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This shows the poster used for Bubbles, which opened at The Nightingale Theatre in Brighton. Jane Boston, Tash Fairbanks and Hilary Ramsden performed in it. -
Digital reproduction of the poster for the Siren play 'From the Divine'. This shows a photo of two toy soldiers and a toy tank falling over on the keys of a piano. The play was devised by Siren and scripted by Tasha Fairbanks following the Falklands War in 1982. It was directed by Sylvia Vickers. Siren used as a starting point for devising the play, a photograph from a newspaper of a group of women waving off the troops to the Falkland war, one of whom has lifted her tops showing her bare breasts behind a Union Jack flag. The play explored the role of women in supporting wars throughout the centuries. -
This shows the poster for Siren’s play ‘Swamp’ for the performance at the Oval House Theatre in London. The play was directed by Clare Brennan. As well as touring the play in the UK, it was also performed at the Brighton Festival in May 1989. -
1. The book is edited by Lynda Hart and Peggy Phelan. 2. The chapter was entitled Siren Theatre Company: Politics in Performance. It referred to Siren as having been the longest-running lesbian theatre collective in Britain at the time. 3. This shows a photo of Jane Boston, Tash Fairbanks and Jude Winter in ‘From the Divine’ from the book. -
The following items have been donated to the archive by Annabel Pribelszki, a Brighton based writer and performance artist. 1. This image depicts two women in an embrace, possibly Annabel on the left. 2. This image depicts Annabel and three other women in separate canoes on a lake. Annabel has titled this image '4 of us - canoes'. 3. This image is titled 'BadBoys' and depicts three people on stage, the one in the centre is dressed in pink tights, a white dress and feather-bower and is holding a microphone, the two people on either side of her are dressed in black and leather jackets. 4. This image depicts Annabel and her cast mates backstage in hockey attire. Some, including Annabel, are dressed in white polo-shirts and some are dressed in yellow polo-shirts with 'BIG BAPS' written across them. 5. This image depicts Annabel and her cast mates on-stage in hockey attire. Annabel is pictured at the centre left of the image dressed in white polo-shirts whilst half of her cast mates stand behind her in the same uniform and some are dressed in yellow polo-shirts with 'BIG BAPS' written across them. 6. This image depicts Annabel and her cast mates on-stage in hockey attire. 7. This image depicts Annabel and her cast mates on-stage in hockey attire. 8. This image depicts Annabel in motorcycle gear and helmet next to her motorcycle. 9. This image depicts actors on stage, in the same attire to image 3, with the actors dancing. 10. This image depicts Annabel mid-run, she is dressed in blue and black running gear with her arms spread wide and a big smile on her face. -
Badge reading: Yes I'm homosexual too -
Long ago, when dinosaurs danced to Motown and disco…when discrimination of all kinds was perfectly legal, nobody was listening to us. We had (still do) plenty to say We wanted (still do) to change the world completely. For starters, yes, we wanted equality, but we were dreaming of much more. On top of that there was – sharp intake of breath, oh the shock! – no such thing as social media. No one had profiles, timelines, accounts. So if you wanted to organise a protest or direct action you called the first woman on the telephone tree who then passed the information on to three others who did the same in turn & so on. I say woman because it was mainly women I was involved with, but of course other groups were doing similar things. In the absence of social media, your body, your clothes became your profile statement. Badges, visible on a coat, jacket, jumper defined your tribe, who you were, what you believed in. (T shirts with slogans came later and did the same.) As well as asserting identity, badges were a way of confronting/questioning society (for instance badges that said things like How dare you presume I’m heterosexual? or No to male violence!). There was humour too. As well as wearing badges we fly-posted, scrawled graffiti and defaced billboards subverting capitalist, sexist advertising. One badge for example beautifully reproduced the Coca Cola logo and phrasing to say: Gay love it’s the real thing. Badges were also a way of communicating to like-minded travellers. Two, sometimes three, women's symbols linked together told other women you were a lesbian (or bisexual and/or feminist but certainly open to sisters doing it for themselves). The double-headed axe or labrys, (originally found in Crete, representing Amazons in Greek mythology), was another symbol lesbian feminists could recognise each other by. It worked as code since not everyone knew what it meant. Not all badges were political or feminist. People wore school badges ironically, Captain, Prefect, 1st VII Netball etc. There was a whole cottage industry of badge making. (Along with home-made ones.) Bands promoted their music by producing badges. Deb, my partner, who has always been really cool, has several obscure band badges in her collection. The risks you took wearing your badge/s depended on where you lived. When I visited Poland in the 1980’s I was a lot less brave than when I was walking round Brighton, (or Islington and Hackney). Communism still held Poland in its grip and even forming a women's group was prohibited, (after all there was the Party-run League of Women; anything else was outlawed). Polish Pride badges didn’t come till much, much later. But in the late 1980’s I got given a badge that said Kino Kobiet (Cinema of Women/Women’s Cinema) which I proudly wore in the UK to celebrate my (often invisible) Polishness. I’ll finish this post by telling you a bit more about some badges in my collection which resonate personally for me: I Love Sober Dykes was brought over from the States and given to me by a girlfriend. Alcohol had been a big part of my life. I loved drinking! When I was first coming out it felt scary as hell to acknowledge lesbian feelings. I needed a lot of alcohol in order to approach women I liked or fancied. Also many political meetings took place or ended up in pubs. But in my late twenties I started having some health issues which made me decide to stop drinking. It was very validating to be given this badge. I’d had no idea there might be other women giving up alcohol too and that not drinking could be seen as cool. There has always been that tension between wanting wide and inclusive community (like the present umbrella alphabet of our LGBT+ identities) and wanting to break away to articulate the needs and interests of a particular group. For example now in addition to Pride celebrations there’s Black Pride, more recently Trans Pride. Back in 1977 women who'd been involved with Gay Switchboard and the befriending organisation Icebreakers felt that women's needs weren't being met by those phonelines and decided to set up a separate organisation, Lesbian Line. I went along to their first meeting and joined up. It was an exciting and affirming time, which included Lesbian Strength marches which began in the early 1980’s. We started Lesbian Line in London and then one was also set up in Brighton in the 1980’s. Socials were held in various locations including the Women’s Centre then in St. George’s Street, also in Boyce’s St, off West St. When I moved back to Brighton, I was no longer volunteering for Lesbian Line but enjoyed going to its friendly socials at The Only Alternative Left, a women’s B&B and bar in St. Aubyn’s, Hove run by Monica Crowe. It was a great way of meeting other women. Does Yes I'm homosexual too seem quaint or funny now? At the time I wore that badge (early 1970’s) ‘homosexual’ was a creepy, clinical, already then, old-fashioned word. The sort of word that came up in medical journals discussing our ‘pathology’. You have to remember that until 1973 homosexuality was classed as a mental illness, then as a ‘sexual orientation disturbance’ – and what that carried with it in terms of appalling, demeaning, cruel psychiatric practices… (‘Queer’ at that time was also used very negatively. Both words suggested older men to me, and being older then was considered (still is) pretty unwelcome.) People mistakenly thought ‘homo’ meant man too, whereas in ‘homosexual’ it means same. But also gayness, generally, was seen as something that men did. Women's sexuality, desire - unless obediently heterosexual (today we’d say heteronormative) was hugely invisible. So this badge was a playful flip of the word ‘homosexual’. It was an expression for me not only of solidarity with my gay brothers but a way of simply saying that women could love other women. There are lots more badges I could tell you about, but I’ll just mention one more, last but not least, Gays Against Fascism (circulated in the late 70’s, early 80’s). This badge felt problematic for the reasons I've just mentioned that although some of us used the words ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ interchangeably we also felt that as an umbrella word ‘gay’ didn’t make women visible or visible enough. But it was a badge which had (still has) a strong emotional charge for me as well. The image on it is the pink triangle which the Nazis made ‘male homosexuals’, as they would have been known, wear in concentration camps. Later on badges - and jewellery - were also made with the black triangle, which was what women deemed socially deviant, including prostitutes and lesbians, were forced to wear. I can't stress enough how important it felt to me (still does) to link every struggle for what today are called queer rights with wider struggles – whether we were supporting the miners’ strike, fighting for women’s reproductive rights, fighting for disability rights, for the environment or fighting against racism, fighting fascism. -
