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Subject: Typical Girls: Women in Punk/Post-Punk/Underground Music (Circa 1975-1980s)

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  • From: Larry-bob <larrybob AT io.com>
  • To: typicalgirls AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [TypicalGirls] defying conventional appearances
  • Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 13:03:59 -0500 (CDT)

Maybe it's being kinda Greil Marcus to conflate Dada with Punk,
but I would cite Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven as a proto-feminist
proto-punk who pioneered extreme dress style half a century before the 1970s.

Her Leigh Bowery-esque looks included wearing a coal scuttle on her
head as a bonnet and pasting postage stamps on her cheeks.

There is much more material on her now than than was once available,
including books. There also has been at least one stage play based
on her life.

Photo of Elsa:
http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/oisteanu/oisteanu5-20-1.asp
brief bio: http://www.klausmartens.com/elsework.html

books:
Irene Gammel, Baroness Elsa. Gender, Dada, and Everyday Modernity. A Cultural Biography. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002

Paul Hjartarson, Tracy Kulba, eds. The Politics of Cultural Mediation. Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven and Felix Paul Greve. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press, 2003.

Also worth mentioning is Marya Delvard, the German kabaret star who performed
at such venues as "Elf Scharfrichter" (Eleven Executioners) and whose
look, circa 1901, prefigured goth --
http://www.uazg.hr/likovna-kultura/images22/Krizman.jpg
See Lisa Appignanesi's book "Cabaret -- the first 100 years"





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