Years ago, while working at Chicago Filmmakers, I came across a large pile of magazines from the organization’s archive that were destined for the trash. To some, they may have looked like old, discarded publications. To me, they felt more valuable than gold.
They were film magazines from the 1970s documenting the feminist movement in cinema and spotlighting the women directors who helped shape it. Naturally, I was drawn in. I wanted to read every page, cover to cover, and learn more about a chapter of film history that too often goes overlooked.
That experience came rushing back when I had the opportunity to interview filmmaker and artist Cheri Gaulke. Through her documentary “Acting Like Women,” Gaulke revisits the groundbreaking feminist performance art movement that emerged in Los Angeles during the 1970s, centered around a remarkable cultural institution known as The Woman’s Building. Until seeing the film, I had never heard of The Woman’s Building—a revelation that speaks directly to why this story needs to be told.
“Acting Like Women” is both a deeply personal memoir and an essential historical record, illuminating a community of artists and activists whose work helped transform the cultural landscape for generations of women. The film is a treasure, and one I hope audiences everywhere have the chance to experience.
Ahead of the film’s festival premiere at the Bentonville Film Festival, I spoke with Cheri Gaulke about her earliest feminist awakening, the power of feminist performance art, the legacy of The Woman’s Building, and why preserving these stories remains as urgent as ever.
You talk about in your film about your first feminist thought, can you talk about how that early experience shaped your journey in your art and activism?
I feel like I grew up in a supportive, egalitarian family. I felt loved by my parents. I admired my father, who was a minister. I used to visit him when he was preaching and I loved the whole ritual of the robes and the collar. Seeing him up there talking to the congregation, I thought, “That’s what I want to do when I grow up.”
When I was four, I found out I couldn’t do it. And the only reason was because I was a girl. And it just was this shock, really. And when I remembered it many years later, I realized that that was my first feminist thought. And it was my first feminist thought because it was the moment when I became aware that things are not fair. And things are not fair for girls.
But things are not fair for a lot of people in our culture, as we know—people of color, poor people, etc. For me, it has really been the core, the root of all of my activism and my desire to change the world because the world’s not right.
The vehicle through which I change the world is art. Around twenty years old, I learned about performance art. In 1974, it was a brand new art medium that was not being shown in galleries and museums yet, nor was it being taught in schools.
When I found that art form, I was just blown away because it felt like it fit. It felt like the vehicle through which I could communicate what I needed to communicate with the world.
I feel like a lot of documentary filmmakers are a little hesitant to put their own story into the film when they first start. I believe it could have been from the director’s statement that you were hesitant in the beginning. What ultimately helped you to embrace your personal narrative as part of this film?
Yeah, it’s not that I’m shy about sharing my story. I know that I have used my story and my experience a lot in my life to help foster empathy. When I was a high school teacher, I would come out to my students as an activist practice. It was very uncomfortable and it made them uncomfortable back in the day, but I just said, “I just want you to know because you might not know gay or lesbian people in your life, and I want you to know that about me.”
Over the years, I remember the time when students would say to me, “Duh, we already know that.” I loved seeing the change in my 31-year teaching career. In terms of putting my story into a film, I had made other films that were very personal. I made a film called “Cycle of the Witch,” or “Sorry, I Missed Church, I Was Busy Practicing Witchcraft and Becoming a Lesbian.” The longest title, but it’s a good one. It’s not that I was shy about it, but I really wanted this film to be about a movement.
I wanted it to help put our feminist performance art movement and The Woman’s Building on the map in terms of the history of activism and art. I didn’t want to put my story into it; I wanted it to be an ensemble collective story.
Very early on in the process, I met with a friend who’s a producer. He works for National Geographic and is an accomplished documentary film producer. He said, “Of course you have to put your story into it.” I went, “What, why?”
He said it’s because the audience needs a person to identify with; they can’t identify with a group. They need an individual to be the person taking them on this journey.
So then it was like, am I the shepherd? Even saying “shepherd” makes me laugh because I think of Jesus as the shepherd of the sheep. That’s why I feel uncomfortable with it; it’s not like I’m saying I’m more special than anyone else. It’s really a director’s choice and a filmmaking technique to bring the audience in.
It’s funny because I’ll have people say to me, “Oh, my favorite thing was when you gave birth,” or “My favorite thing was your lesbian wedding.” Even straight women related to those moments as mothers and wives. That’s when I know it’s working. But I have to tell you, during a sneak preview screening at the Mendocino Film Festival, I was squirming in my seat feeling like, “Oh my God, this is so much about me.”
