PROGRAMME 7. SUNDAY 19th MAY, 1.30pm – 4.15pm USW ATRIUM CINEMA
‘HISTORICALLY SPEAKING’ – Lesbian and Queer Women’s History discussed and brought to life!
Part 1 – Queer Tales From Wales
The Welsh Sappho:
The Romantic Life of Poet Katherine Philips and Her Society of Friendship
Queer Tales from Wales present a new performance piece about Katherine Philips, the 17C Anglo-Welsh poet and playwright also known as the Welsh Sappho or the Matchless Orinda.
At just 18 Katherine wrote to her friend Mary, to whom she had given the poetic name of ‘Rosania’:
What angry star then governs me
That I must feel a double smart,
Prisoner to fate as well as thee;
Kept from thy face, link’d to thy heart?
Find out how Katherine’s life played out against the backdrop of the English Civil Wars and how she coped when her intense romantic connections with women were interrupted by the various marriages of herself and her beloved friends.
Performed by Queer Tales from Wales with Jane Hoy as Katherine Philips and Helen Sandler as Narrator. Original script: Norena Shopland.
Queer Tales from Wales are a Machynlleth duo who have appeared at previous Lez Diff gatherings as the Ladies of Llangollen, Amy Dillwyn and other surprising women-loving-women from our shared heritage.
ABOUT JANE & HELEN
Jane Hoy researches, writes and performs in Queer Tales from Wales, travelling theatre. Jane was also a founder member of Queer Playback Theatre Company. She is also trained in forum theatre and is a keen dancer on the LGBT latin and ballroom scene. Jane worked for many years in university adult education. She lives in mid Wales, where she sings with the ‘natural voice’ choir Machapella.
Helen Sandler programmes live arts for SpringOut events including Aberration. She is the publisher of Tollington Press and has previously run the York Lesbian Arts Festival, compered at London’s Bar Wotever and worked for Diva magazine, as well as writing fiction and poetry. Helen lives with Jane in the countryside in mid Wales. Her website is helensandler.co.uk
10 MINUTE BREAK
Part 2 – Jane Traies – Lesbian History Talk
‘Forty Years of Steadfast Friendship’ or… What Does a Lesbian Look Like?’
In this talk Jane unravels the story of a group of women who lived and loved in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and who created an international community of like-minded women in a small village in Sussex.
Were they lesbians? We all look for ourselves – or people like ourselves – in the past. We all want to know that people like us existed before us. But how far are we justified in retro-fitting modern sexual identities onto historical figures?
Listen to the story of Caroline Spurgeon and her ‘intimate friends’ – especially Lilian Clapham and Virginia Gildersleeve – and make up your own mind.
ABOUT JANE
Jane Traies is a writer, researcher and story-teller whose work uncovers the hidden histories of marginalised queer women. Her best-selling book Now You See Me is a collection of older lesbian life stories: her second life-history collection, Free to Be Me, captures the stories of a group of lesbian and bisexual women seeking asylum in the UK.
Jane is also half of the sapphic historical novelist Jay Taverner (writing jointly with Jacky Bratton). She is currently writing a book, and also collaborating with Rachel Dax on a documentary film, about the York Lesbian Arts Festival.
10 MINUTE BREAK
Part 3 – Norena Shopland – Lesbian History Talk (Welsh Focus)
‘Looking for Lesbians’
Despite there being a law against male homosexuality for most of history, there was never a law against women. It was, however, socially unacceptable to be in female same-sex relationships so on the whole people kept their heads down, often destroying their correspondence and diaries. So, how do we find historic individuals we might today regard as lesbians? This talk examines how we can read between the lines to find a wealth of fascinating women we might otherwise have missed. Some of the many women covered in this engaging talk will be: Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies, Marda Vanne, Rachel Barrett I.A. R. Wylie, Katherine Philips, Kathleen Freeman and The Ladies of Llangollen.
ABOUT NORENA
Norena Shopland is an author/historian specialising in the history of sexual orientation and gender identity. Her book Forbidden Lives: LGBT stories from Wales (Seren Books, 2017) is the first completely historical work on Welsh LGBTQ+ history. Queering Glamorgan and A Practical Guide to Searching LGBTQIA Historical Records (Routledge, 2020) have become very popular as toolkits to aid people in doing research. Shopland also researches and writes on Welsh history including her book The Curious Case of the Eisteddfod Baton and an exhibition and forthcoming book on the Tip Girls of Wales, women working in the coal industry. In 2021 Shopland was commissioned by the Welsh Government to deliver LGBTQ+ training to local libraries, museums, and archives in Wales. Her latest book is A History of Women in Men’s Clothes: from cross-dressing to empowerment (Pen and Sword Books, 2021).
