hooks said. “I think men have the tendency to take the spotlight, and I don’t mean that in a negative way—it’s just good to show that we are capable of running an entire night [as well]… with plenty of talented performers.”
The Atlanta-transplant said that she never saw herself delivering gut-busters from a platform until she appeased peer pressure as encouragement in her first impromptu stand-up a couple of years ago at DiPiazza’s. Today, Hooks credits her life to comedy.
“I’ve said more than once, comedy is saving my life,” Hooks said, noting hallowed humorists like Amy Poehler and movies such as Pineapple Express and Stepbrothers as influence. “That’s the world that’s always been there for me; what if I participated in it? That’d be kind of cool.”
When Hooks isn’t managing at downtown’s Rock Bottom, the winsome emcee picks up gigs as she goes.
“There’s a documentary right now on Netflix [that begs the question “are women funny?”] It’s all about female comedians and is kind of a tongue-in-cheek thing,” Hooks explained. “But the fact that we have to keep addressing this question—the fact that that is a question and still gets asked in every article and anything that women do as women, I think it almost just points to the answer.”
Midway through the show, a svelte woman boho-chic in brown took the stage for a set-list set on folk’s revival. Lindsay Smith, a Long Beach-based singer songwriter, performed original ditties about coming of age and lovesickness with a side of hash browns in her song “Breakfast For Two.”
Nicole Santiago and Lindsay Smith collaborate on “Bike to the Beach” at the all-women showcase.
“I think it’s important [to have an all women’s showcase] because there’s been a huge masculine influence on music, and its not anybody’s fault; it’s just how culture has shaped people,” Smith said. “And why not? Let’s have 5,000 all-women shows just because we can. Why the hell not?”
Stereotypical feminine tags of dresses, flowers and all things drenched in pink were left at home as about 130 heads packed the pizza parlor’s ruby-red booths – both sides of the sex-spectrum came together to support the benefit. Smith said she was surprised by the turn out, which left no vacancy in the parking lot and earned a “We support women too!” holler from a gent in the crowd.
“My definition of femininity is being open with yourself and whatever it means to you as a woman because for some woman, it means being a man,” Smith said, commenting on those self-ascribed as house queens to butch babes. “Masculinity and femininity—maybe they don’t have that much difference anymore; maybe we’re just getting closer to accepting each other for what we are.”
Butterfly wings and the auburn curls of a demigoddess crouched in an apathetic trice emerged left of stage onto a canvas as the evening’s scene shifted around it.
Kelsie Parker, one of the live-art participants and a Gordon College in Massachusetts painting graduate, commuted from Irvine to paint up her oil interpretation of Psyche, Cupid’s romantic counterpart in the Latin novel “Metamorphoses.”
The myth follows a mortal woman who relies on herself, questing through the underworld in order to fulfill her aspirations of love and attainment of wings.
Esmerelda Villalobos covers a canvas in oil paints as a part of the live-art section of the showcase.
“I think women have the strength to look our emotions in the eye and then deal with them. That’s something I try really hard to bring into my own life and my own self,” Parker said, defining a parallel between modern femininity and the ancient ideas invested in a Grecian figure. “[It’s] not [about being] cold and [being] unaffected by the things that happen to me, but to be able to deal with my emotions in a positive way and remain sensitive in a really harsh world.”
Parker is four pieces deep into a 30-piece series that will be set up as one fluid panoramic image inspired by the Celtic religious concept of thin places, referencing energy-imbalanced locations where the veil between heaven and earth dwindles.
“I haven’t necessarily felt that I’ve been disadvantaged for being a woman, but I know that it is an issue in our society,” Parker said. “A big problem is that women hate on each other a lot; For women to come together and support each other like we are doing tonight, I think is what we should be doing—lifting each other up.”
The event raised almost $500 in proceeds for the WomenShelter in Long Beach, with the rest of the money awarded to the performers.
Although “A Night of Estrogen” was a one-time showcase, hostess Hooks said she would be open to bring back the benefit for a second date.
“I didn’t think that any of us could pull it off until everyone just lifted each other up; we’re doing what we love, we’re doing what we aspire to be,” Santiago said. “It’s not that we’re capable, it’s that we f*cking did it.”