Please visit http://www.nweamo.org/Call_For_Works.html
Submission Deadline: April 1, 2008
Festival dates: NWEAMO takes place throughout October. Precise dates soon!
Festival Cites (confirmed): San Diego, New York City, Stony Brook, Venice
(Italy)(several other cites pending)
NWEAMO 2008: Can Art Be About Sex?
SEX SELLS!-is the cliche that is muttered sarcastically by "serious" artists, and is the time-honored sacred weapon of commercial marketeers. But can art be about sex, or the emotional swirl that surrounds it? Apparently Richard Strauss thought so, (Salome), and Wagner certainly steeped in it (Trisan & Isolde). So more recently did Robert Maplethorpe and Karen Finley. Susan McLary has written extensively about it, and in the vernacular world underground artists often tread there.
Sex is used to market everything (EXCEPT avant-garde classical music these
days) so it is hard to say that it is overused - that would be a magnificent understatement! But the point is that it is used so often because we seem to be a species that is perpetually intrigued (fascinated, embarrassed, outraged, attracted etc.) by that subject.
For the 2008 Festival NWEAMO aims to wrestle (innuendo intended!) with the aesthetics, gender issues, politics, norms, history, rituals, taboos, propaganda, stereotypes, spirituality and physiology of this emotional and physical dance that preoccupies most of us for so much of our lives.
We want to offer a forum that covers the spectrum. We do not want to be preachy or didactic (though some works might take those angles). Instead we want to pose questions and stimulate (sorry) debate!
Is sex too private to be the subject of public spectacle? Can there be an avant-garde music festival that is steamy in 2008? We hope so!