The Amsterdams Kleinkunst Festival is an important yearly event, celebrating the Dutch tradition of 'Kleinkunst': a combination of cabaret, sing-song writing, stand-up comedy and satire. Merel participated in the First Round of the 24th edition, and was chosen to go on to the Second Round!
Merel Moistra sings a song from the project: "Songs of Transition." This song is about the pain she suffered in the hand of the hair removal specialists. The 'laser girls' that removed her beard.
Merel Moistra sings a song from the project: "Songs of Transition"
This song is about "coming out" and it is addressed to Merel’s mother. In this song Merel describes her transition as emerging from the dark into the light. The song’s title "I Am Not Your Son" is a mantra and in a way it is sung not only to convince her mother but also to convince herself.
Merel says: "Its cathartic, so if you are in a male to female transition, do sing along!"
'To Be A Woman' is a project of Stichting Rainbow, a not-for-profit Dutch foundation whose aims are: promoting peace, tolerance and coexistence in the Netherlands and worldwide, encouraging acceptance of minority groups, especially Jewish, by majorities and other minorities; promoting the values of individual responsibility towards other individuals and the community, promoting and encouraging art, humor, joy and creativity among people, promoting knowledge and education to people of all ages.
'To Be A Woman', the Blogumentary, is created together by Merel Moistra and Erga Netz.
Recorded 30 minutes after it was written. So it has a few glitches here and there. Bear with me!!
There's a short story behind this song. But first, here're the lyrics.
I woke up yesterday night at around 3AM with this melody
in my head. What's this. This melody wants me. So I went
down to record it on my cell phone. Couldn't sleep. Found
out that the line 'to be a woman' fitted perfectly in the
middle of the melody. Lyrics started to form in my head.
I went down again to write the lyrics down.
The next day as I'm finishing the song, I need a bridge
and I think of a poem which I wrote in the playground,
watching my children play.
The complete poem goes like this:
Every cloud has a silver lining
But not when the sky is grey.
It will only be true if you can see a patch of blue
And I am seeing some today
Yesterday was very bad
I was so sad
The sky was grey
And the rain came pouring down
And the rain lasted all day.
Now the rain is gone
And I can see blue patches in the sky
And that really makes me happy
Even if I don't know why.
So yes I am happy to be a woman, and yes this means that I have serious mood swings......
A Blogumentary is an interactive documentary, made of blogs and films, all in one. A collaboration between us, Merel Moistra and Erga Netz and you: the visitors of this blog, the viewers of this blogumentaries. Responding to your feedback, we design, compose, sing, film, edit and publish endless streams of songblogumentaries about the life-in-transition of Merel.
