A feature documentary project-in-progress.

Watch the pitch video

In ACTING LIKE WOMEN, pioneering artist and film director Cheri Gaulke takes us on a personal journey into the history of feminist performance art in 1970’s-80’s Los Angeles. Fleeing her stifling Midwestern life as a minister’s daughter, Gaulke and her community forge a new kind of activist art that paves the way for art and social justice movements of today.

When feminist performance art burst onto the L.A. scene in 1970, a community of women artists changed their lives and the very role of art. ACTING LIKE WOMEN is a personal and collective journey into gender, art and activism – intimately told by those who lived it. At the film’s center is the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles – an incubator for some of the most innovative, fearless and still-relevant work in the history of performance art. It was a birthplace for radical new ideas that made the art world take notice and laid the groundwork for future art and social justice movements. Feminist performance art redefined form and content, as it brought art into streets, diverse communities, and people’s lives.

Credits:
Writer-director-producer: Cheri Gaulke
Co-writer-producer: Anne Gauldin
Producers: Cheryl Bookout, Meg Linton
Director of photography: Kristy Tully
Editors: Susan Metzger, Heather Seybolt
Composer: Miriam Cutler
Fiscal sponsor: Women Make Movies

Link to film’s website