I thought that was good. I like when documentary filmmakers do that because it’s like an entryway for the audience, and I appreciate that.
Can you talk about the significance of The Woman’s Building in the 1970s in Los Angeles? I am ashamed to say I was unaware of it.
Were you around then? No, you’re not old enough!
No, I was born in the 80s. But as someone who runs Cinema Femme to elevate women and gender-expansive people in film, I feel like this is something that should have come up before.
Which is largely why I made the film; I feel like it doesn’t have the visibility it deserves. Well, I arrived in 1975 when I was 21 years old. The Woman’s Building was such a unique place.
In the film, I have a conversation with a performance artist known as the Dark Bob. I reminded him of a moment standing in the hallway at the gallery when he said to me, “Well, where are the men’s buildings?” I replied, “Every other building. All the other buildings are men’s buildings.”
In many ways, that is still the truth. To have a place entirely devoted to woman’s expression and history, run by women who literally built the walls of that place—how many of those places exist in the world? Next to none. And yet, we don’t have a lot of consciousness about that.
literally built the walls of that place um you know how many of those places exist in the world
like next to none and And yet we don’t have a lot of consciousness about that.
The Woman’s Building always had educational programs at its core. That was why I went there to study and develop myself as an artist. But we were also committed to it being a public space for women’s culture. We wanted to create that context and bring audiences in to experience our work.
So what made the Feminist Studio Workshop so transformative for you personally?
I think it was really the first time that, within an educational context, I could bring my own experience to the table. Honestly, I’m not sure I even knew what my experience was or could have articulated what my experience as a woman was back then.
One of the tools we used was CR (consciousness raising), which is a very structured form of sharing. I had my CR group; we met every week and had specific topics. Through that, whether talking about work or sexuality, we learned we had to speak. It was uncomfortable. You had five minutes to talk and no one could interrupt you. If you had nothing to say, you’d sit there in silence for five minutes.
You started to give voice to things you’d never spoken about before. Then you heard another woman give voice to her version, which was similar or different. Through that process, the personal became political.
Particularly around issues like sexual violence, none of us knew that one in three women were being raped. It was such an unspoken fact. When you start hearing other women sharing their experiences of abuse, you realize, “Oh, it’s not my fault. I’m not the only one.” That’s when you become an activist, because it is about women as a class and how we’re treated in society.
That was the basis from which the art came. Collaborative groups were formed. For example, my friend Anne Gauldin, who is the co-writer of the film, and another friend, Jerri Allyn, started “The Waitresses.” They discovered they had all worked as waitresses and shared experiences of sexual harassment and low wages.
They formed a performance art group and did wonderful vignettes in restaurants. They were pre-arranged, so the restaurants continued to function, but the patrons didn’t know it was a performance. So, the Feminist Studio Workshop was a place where we got in touch with our experience, shared it, found what was collective, and then made art about it.
Some women made solo art, too. I had a solo and collaborative practice. I was doing solo work about high heels and foot binding, while also being part of groups like Feminist Art Workers and Sisters of Survival.
That’s so important. Until people say it out loud, you feel so isolated. Just to hear other women say “I’ve been through that too” or “I didn’t know that was rape” is vital.
You were mentored by Suzanne Lacy and Arlene Raven. What lessons from them most deeply shaped your personal practice?
Sure. Suzanne Lacy has a really brilliant mind; she’s a strategist who saw how our work could be a vehicle for social change. Arlene Raven credited the function of feminist art as raising consciousness, inviting dialogue, and transforming culture. That’s what I always try to do with my work.
First, you bring certain ideas or experiences to the conscious level. Then you invite people to dialogue about it, and through that, you change culture. Inviting dialogue was not something artists typically did; they usually just hung work on a wall. We saw an opportunity to use work for social change. Suzanne was so good at that.
One of her early pieces, “Three Weeks in May” in 1977, was a performance that took place over three weeks and included all these activities. It was a conceptual structure. Nowadays people do that all the time, but nobody had done it then. From her, I learned to think about what you want people to know and do, and how your work can be crafted for those things to happen.
From Arlene, that three-part definition was profound. She was also an out lesbian at a time when The Woman’s Building was a feminist space, but not necessarily a “lesbian space.” However, it was one of the early places where lesbians felt comfortable and could be themselves.
