Difficult Women is a literary-folk music cabaret created in 1992, in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, by Lin Van Hek

Lin Van Hek

Lin Van Hek is an Australian writer, member of the Society of Women Writers and is the co-founder of a literary-music group called Difficult Women.Van Hek was born in Melbourne but lived in Europe and India for some years...

 and Joe Dolce

Joe Dolce

Joseph "Joe" Dolce is an American-born, Australian singer/songwriter who achieved fame with his multi-million-selling song, "Shaddap You Face", released under the name of his one-man show, Joe Dolce Music Theatre, in 1980...

 and has been performing internationally for 15 years.

During the witch-hunt

Witch-hunt

A witch-hunt is a search for witches or evidence of witchcraft, often involving moral panic, mass hysteria and lynching, but in historical instances also legally sanctioned and involving official witchcraft trials...

s in Salem, Massachusetts

Salem, Massachusetts

Salem is a city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,407 at the 2000 census. It and Lawrence are the county seats of Essex County...

, USA

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, the term 'difficult women' was used to identify women targeted to be burned at the stake and for confiscation of their property by the church. Van Hek and Dolce's group has reclaimed this term and through a combination of theatrical vignettes, original music, songs, harmony singing and oration, brings to life women who were labeled 'difficult' for their willingness to defy what was expected of women in their time.

The show contains over four hours of material on visionary women such as Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf

Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....

, Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...

, Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, born in Coyoacán, and perhaps best known for her self-portraits....

, Memphis Minnie

Memphis Minnie

Memphis Minnie was an American blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. She was the only female blues artist considered a match to male contemporaries as both a singer and an instrumentalist.-Career:...

, Sonya Tolstoi, Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...

, Alice B. Toklas

Alice B. Toklas

Alice B. Toklas was an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century.-Early life, relationship with Gertrude Stein:...

, Camille Claudel

Camille Claudel

Camille Claudel was a French sculptor and graphic artist. She was the elder sister of the poet and diplomat Paul Claudel.- Early years :...

, Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield

Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp Murry was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. Mansfield left for Great Britain in 1908 where she encountered Modernist writers such as D.H. Lawrence and...

 and Louisa Lawson

Louisa Lawson

Louisa Lawson was an Australian writer, publisher, suffragist, and feminist. She was the mother of the poet and author Henry Lawson.-Early life:...

.

External links

• Difficult women website
• Sonicbids Electronic Presskit