Festivals by women for women

WADE produces a series of curated festivals to amplify the voices of women in the performing arts. All events showcase the breadth of the intersectional identities at the core of each artist and their struggles to fulfill an existence devoid of objectification and violence.

WADEintoACTIVISM

WADEintoACTIVISM is a 16 day performing arts festival curated and produced by WADE. The festival presents work by female and historically underrepresented artists and conversations with feminist allies surrounding gender-based violence.

Cammino Verso Il Mare

“Cammino Verso Il Mare”, or “A Pilgrimage to the Water” is an itinerant dance and music festival. It responds to the architecture of the city beginning at il Borgo Medievale and ending at the seafront, Lungo Mare, over six evenings spanning two weeks, along the way inviting the audience to deepen their connection to the city and each other.

Agropoli Danza Festival

Agropoli Danza Festival is aimed at elevating the voices of women artists and approaches the topic of gender-based violence from a global and inclusive perspective. The Festival took place in Agropoli, Italy at the Castello Angioino Aragonese, a breathtaking performance venue nestled in a UNESCO site.

Our Festivals:

WADEintoACTIVISM

Visit our WADEintoACTIVISM Archives:
2024
2023
2022
2020

WADEintoACTIVISM runs in tandem with the Global 16 Days Campaign from November 25th (the International Day Against Violence on Women) through December 10th (Human Rights Day). The campaign was started by activists at the inauguration of the Women’s Global Leadership Institute in 1991 and continues to be coordinated each year by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership. It is used as an organizing strategy by individuals and organizations around the world to call for the prevention and elimination of violence against women and girls. Over 4,100 organizations in approximately 172 countries have participated in the 16 Days Campaign since 1991.

Giada Matteini, founder, director, producer, and curator, conceptualized this festival during the COVID-19 Pandemic lockdown as a response to the global increase of violence against women. The festival has forged collaborations with artists across the globe and with organizations fighting all forms of violence in schools, college campuses, dance studios, and workplaces. Matteini’s curatorial criteria considers providing a horizontal scope of perspectives on gender-based violence from a balance of emerging artists, established artists, young activists, field experts, small business owners, and institutions leading change. Individuals of all gender identities must be present and represented – work towards dismantling toxic masculinity, gender-norms, violence, etc. cannot be done by women alone.

Topics explored throughout the festival include: sexual assault; reproductive rights; emotional manipulation; female erasure; underage prostitution and trafficking; domestic abuse; violence against black women. Topics explored through conversations and panels include: in-person and virtual consent; construction of masculinity and femininity; gender based advocacy; the cultural shift needed to eliminate violence; the gender politics of public spaces; the importance of family and education for gender equity; positive masculinity; familiar, communitarian, societal silence around topics of violence.

Cammino Verso
Il Mare

Visit our Cammino Verso Il Mare Archives:
2023

“Cammino Verso Il Mare”, or “A Pilgrimage to the Water” is an itinerant dance and music festival curated and produced by WADE. It responds to the architecture of the city beginning at the Medieval Village (il Borgo Medievale) and ending at the seafront (Lungo Mare) over six evenings spanning two weeks, along the way inviting the audience to deepen their connection to the city and each other. Dance and music artists traveled from across the globe to create evocative site-specific vignettes of longing, belonging, and growth, immersing the community of Agropoli in a dreamscape environment.

The Festival interrogated the Italian patriarchal construct of public spaces. International female dancers reclaimed ownership of squares, alleys and beaches using movement as a tool of communication with each other and the town’s passerby, transforming the City’s yearly religious Madonna Pilgrimage to the water into a secular, more inclusive and progressive journey.

This Festival was conceived to present works by artists involved in the defense of women’s rights. The project addresses the issue of gender-based violence and discrimination by pursuing the idea that art and dialogue can be valid tools to stem the phenomena of violence and oppression.

Agropoli Danza Festival

Visit our Agropoli Danza Festival Archives:
2022
2021

Agropoli Danza Festival is an arts festival dedicated to supporting gender equality through dance and music performances by internationally recognized artists. This project is aimed at elevating the voices of women artists and approaches the topic of gender-based violence from a global and inclusive perspective. Agropoli Danza Festival took place in Agropoli, Italy at the Castello Angioino Aragonese, a breathtaking performance venue tucked within a UNESCO site.

The Agropoli Danza Festival is a direct response both to the increase in violence inflicted on the global female community during the Covid-19 lockdowns, and to the needs of the many unemployed artists. It will also provide a means for local economic recovery for the City of Agropoli following the pandemic.

The Festival’s objectives were to facilitate discussions, discourse, and dialogue around the topics of gender inequalities, address these issues that are happening right now, address how the COVID pandemic has affected these issues, and how we socialize our children — specifically young boys — around the topics of empathy. Overall, this project saught to ignite productive dialogue through art.