Festival Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 7, 2009

First Annual Berkshire Festival of Women in the Arts
Month-long Festival Debuts in March

Press Contact                       
Eugenie Sills                           
esills@thewomenstimes.com
413-528-5303   

Great Barrington, Massachusetts:  Eugenie Sills, founder and publisher of The Women’s Times, announced today that the First Annual Berkshire Festival of Women in the Arts is off to an exciting start with more than 60 events at 30 venues that will include film screenings, exhibitions, performances, talks and more throughout the Berkshires during the month of March.

Presented by The Women’s Times, the festival will include diverse programming that ranges from the historical to contemporary, traditional to radical, political to apolitical. Venues run the spectrum from the Berkshires’ most established cultural organizations to new and improvised locations. There are opportunities for festival goers to examine the role of women in the arts, celebrate the achievements of women artists or simply enjoy a diverse cross-section of artistic work.

The festival will have two signature events:

• The Eighth Annual International Women’s Day conference will be held on March 7th at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, with the theme: The Power of Women in the Arts. Featured speakers include Carol Gilligan, Karen Allen, Kristin Jones, Martha Richards and Susan Fisher Sterling, Executive Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. (The conference and festival are related, but separate entities.)

• The First Annual Festival awards, She’s Got Moxie! will be presented by The Women’s Times. The awards will recognize the individual contributions of selected honorees and celebrate the power of Berkshire women in the arts. A gala and presentation of awards will be held on March 13th at Founders’ Theatre at Shakespeare & Company.
  

Eugenie Sills said International Women’s Day conference director Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez conceived of the festival last summer and brought the project to The Women’s Times. “We’ve had a great time working with Jenny and moving the festival forward,” Sills said. “The Women’s Times has always shined a spotlight on women’s art, women artists and women working behind the scenes. A few years ago, we began an annual feature in our Summer Arts Preview called Where the Women Are—and Aren’t.  We’ll continue to ask the question, but this March, the answer will be resounding: everywhere in the Berkshires!”

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