Music video for Boogaloo Stu's single 'Dynamite!', by Boogaloo Stu and ladypat. "We filmed this with Toby at Lighthouse, where they had an infinity studio. It features Sparklemotion, Princess Knickers and Dolly Rocket. This video was made for the re-recording of this song; the original version featured a sample of Cuba by The Gibson Brothers, whose label refused to give permission for us to release it." -
Music video for Boogaloo Stu's single 'Forever More - Metronomy Remix', by Boogaloo Stu and ladypat. "We never had a storyboard planned for any of these videos. It was always just me turning up with a couple of suitcases full of costumes and quiffs, and then figuring out what we could perhaps make. With this video, there were a few props sitting around at Microchunk that we made use of, including a large papier-mache apple; we then filmed my green net-clad hands and arms in a variety of poses, which ladypat then formed into a tree to make it appear I was plucking a giant apple from a tree made of arms. It’s weird watching this back now. It all seems quite serious and earnest, and then suddenly I appear in my knickers, doing a bit of thrusting. It’s all at odds with at my attempts to be a serious artist. But that was always the problem whenever we made these videos, I couldn’t help acting the fool - and of course ladypat would film it all!" -
Music video for Boogaloo Stu's single 'Magic Soul', by Boogaloo Stu and ladypat. "There’s a lot of pouting, and serious looks in this one; ladypat wanted to create something lush, ultra-dreamy and meditative, to reflect mood the song. He has spent long periods of time in India, so there’s quite a lot of cultural references to Buddhism in this video. This was all shot in one day against a greenscreen, with ladypat spending weeks after layering up the animations and graphics." -
Music video for Boogaloo Stu's single 'Magnetic Heart', by Boogaloo Stu and Collina. "This is the only video for which I didn’t collaborate with ladypat. Collina was hugely talented and storyboarded every frame of the video, so we knew exactly what we were going to film. It features Sparklemotion, Princess Knickers and also my ballroom dancing partner, Sherri. I also made 4 mini-Sparklemotion hand puppets." -
Music video for Boogaloo Stu's single 'Magnetic Heart', by Boogaloo Stu and ladypat. "It’s hard to believe this was almost 20 years ago. YouTube had only just launched, and ladypat was an early adopter. He used flashpop software (which was also quite cutting-edge at the time) to create this video. He always described himself as an ‘undesigner’; as such his animations often have a crooked, wonky charm. The characters here were drawn and animated from images I had from photoshoots, club events and performances. It features The Incredible Tall Lady, Miss High Leg Kick and Dolly Rocket (with her exploding boobs)." -
The following items have been donated to the archive by Carl Boardman. 1. This image is a digital reproduction of a white badge from Florida in 1990, it reads 'THE GAY 90'S are back!' in pink yellow and green. 2. This photograph depicts Miss Martinie L'More pouring cups of tea at the LLGC Tea Dance in 1989. -
The following items have been donated to the archive by Carl Boardman. 1. This is a digital reproduction of a flyer for a cabaret and choral performance at The Old Market as part of a collaboration between The Rainbow Chorus and The Accidental Theatre company. The performance was held on the 4th December 1999 in aid of The Sussex Beacon, who specialise in the care and support of those living with HIV. 2. This is a digital reproduction of a flyer for 'A Requiem for Those Who Die Young', a collaboration between Joshua Mills-O'Connor and The Accidental Theatre Company. The performance was held on the evening of the 5th December 1998 at The Brighthelm Centre in aid of the World Aids Day Fund in Brighton. -
Digital reproduction of the cover of City Limits magazine, with a review of Siren's play ‘From the Divine', which was performed at Hoxton Hall and Jackson’s Lane theatres, London.
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