A documentary film directed by Cheri Gaulke about feminist performance art
and the Woman's Building in 1970s Los Angeles
A documentary film directed by Cheri Gaulke about feminist performance art
and the Woman's Building in 1970s Los Angeles
When feminist performance art burst onto the L.A. scene in 1970, a community of women artists changed their lives and the very role of art. ACTING LIKE WOMEN is a personal and collective journey into gender, art and activism – intimately told by those who lived it. At the film’s center is the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles – an incubator for some of the most innovative, fearless and still-relevant work in the history of performance art. It was a birthplace for radical new ideas that made the art world take notice and laid the groundwork for future art and social justice movements.
Director/Writer/Producer Cheri Gaulke is a pioneer in the feminist art movement in Los Angeles affiliated with the Woman’s Building working in film and visual art. Her films have screened in national and international film festivals. Gaulke’s work has been presented at the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art (LA), in a Smithsonian-touring exhibition, and in settings all over the world including buses, churches, and prehistoric temples. Known for her solo performance art, she also co-founded the collaborative performance groups Feminist Art Workers and Sisters Of Survival which were featured in a Getty-sponsored exhibition. Gaulke's film Gloria's Call screened in over 35 festivals and won Best Documentary at the Ann Arbor Film Festival, among other awards.
Writer Anne Gauldin is a feminist artist, graphic designer, and business entrepreneur. She received her M.A. through the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Los Angeles Woman’s Building, exploring prehistoric archaeological sites in Western Europe and contemporary feminist art and education. Gauldin served as the Slide Librarian at the Woman’s Building overseeing the archives and the Center for Feminist Art Historical Studies collection created by Arlene Raven and Ruth Iskin. Gauldin was a founding member of The Waitresses and Sisters Of Survival performance art collectives, worked as a typographer in the Women’s Graphic Center and ran her own successful graphic design company for many years. Recently she collaborated with Cheri Gaulke as a producer and writer of the 2018 documentary film Gloria’s Call. Gauldin’s work has been exhibited and performed both nationally and internationally.
Producer J. Cheryl Bookout is an artist, curator, nonprofit administrator and arts advocate. Bookout is currently the Executive Director of The Chimaera Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates for filmmakers identifying as female; 2012-2016 President of the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art; currently a board member for Mil-Tree Veteran Project and the Joshua Tree Retreat Center. She has coordinated large-scale collaborative public art projects such as Envisioning the Future (2000-2003) with renowned artist Judy Chicago and 80 artists from the greater Southern California region. Bookout has co-produced three short films: I Am Be (2016) and Gloria’s Call (2018) directed by Cheri Gaulke and was the director for the short film (2017) short documentary film, Sanctuary; she currently has two films in development.
Composer Miriam Cutler emerged on the women’s music scene in the 1970s as a solo artist and member of the New Miss Alice Stone Ladies Society Orchestra. She performed in 1975 for the Building Women concert that included performances by Lily Tomlin, Holly Near and other iconic feminist performers of the day. She is now one of the most sought after composers for documentary films including most recently RBG, Dark Money, The Hunting Ground, and Love, Gilda. Miriam Cutler is passionate about scoring documentaries, among them Emmy-winning, Sundance, and Oscar-nominated films. Cutler has scored over 100 films and television programs, written songs for film and tv, created music for circus and theater projects, produced and recorded albums, and performed live in many bands and venues. Cutler has composed music for several of Gaulke’s films and they have an excellent working relationship.
We are grateful to have received funding from The Puffin Foundation and California Humanities - California Documentary Project for the Research and Development phase. We are currently researching archives for film and photographic documentation of performance art, and interviews with performance artists.
Our scholar and production advisors include:
Our crowdfunding campaign is LIVE at Seed&Spark through noon on December 2. Click on CONTRIBUTE to be connected. The Chimaera Project is our fiscal receiver and will provide a receipt for your tax records. Thank you!
