"Noc Walpurgii festival started in 1996 in Warsaw, Poland and is organized every two years.
It's a pioneering event in Poland taking struggle against sexism and homophobia and promoting girl-fronted bands and activities.
These issues are often not taken seriously inside of the punk, DIY or antifascist scenes and we felt the importance to show that most forms of discrimination like racism, sexism, homophobia are linked and that fighting against these forms of oppression is basic for antifascist, leftist, anarchist and hardcore/punk movements.
As a pro-feminist and pro-women festival, we support anarchist-feminist activities as well as other forms of feminist and anti-patriarchal struggle. We were also supportive to any kind of all female and female fronted punk and hardcore bands, as it was clear back then that local scenes used to have small amount of women involved. It was even worse with openly queer, gay or lesbian participants in DIY culture. We worked with queer, lesbian and gay activists, spoken word artists, drag queens, drag kings, djnes and other activists.
The event achieved its goals as it became an attractive mixed crowd of females and males, queers, lesbian, gays or straights, punks, HC or others who wanted to be a part of it. Its impressing feeling is to see so many different people having fun on the dance floor or during the shows. We respect the need for self-organization and need for space for all those discriminated or oppressed, but the festival idea is not to create a separated place fot just one certain type of people. Noc Walpurgii is more about connecting each other and building fundamental structures for strong and diverse DIY culture - free from any kind of discrimination and prejudice.
It's open to anyone interested in supporting the issues of the festival; bands or artists. It's important to us to connect people to each other, to speak about matters that are political or personal.
We felt the importance to make events friendly so that everyone is involved, to have fun and feel welcome in a safe environment so we're standing in opposition to all kinds of violence at the shows, violent dancing or macho behaviour. It was important to us all to see more women taking up the space or having fun during the shows.
Throughout the years the festival became one of the most important events in Poland related with DIY underground hc/punk scene. Each festival there is around 400-1000 visitors.
Every time there is more and more visitors from other countries, foreign bands or artists.
Noc Walpurgii its now the oldest DIY orientated hardcore/punk festival in Poland.
Throughout the years many international bands/artists were guest at the festival like LYNNE BREEDLOVE (TRIBE 8), HARUM-SCARUM, RE-SISTERS, ACTIVE MINDS, INNER TERRESTRIALS, SCATTERGUN, DAISY CHAIN, BEYOND PINK, GREG BENNICK (TRIAL), HIGHSCORE, THE TANGLED LINES, SHORT FUSE, LORENA, THE BOBBITS, DE FATWAS, LADY! DIE, OIL, AMANDA WOODWARD, AGATHA, USAISAMONSTER, LIFE CYCLE, DIASPORA, N.K.D. , DEATH BEFORE WORK, CINDER, VICIOUS IRENE and more.
Also we were honoured to have at the fest many great local bands at the fest like POST REGIMENT, HOMOMILITIA, GUERNICA Y LUNO, ZLODZIEJE ROWEROW, SANCTUS IUDA, EYE FOR AN EYE, EL BANDA, REGRES, EXMISJA, DULDUNG, SILIKONFEST, WHITE RABBIT and many others.
We had always lots of non-musical activities during the fest like workshops, performance, exhibitions, spoken word, Drag Kings, Drag Queens, DJ'anes, movies or demonstrations (Take back the night, Gay Pride) with people from Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Sweden, UK, USA, Argentina involved.
Noc Walpurgii since the beginning was organized by Emancypunx Records (who remained from anarcho-feminist collectives KDP and Emancypunx) and Refuse Records.
Our goal was that Noc Walpurgii would me more than annual festival but an event who can give inspiration for new projects, bands and activities with girls and/or queers involved, but also any kind forms of DIY activism."
Some pics from this year's fest...
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