Women: A Celebration of Art & Culture

The Crofoot Ballroom, Pontiac’s premiere entertainment destination, is showing off a different side of its event-hosting heart with a very special, one-of-a-kind multi-media event Saturday designed to leave both performers and patrons inspired.

Women: A Celebration of Art and Culture is an evening about community; a female-first spotlight where more than a dozen eclectic local performers were brought together to not only showcase their talents as musicians, vocalists, DJs, artists, photographers, filmmakers, and comediennes but to also raise awareness to some of today’s pertinent issues facing modern women in the workplace and beyond.

Despite its intended focus, Women, isn’t about feminism. “This is not a man bash,” Phreddy Wischusen, Crofoot general manager and concept engineer for the event, says. “We are 100 percent pro-dude. We’re just putting the women on stage.”

Women is built around a concept of community where artistic outlets, musical genres and creative thoughts are intended to cross paths and provoke ideas, nurture conversation and result in positive action. But, most important, it is about having fun. And, Phreddy assures, Saturday night’s affair is most definitely a party; a big one.

“Actually a lot of my guy friends are really excited about it,” Phreddy says. And, why wouldn’t they be? Saturday’s event is sure to have a women-to-men ratio that is in favor of carriers of the XY chromosome.

Featuring a stellar entertainment line-up at any metro Detroit venue, any night of the week, some of the talented Women musical acts include Sisters Lucas, Misty Lyn and the Big Beautiful, Lightning Love, Secret Twins, Danica Patrick, Jr.Jr. (a one night special by the members of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.) and more.
On display will be visual art from Kate Daughdrill, Amy Kaherl, Rebecca Goldberg, Vanessa Miller, Natasha Beste and others. Angela McBride will showcase fashions from her PEACE. LOVE. SPANDEX label and comediennes Terri Stern, Amy Ruud, Heather Brewer and Heather Kozlakowski will keep the LOLs coming.

Proceeds from the evening will also benefit the Michigan Women’s Foundation, a statewide non-profit organization aimed at empowering females of all ages to realize their dreams of self-sufficiency and social equality.

“I love art and culture and this event is about that so that was my initial interest,” Lori Kitchen, Michigan Women’s Foundation Program Advisor, says. 

Lori explains the Michigan Women’s Foundation is an umbrella organization that is all-inclusive to women-based charity organizations; a primary function is to fund grants to other non-profits.

“We saw (the event) as an opportunity to get the issues out there and start a dialogue or discussion - among the people attending that will hopefully spread beyond,” she says, adding that hundreds of local charities have been approached about the event.

Each participating non-profit organziation received 75 complimentary tickets that they were able to sell at face value and direct those funds into their own organization. Tickets were made available by the Crofoot via Phreddy while Lori delved into contacting each charity and explaining what the event was and how it could not only help them by raising funds and awareness but how their participation would help spread the message of women’s issues.

“What we really want is for people to start talking about women’s issues and to reinforce what they are doing in the community,” Phreddy says of the event’s mission of opening up communication channels and eduacation, all of which was decided upon by way of his close work over the last few months with the Michigan Women’s Foundation and other local artists who formed an event committee.

“The first time we got together we just had a guided discussion about what it means to be a woman,” Phreddy explains about the group behind Women and the subsequent grassroots execution for the event which he says started simply by emailing friends in the arts-and-entertainment community.

With a steady voice, Phreddy recalls that first meeting as “electric, exciting, and very sobering." He’s calm at the time of this interview with Metromix, at the end of January, as he recollects the actions behind the Crofoot's Women movement over the past few months building up to Saturday's event.
Phreddy explains that during this interview his usual jubilant energy has been subdued by many days of fasting.
While he may be weakened a bit from his self-guided mission to cleanse his body of toxins and renew his spirit, Phreddy's confident and cool, more than assured when discussing women’s issues, a topic some men might shrink away from.

He continues to answers questions with praise for the women who helped plan the event but with great humility for his own role; after all, Women was an idea he originated. He then exhales and, in a tone that neither showcases or masks emotions, offers a glimpse into his inspiration.

“Bottom line is on October 17 (2009) I was supposed to be married and on September 17 (2009) we broke up,” Phreddy states. He doesn’t go into any more personal details but admits that significant decision compelled him to understand "why?" Phreddy says after some time one of the things he began to understand was that he couldn’t make his fiancé happy.
Atfer careful contemplation, Phreddy says he learned that women are put under a glass ceiling in many career fields, the arts included, and his ex-fiancee, like many women, struggled often to find happiness in love, life and their careers with this type of restriction. “So, I thought about how I can help empower women and share love.”

And while Phreddy’s personal situation led him down a positive path filled with inspiration to act, he is not the typical male. But, Kitchen says, there are, indeed, plenty of women who continue to struggle in society and finding equality in the workplace and this event, she hopes, will help educate attendees about who is doing what and why.

“We want to help support women in economic ways. This event helps women in the art fields but will also generate discussion beyond that,” Lori explains. "We're trying to get the facts out there and this is a fun way to do it."