“ 

valerie solanas is primarily remembered for the attempted murder of andy warhol in 1968, in which she seriously wounded him with 3 gunshots. we, in contrast, want to remember her as the author of the s.c.u.m. manifesto, upon which we base our cabaret.

we take s.c.u.m. as a utopian space, as a state of mind. it openly declares war on our society, this soft prison system with invisible walls. furthermore, it attacks the american, or better, western dream and the hegemonic power of heterosexual, rich white men.

valerie fired at close range. without any formalism and any indulgence to the bourgeois decency.

after this assault, northamerican feminists were splitted between solidarity and rejection. upon her release from prison valerie was upset by them, because they either reduced her to a mistake to be prevented, or to a role model to imitate. “they don't understand that i've made a work of art.”

in the eyes of valerie, the feminist claims made by white middle class women were insufficient, they stank of petty bourgeois consciousness. valerie knew the cost of joining the patriarchal society; it means subjecting herself to existing conditions established by the male. all or nothing. valerie proposes to finish the man, and with the world created by and for himself.

 

among other things, this cabaret is a tribute to valerie solanas, beggar, whore, junkie, nutcase, in an attempt to rescue her artwork and depathologize s.c.u.m. .

 

and what does battonz mean?

for us battonz represents an attitude that emerged between us friends when we were around 17 years old, towards the end of the nineties. in meaning it is similar to the italian word marpiona signifying flirty and more concretely, battonz is a modification of the italian word battona, which describes the sounds created by prostitutes walking, “beating” the street.

 

during the years when the stereotype of a certain western white female prevailed, the only process towards female autonomy and independence visible to us, was the sexual liberation of the “streetwalkers”. the term battonz then symbolically takes account of the “walk” of prostitutes we saw along the pontebbana, a busy grey road that connected our villages in northeastern italy. during the 80s, carla corso and pia covre, pioneers in the struggle for civil rights of prostitutes, fought on that same road.

 

battonz is a term of feminist self-determination that led us to create more conscious and healthy relationships with others.

in 1977 mario mieli defined his interpretation of the term battonare in “homosexuality and liberation: elements of a gay critique”. the definition given is, in some ways, similar to what we mean by battonz. according to mieli battonare means to look for, to move, be known, to show themselves, to illuminate, or to be waiting for someone to love.

 

for us, battonz also represents the feminist practice of daily resistance born and directed against the sexist contexts rooted in northern italy and northern europe in general.

according to our experience, the non-western femininity and the western female sexuality, and liveliness in general, are characteristics which are disvalued in northern societies. 

although the idea of machismo is commonly connected to southern contexts, we find that the north is characterised by a kind of structural sexism that subjugates both western and non-western femininity in the process of constant masculinization.

the liberal transition of the western european countries also calls into question the sexuality and it is characterised by two different mentalities: one involves sex as taboo, thus maintaining the oppression of women and conserving an entire system of values based on a structural inequality. the other is an extreme liberalism, mainly focussing on interpersonal and sexual relationships, which leads to the constant desire for the consumption of “something new”.

 

battonz attitude allows us to organize ourselves in the search for new references. in particular, it enables us to develop answers different to those that have already been proposed in western cultures. a woman in western europe is constantly subjected to the dichotomy between saint and whore. the role of the mother in western europe inevitably leads women to contribute towards the occidental development, which has its origins in a colonial and exploitative system.

battonz attitude shifted us in a new position both ironic and critic with respect to the western system of values in which we grew up. this positioning also allows us to meet and mix with other diasporas through an ironic capacity that we seek to share with others. this position situates us in the search for someone to help us to dismantle and deconstruct the white values of european liberalism, to which we are bound and which we, having grown up here, symbolise.

initially, the inability to identify ourselves with the role of a mother, saint or whore led us to feel crazy, unwanted or different. however, this attitude we’ve elaborated gives us new resources to share, especially in terms of feminist struggle set in a post-exotic perspective.

 

 

“as life in this society is, at best, an utter boredom and no aspect of society is relevant at all to women, to civic-minded, responsible, enthusiastic females there only remains to overthrow the government, eliminate the european money system, establish complete self sustainment and destroy the patriarchal system…

 

and so… wilkommen, bienvenue, bienvenidas… to the iunaited steits of iurop!”

 

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