It was a place where many women were experimenting and discovering things about themselves. Arlene created the Lesbian Art Project with Terry Wolverton. It was perhaps the first time anyone looked at a “lesbian sensibility” in art. Nowadays, some critics find terms like “woman’s sensibility” reductive, but at the beginning of a movement, you need to figure out who you are.
Arlene was involved in curating exhibitions and hosting salons. She also participated in “An Oral Herstory of Lesbianism,” a play Terry Wolverton directed and we collaboratively wrote. I loved Arlene so much. I felt a real urgency in making this film because I recognized two of my mentors, Arlene Raven and Rachel Rosenthal, had passed away. I thought, “I’m not going to let any more of these women die on my watch.”
I had to record their voices. When I started making a list, my producers told me to pick the top five, but pretty soon I had 50 people. I wanted some of the men and the scholars too. I’ve interviewed these people and made a film telling our story, but I also have this rich database that can be archived so others can make more films in the future.
I want to talk about the editing process because you use archival materials, animation, and all these videos. How was it working with your editor in that process?
I love our editor, Susan Metzger. I had worked with her on a previous film, “Inside the Beauty Bubble.” I love to edit and often edit my own work, but I knew with “Acting Like Women,” if I was going to be in the film, I couldn’t be the editor. That would just be too weird.
During the seven years we worked on “Acting Like Women,” I made three short films. We used “Inside the Beauty Bubble” as an opportunity to try someone out. Kate Amend recommended Susan Metzger. We were so impressed by how she put things together; her storytelling had so much heart.
I knew she was the right editor for “Acting Like Women.” It was hard, though—can you imagine wading through 50 interviews? I have the utmost respect for documentary editors because they pull out different themes from so much material. My co-writer and I made an outline, and she would develop sequences for us. We started editing in February of ’23 and finished in September of ’25.
If you’re dealing with an ephemeral art form with limited documentation, you have to find ways to bring it alive. We used reenactments sparingly. We shot contemporary footage for “Ablutions,” that early rape performance with images of women in tubs of blood. My daughter was the one in the tub smearing eggs; she was a good sport about it!
We also worked with animator Lily Ericsson. Sometimes we had to create a story where there was literally nothing. For example, there were no photos of me at the St. Louis Art Museum as a teenager, so she created that whole scene from scratch using my high school pictures.
She also did a piece called “The Spooks Outside the Door,” about two Black women in sheets sitting outside a venue. There wasn’t a single photograph of that. It was scary creating someone else’s performance as an animation, but they liked it a lot. We did have beautiful photos, and the video documentation we had was mostly scratchy old black-and-white footage of The Woman’s Building meetings.
Early on, I asked people if they thought the footage was too “funky,” but young people loved the texture of it. We leaned into it. I actually think it’s quite beautiful.
I do too. Everything is so polished now, so having something that feels historical and has texture is great. My last question is: what do you hope people see in your film?
Cheri Gaulke: A few things. Part of my goal is for people to see this rich history so that instead of asking why they’ve never heard of this place, they can tell others about it. We want to put The Woman’s Building and feminist performance art into the art historical canon. We’ll be screening at the Getty Museum on July 26th and plan a rollout to museums and schools.
Wow. You should come to Chicago, maybe the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Cheri Gaulke: I haven’t talked to them yet, but I know people there. Thank you for pointing that out. It’s nice to do partnerships. For example, Frameline is showing the film at an art museum and film archive. That’s exactly the kind of thing we want to do—show the film in festivals and art world settings. That’s exactly the kind of thing we want to do.
Ultimately, I’d like people to feel moved and touched. I want them to think about what is broken or wrong in their lives and what justice they see in the world. I want them to see that even without a lot of money, there are ways to address issues. We want this to be empowering to artists and activists.
And to see that, you know, without a lot of money that you can. You know, there are ways to address issues. So we want this to be something that is empowering to artists and activists, you know, in their lives in ways that they want to take action. So when we roll it out to museums and schools and stuff, we’re offering the possibility of doing workshops with people to facilitate those kinds of things as well.
The film premieres at Bentonville Wednesday, June 17, at 7:00 p.m. Skylight 4: https://bentonvillefilm.org, and then at Frameline Film Festival on Sunday, June 21, 3:30pm p.m. BAMPFA https://www.frameline.org/festival
