The Mosh Pit at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival: Part 2

[August 5, 2011]
The day I crowd surfed at the 36th annual Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (aka MichFest) to the dance music of the all-female band, MEN.

It looked pretty much like the above photo taken in 2006 by Angela Jimenez for her book "Welcome Home: Building the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival."

I was nervous. There were many more crowd surfers this night than the night before which was my very first night in a mosh pit. The would-be crowd surfers were a lot younger than me – eager teenagers squeezing their way to the front of the mosh pit. One young woman after another was being lifted up, sometimes three simultaneously in separate lines. My arms were tired already and I started to wonder if my 5' 8", 168-pound body would be too much to lift. After all, I didn’t want to fall head first or be denied if I took the risk and asked, “Will you lift me up?”

It was a risk because for me it involved trust and receiving rather than giving. It also involved getting past the thought that this space and this activity was for women much younger than me.

The energy was charged and playful like the night before when Erase Errata performed.

I turned and spotted a face closer to me in age. She looked determined.

“Are you going to crowd surf?” I asked her.

“This is my first time here,” she answered.

“Follow me. I know someone who will lift you up.”

Tonight as last night, I noticed several thick, strong-armed women in the pit whose self-appointed job seemed to be to lift up rather than be lifted.

“Ask her,” I said to the woman with the friendly face as I pointed to one of these women who lift but don’t crowd surf themselves.

This new friend asked the woman I pointed her to and within seconds, she was lifted up. I was underneath her helping her along with my own upraised arms.


When she was gone, I turned to another woman whom I judged could lift me and I said, “Will you lift me?”

“Yes,” she said.

“What do I do?” I asked.

“Put your feet together and your arms around my shoulder,” she answered.

As I did this, another shoulder appeared and I put my arm around a second woman’s shoulder. I was ready. It all happened so fast.

“Jump a little,” the first woman said but before I could, I was hoisted up and dozens of hands followed carrying me above the crowd and back through it. My legs remained together like a plank, my arms spread like bird wings while I tilted my head back to see the faces of my lifters and to show my smile.

I felt securely supported.

At some point, my feet were lowered. And who was there when I was done?

My new smiling friend who had gone before me and experienced her first crowd surf.

We slapped each others' backs as if to say to each other, “Well done!”

“I did it,” I thought to myself.

And that’s one of the reasons I came to the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival: to practice freedom and to experience the intense power of a creative, self-supporting, self-sustaining, all-woman space.