QUARTET FOR GARLIC, CELLO, MOUTH & TELEPHONE

For the opening night of Femme Folks Fest, Ben Gorodetsky and Miriam Stewart-Kroeker presented he Quartet for Garlic, Cello, Mouth, and Telephone. This interdisciplinary performance was presented to audience members, who were then served garlic-centred recipes created by Julie Hall.

This exploration of memory, food, hunger, and displacement centred on Gorodetsky’s grandmother, Raiya. Raiya survived the 872-day-long siege of Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg, from September 1941 to January 1944 by the Axis powers.

For the following eight decades, she became someone very passionate about feeding others and who believed in the benefits of garlic.

“Life became governed by the need to feed: her body never forgot the hunger,” he said.

The piece was presented in a workshop in the last iteration of the Femme Folks Fest, where it was well-received. Initially, the piece featured a phone call with Raiya during the performance, however, five days before it was set to open, Raiya passed away.

Now, Gorodetsky includes a clip from an interview he conducted with her for a different project on displacement as part of the interview.

This is followed by a dramatic performance of decorating with, eating, creating with, and hearing garlic. Gorodetsky connected this to the lack of food Raiya experienced, to stories of her missing father–possibly killed for his ration card–and her ailing mother–who was immobile when she chose to rely on soldiers and make a risky escape to Kazakhstan.

Frida, Raiya’s mother, forever worked with food in some capacity afterward.

Much of the performance and storytelling was accompanied by the sometimes upbeat, sometimes mournful cello. Stewart-Kroeker added depth of emotion and ambiance to Gorodetsky’s storytelling.

In addition, the piece played with other sounds–silence, the crunch of garlic being chewed, the buzz of the phoneline.

Eventually, Gorodetsky connected Raiya’s story, her obsession with feeding, with the modern-day uses of hunger as a weapon in places like Ukraine and Gaza. He touched on the strangeness of his great-grandfather, Raiya’s father, Israel, being among those used as justification to starve Palestinians.

He spoke of how food still connects him to people of other cultures, of how it can be used to villainize immigrants or force assimilation.

“So much history, so much blood, so much hunger,” Gorodetsky said.

Audience members reacted largely positively to the performance, with one member sharing afterward her own similarities with Gorodetsky’s stories. She told of her own grandmother and how her family’s ways of eating changed after she passed.

Others congratulated Gorodetsky and offered condolences for Raiya’s passing. Many were absorbed in their own conversations on immigration, displacement, food, and much more.

At the end of each phone call, Raiya would ask Gorodetsky to remember her.

“Thank you for calling me; don’t forget me,” she would say.

This piece entrenches her in memory and remembrance.

CLOTHING SWAP AND STYLE

On Mar. 8, 2025, Femme Folks Fest hosted a Clothing Swap and Style event at the Visitor Information Centre at Waterloo Park.

Attendees explored the colourful, stylized clothes and accessories prepared for visitors. The event also had a booth where visitors could repair or repurpose their unneeded or damaged clothing.

“The purpose of the event is to help people clean out their closets, get rid of things that may not fit anymore, or they’re just ready to pass along to see someone else find the same joy that they did,” Rachel Kaufman Behling, the owner of Auburn Vintage Clothiers, said.

She emphasized that upcycling and recycling events, like Clothing Swap and Style, can benefit the environment.

“It’s like circular fashion,” Kaufman said.

Various people attending the event treated it as a networking event or an information session, where event volunteers and the organizers, Rachel Behling Kaufman, Carol Campbell, Cassidy Hicks, and Lisa O’Connell, aided the visitors with general inquiries and talk about how visitors could stylize the clothes they like or offered at the event.

“I think the most important thing is to bring the community together in an inclusive environment where people can start using their creativity to look at different styles, textures, and eras and try them on,” Cassidy Hicks, producer of Femme Folks Fest, said.

Overall, the event served as a lively marketplace for unique clothing and a valuable networking opportunity, allowing attendees to improve or revamp donated clothing while connecting with local businesses.