On Wednesday 8th March, Phonic FM is taken over once again by Dreadnought South West for International Women’s Day 2023.
This is the eighth year that Dreadnought have ‘occupied the airwaves’. Listen in from 8am all the way through to midnight for a day of discussion, reflection, information, joyfulness, and music.
This year we are ‘dialling it up’ from our previous years’ format of Occupy the Airwaves, where we have produced hourly programmes.
In our anniversary year we will be challenging the constraints of many patriarchal broadcasting models, so be prepared to be surprised as we mix pre-recorded subject matter with live guests who might not usually meet on the radio, to bring you some entertaining and vibrant broadcasting across the 16 hours.
Wednesday 8th March – International Women’s Day, celebrated globally.
Midnight to 8am
Another chance to hear programmes from the Occupy The Airwaves archives. We will be playing out shows from previous years through the early hours, until we can get our toes under the studio desk.
8am to midday
A good morning welcome from Josie Sutcliffe, Natalie McGrath and Kerrie Seymour, who will be joined by, amongst others, Jeanie Lynch from CoLab Exeter’s Resilient Women Project, there will be packages from Hazel Ackland about The Nest, Promoting Choice (also a Colab Exeter project, ‘Now Is A Perfect Time For Screaming’ (self-care in times of crisis), by Caroline Bergvall will also be premiered here and played across the day as energy release poetry. Chloe Whipple will then run our very first dance class live on Air in this morning session inspired by her venture ‘Do Your Dance Club’.
Next up Lizzy Humber and Mothers Who Make, will take over and present new short podcasts from a new collaboration with Dreadnought; Mothers On the Air and several live guests.
Access All Aerial’s from CEDA’s Georgia and Lucy will be live streaming from the centre of Exeter, this will include an interview with actor Cherylee Houston.
Midday to tea-time
Gillian Taylor will take over the hosting chair, to welcome Amina Yaquin who will be live in the studio to talk about translating feminist Urdu poetry with Josie Sutcliffe. After this there will be packages by sound artist Laura Reid, a phone-in with Amanda Lynch and pre-recorded interviews with a range of women including Camilla Hampshire from RAMM. Cathy Towers then joins us to host the studio with guests Claire and Ruby Ingleheart who will be singing live, and talking about all female shanty group Femmes de la Mer and Claire’s work on Oxygen for Dreadnought. After this Cathy will be joined by Maisie Jepson and Laurel Miller to talk about women’s heritage and activism. There will be packages from Cathy ‘Express Yourself’, and Promoting Women’s Choice as well.
Tea-time to 5.30ish
Josie will be hosting Sarah Campbell who will be talking about a series of audio pieces from poet Fiona Benson, they will be joined by Paula Crutchlow, and there will also be an audio short play ‘Allotment’ by Lissa Carter shared on air, about the invisibility of older women. Caroline Bergvall will be on air live via a phone in. Poppy Newton-Clare’s package ‘Jelly’ will also feature here. We then welcome Sharifa Milford-Al Hashemy to the hosts chair, to take the reins, where she will be hosting Ruth Mitchell and Michelle Ridings, who will be reading extracts from Dreadnought’s two plays; The Cause and Oxygen. Josie and Nat will also be in the studio with them. After this Sharifa will host Catherine Cartwright and Fee Scott, an artist working closely with a social scientist and therapist, in a new collaboration.
Early evening circa 7.05pm
Kerrie Seymour takes over from Sharifa to host musician and writer Mama Tokas and Sci-Fi writer and poet Susie Williamson who will talk about Afrofuturist Sci-Fi, 9 – Midnight: Kerrie will continue to share more audio content. This time a half hour long package from Roshani Ramass; ‘Warrior Women of the West Country’, and a package the ‘Bone Staircase” from sound artist Kerry Priest will take us into the last hours of the occupation!
The final hours: to midnight
…will be hosted by Nat, with Josie and Kerrie, a wild ride through some amazing music, a phone in with poet, rapper and activist Silai Estatira, who will talk about her work and latest projects.
Key to the day of course are Josie Sutcliffe, Kerrie Seymour and Nat McGrath and Dreadnought South West’s Trustees.
Chair of Trustees Anne Barnes and Kerrie Seymour will also be running a Craftivism Workshop at the Library. There will be an exhibition in the Workshop Space at Exeter Phoenix, and it will also be a place to come along and listen to the programmes during the day.
Wren Music will be singing live in The Workshop at 11am and Bookbag will be hosting a stall of great books by women between 2-5pm.
So do come and join us and see a range of artefacts from our archive, marking 10 years of Dreadnought South West!
Social media links
More information about Dreadnought South West here: http://dreadnoughtsouthwest.org.uk/contact-dreadnought-south-west/