Ladies First are Luciana Erregue, Nermeen Youssef and Anna Marie Sewell. They first assembled around Luciana’s table in November 2017, where they eventually recorded a braided Spanish/German/English spoken word performance of Paul Célan’s ‘Death Tango,’ for a WGA podcast. Next, they added song to the poetry, and came up with a set of originals and translations, first presented at a house concert in mystical Spruce Avenue. In 2019, they performed in ‘By Heart: A Celebration of Sung & Spoken Works in 10 Languages,’ at MacEwan Uinversity, bringing 4 of those 10 languages. At Dapper Dan’s Indian & Outlaw Extravaganza, they’ll again perform in Mi’gmaq, Arabic, Spanish, and English. They are still gathering at Luciana’s kitchen table to dream up new antics.
Festival Years: