Item Data
- Collection Title: Jere Van Syoc Collection
- Item Title: Aradia at Michfest & Grand Rapids, MI
- ID Number: JVS-003
- Date Range: c. 1978-1980
- Description: Rare footage of an early Michigan Womyn's Music Festival that particularly focuses on members of the Aradia Collective & also catches up with collective members at home in Grand Rapids and at play on the shores of Lake Michigan.
- Biographical/Historical Note: http://obits.mlive.com/obituaries/grandrapids/obituary.aspx?n=sherry-redding&pid=180343247&fhid=15995
Interview with Diana Pace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtBDnLR1GtA
On Marilyn Dykhouse's murder: https://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/08/us/mass-killings-mar-first-85-weekend.html
Viewing log by Terry Wolverton in email of 2-6-18. On file at LHMP
Additional Aradia footage appears in the Aradia Susan Wiseheart Collection
Linda Smith, Bio Here’s a bio: https://books.google.com/books?id=HRouCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA432&lpg=PA432&dq=linda+smith,+Thomas+Jefferson+College,+Michigan&source=bl&ots=gfz8_GLJ5G&sig=0F6-9yPM5ybxznaBxJcTBcJJTH4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjkn5v9zfPYAhWo5oMKHT6gBWEQ6AEIPTAD#v=onepage&q=linda%20smith%2C%20Thomas%20Jefferson%20College%2C%20Michigan&f=false
- Genres: Home Movies, Amateur Films
- Places: Chicago, IL; Grand Rapids, MI; Grand Valley State; Chicago, IL
- Access & Use: Contact Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org. No re-use without permission.
- Color or B&W: Mix
- Related Versions:
- Running Time: 16:36
- Rights: Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) holds all rights, . Participants have the right to disapprove uses of material they appear in during their lifetimes.
- Sound: Silent
- Subjects: Art, Lesbians
- Creators: Jere Van Syoc
- Collaborators & Participants: Aradia Collective
Adrienne (in cowboy hat)
Terry Bussey
Michelle Citron
Elaine Dalcher
Kit Dorsey
Marilyn Dykhouse (1950-1985)
Pat Fisher (in wheelchair)
Nancy Fried
Barbara Gibson
Emily McKenty (McKinty?)
Diana Pace
Roberta Prosser
Margaret Willey
Arlene Raven
Maggie Reardon
Sherry Redding (1936-2016) in white shorts
Claudia Sampsom
Linda Smith (1938-2018) with moustache
Jere Van Syoc (in red shorts)
Margaret Willey
Terry Wolverton (in GALAS tee shirt)
Mary Zuiderveen
Olivia
For more information, or if you think you might appear in this footage, please contact us at info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org
- Source Format: Super 8
- Format: Beta & Digibeta
- Viewing Log: One version Marked The Film-Workers, Michelle Citron, Home Movies, 16MM Pos X-Fer @ 24 FPS, 1 4oll last 550' 3-18-03
This viewing log combines notes by Michelle Citron (MC) who lived in Jere's Grand Rapids house at one point and donated the footage & Terry Wolverton (TW), an old friend of Jere's who was also part of Aradia. Initials differentiate their direct quotes. TW's notes identify more faces as well.
MC thinks a second roll of film begins at around 3:58. "I will bet," she has written," that all the MichFest footage was shot at the same festival but was cut up by Jere before I made the transfer."
00-9:20 +/- Aradia Collective at an early Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
Jere in red shorts. Sherry Redding in white shorts. Adrienne in cowboy hat.
MC believes the Aradia banner suggests this festival is later than 1975, TW later than 1976.
Aradia collective members wore art hats & helmets with lavender feathers which Jere made.
4:16 TW: The helmets were a creation of JVS. Often spray painted in bright colors and adorned with feathers and lace and beads, these artworks reflect Jere’s interest in melding butch and femme, the strong woman warrior with feminine adornments
6:50 TW: Terry Wolverton (GALAS tee shirt suggests it must be 1980)
9:17 Jere's house.
9:30 Maggie Reardon on stoop
9:37 – "One of Jere's infamous Halloween parties," according to Michelle Citron, c. 1975 or 1976. "Women came from all around Michigan to the parties," Citron recalled in an email.
11:20 – A Thanksgiving dinner.
12:30 – MC believes these shots were taken in Chicago.
13:03 – MC: I think the women with the light colored hair is Olivia, a friend of Jere's. Jere and I visited her a couple of times in Chicago. Olivia and Jere on the porch steps, Jere on the right
13:49 – MC: Looks like Maggie in the while tank top
13:52 MC: cars - interpolated Michelle Citron footage
15:37 MC: Margaret Willey, an ally and award-winning author
15;42 – MC: This looks like the beach party
16:10 – MC: These beach shots were at a 4th of July party. Either 1977 or 78. It was on land that belonged to the family of one of Jere's dyke friends. There was a large cabin on it high up on a dune (thus all those shots looking down on the beach). I think it was in Holland, Michigan but I can't definitively remember.
16:16 – MC: The woman with the baby is Marilyn Dykehouse. She was the one giving birth in the "birth tapes" . . . . . She was a close friend. Marilyn died in 1983 in one of those horrendous family shootings – 4 family members killed by her abusive brother-in-law. Marilyn was protecting her sister at the time. Only Marilyn's daughter, the baby here, survived.
16:38 – MC: Diana Pace and Elaine Dalcher. Diana is wearing the same bathing suit as in previous shot so now I think all the beach footage was shot as same time.
17:04 – MC: The police came by on horseback – this was a private beach. But we had the right to be there so they moved on.
Margaret Willey award winning author, with the brimmed hat.
17:55 – MC: Maggie
18:03 TW: Arlene Raven
18:10 – MC: Adrienne driving
19:36 – MC: Jere, of course. She’s wearing a different bathing suit and I wonder if this beach footage was shot at a different time. We spent a lot of time at the beach on Lake Michigan. I lived in Grand Haven, over looking the lake, for a while. This is my favorite shot of Jere. Her personality comes through.
19:49 – MC: That is me in the blue bathing suit with my back to the camera. We’re looking through photos. I can’t identity the women, though.
20:29 – MC: Sherry Redding again
20:51 – MC: Jere again and also in a previous shot
21:12 – MC: Outside Jere's house in the back – my vague memory is that these were guests from out of town. They appear in earlier shots, too.
21:46 – MC: another of Jere's art headpieces.
Airport runway. Plane.
Back at the festival.
23:11 – MC this is clearly Jere's tent at the festival – note the decoration