Haf, Elisa

Haf, Elisa

Elisa Haf

1 April 2016Feature

The feminists fighting austerity

Sisters Uncut dye a Trafalgar Square fountain in an anti-austerity demonstration on 28 November 2015 against cuts to domestic violence services. Photo: Sisters Uncut

Sisters Uncut. It’s likely that if you follow the anti-austerity movement, you’ve heard of them. They are the feminists who dyed the fountains in London’s Trafalgar Square blood red in response to chancellor George Osborne’s announcement in his autumn statement last year, on the International Day for the Elimination of…

7 October 2015Blog

Sometimes something like a public therapy session, a feminist performance about the female body that got stronger and more daring as it went on

hoo:ha bills itself as 'comic performance art that cleverly pits funniness against sexiness in a knock-down, drag-out fight for control of the female body'. It was definitely funny, and it was often funny about sexiness, but there wasn't much of a battle between funniness and sexiness, and if control of the female body was explored, that was never explicit beyond the promotional material.

In terms of…

6 October 2015Blog

A disturbing play about guns, male violence against women and sex

This was one of the most powerful pieces of theatre I've seen in a long time. The audience was promised gun-twirlin', play-actin', and Nancy-Sinatra-dancin'. We got all those things, and we didn't get any strong swear words, explicit sexual references, nudity, or actual bloodshed. Technically, it was a show you could have taken your children to, but it was also much more sexual, and certainly more violent and disturbing, than the show I went on to watch later that evening, which actually…

2 October 2015Blog

A funny, slightly confusing, semi-Brechtian contribution to Camden People's Theatre's feminist season, Calm Down, Dear

This was one of those plays which makes you feel you must have missed something when you finish watching it.

I'm reasonably confident I didn't miss something though, as the friend I watched it with had exactly the same response. It was as if the team behind 'Superfunadventuretimes' had come up with a concept (which was, very vaguely: the fantasy genre à la Brecht), been carried away with the…

3 April 2014News

International Women’s Day


International Women’s Day in Aberystwyth. Photo: Jaci Taylor

International Women’s Day Eve, 7 March 2014: an ominous crowd, women dressed overwhelmingly in black, gathers behind the Old College of Aberystwyth overlooking the sea and the setting sun. Such a gathering has never taken place here before: these women plan to Reclaim the Night.

Reclaim the Night marches are a tried-and-tested way of building solidarity and sisterhood. There is something oddly exhilarating about loudly…