The first annual TUFFEST—which happens July 9 at Judkins Park—will present musical performances, visual art, and educational workshops that showcase and champion female, non-binary, and trans members of the electronic-music community. Organized by the Seattle collective TUF and funded by the Office of Arts & Culture Seattle, the event will feature live sets by Bolivian-born, Virginia-based abstract beat scientist Elysia Crampton, left-field Seattle hiphop producer/MC DoNormaal, Oakland experimental-music composer/instrument-builder Kaori Suzuki, and minimal-synth musician/vocalist Patricia Hall (Soft Metals), with more acts to be determined. The first part of TUFFEST takes place from 12 pm-10 pm and is free and all ages. This will be followed by an afterhours party called TUFFEST Til’ Dawn at a location to be announced and will feature German DJ Lena Willikens (Cómeme) and Discwoman co-founder UMFANG. This is an impressive bill; TUFFEST will be a very welcome diversion from the male-dominated lineups found at most electronic-music festivals. Look out for a feature on TUFFEST in an upcoming issue of The Stranger. You can check out some music by the performers and read the press release after the jump.

Seattle collective TUF invites you to the inaugural TUFFEST 2016. TUFFEST, set to take place on July 9th, 2016, is a celebration of visual art, performance and education with a goal of uplifting, expanding, and celebrating the female, non-binary and trans electronic music community.

TUF is an intersectional female, non-binary and trans collective with headquarters in Seattle. TUF engages, uplifts, and celebrates its members and the community through collaboration, workshops, skillshares and events.
TUF members include promoters, curators, installation/visual artists, DJs, producers, sound engineers, writers, dancers, and designers.

The daytime portion of TUFFEST, funded by the City of Seattle’s Office of Arts & Culture, will be held in Judkins Park from 12:00pm to 10:00pm and will be free, all ages and open to the public to uphold TUF’s commitment to accessibility and community outreach. The park will be filled with interactive visual art installations, musical performances, workshops and TUF TALKS - artists and female, non-binary, trans individuals in creative industries are spotlighted through panels, interviews or conversational talks. TUF seeks to empower youth with two to-be-announced youth visual and music artists.

[TUF Music] performances by...

Elysia Crampton [Blueberry / Seattle Debut!]
Elysia Crampton is a Bolivian-born, U.S.-based producer and self-proclaimed transevangelist. Her album "American Drift" on FaltyDL's label Blueberry Recordings, re-examines American narratives and trans-ontologies are given voice and resonance. Blending sounds from critically marginalized sources, with heavy emphasis on Latin genres, Crampton creates captivating music deeply embedded in ideas. TUFFEST will feature Elysia’s “Dissolution of the Sovereign: A Time Slide into the Future”, an audio-visual play that unfolds as a DJ production and live performance, bridging the oral history tradition and theater legacy of the Aymara people with Elysia’s own trans-femme abolitionist grasp of futurity.

Patricia Hall (of Soft Metals) [Portland, OR]
In Soft Metals, an electronic music duo from Portland, Oregon, Hall is inspired by a diverse array of synthesizer music, her sound lies somewhere between dance music, austere synthetic pop, and experimental electronic composition. FACT magazine called Soft Metals “one of the most accomplished and ambitious of the myriad new synth-pop acts coming out of the States.” For TUFFEST Hall will perform new solo material live in front of an audience for the first time.

Kaori Suzuki [Magic Echo Music / Oakland, CA]
Kaori Suzuki is an electronic musician who primarily uses synthesis, acoustic recordings, and custom-made machines produced through her company, Magic Echo Music. Currently based out of Oakland, California, Suzuki is pursuing her MFA in Electronic Music at the prestigious Mills College. Her studies have led her to work with the open source audio programming language, SuperCollider, which will be the basis of her performance at TUFFEST. Suzuki’s oeuvre includes music for film, installation, and improvisations, which have been performed or displayed in Berlin, New York city, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Seattle. She and her partner, Jonathan James Carr, have a forthcoming release on Further Records.

Donormaal [Seattle, WA]

DoNormaal is a Californian vocalist living in Seattle. She experiments in morbid, emotional, prayer. Her style is genre-bending with many different influences, but heavily rooted in Hip Hop & Rap. “As a newcomer to Seattle’s hip-hop scene, Karefa-Johnson has set herself up to become an influential voice in the community. Beyond her own output, she’s at the center of 69/50, a collective and “movement” of local hip-hop artists for which she has big plans: shows, dance parties with local arts night LoveCityLove, and—most important to her—artists’ workshops that she hopes will make rappers in Seattle more vulnerable and open to themselves.”- Seattle Weekly

& more to be announced.

[TUF TALKS / Workshops]
A morning of exploratory workshops & conversations in partner with Seattle Sound Girls, Patchwerks, Emma Olsen of Discwoman, musician Kaori Suzuki, Powerful Voice's Zaria Diggins, and more! Keep an eye out for our full schedule coming soon.

At [TUFFEST Til’ dawn], an all-night finale, TUF invites you to enjoy the sounds of master selector, Lena Wilikens (Comeme) with special guest Discwoman co-founder UMFANG, in a welcoming, nourishing space where we hope you can feel free to just be.

For more information on TUF please visit: http://www.tuf-seattle.com/.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TUF-771022472995716/?fref=ts
Twitter: @/tufsea
Instagram: @Tuf_Seattle