Curating Inclusivity, Creativity, and Joy with the Founders of Peng Femme Jam
A brand new jam session that spotlights London’s incredible female and non-binary musicians, “Peng Femme Jam” is stirring up an intense energy that paradoxically emanates from an inviting, serene environment. If you’re unfamiliar, a jam or a jam session is when musicians and instrumentalists show up and improvise on stage together to create new sounds given that most of them might never have played together prior to the night. There’s no not-cheesy way to say this, but this one is truly pure magic. All started by creative powerhouses Léa, Laura, and Winnie, Peng Femme Jam or PFJ embodies exactly what originality, diversity, and spontaneity should look like in the music community (and why it’s all so important). I was lucky enough to not only attend an event, but to speak with the founders on what goes into forming a space that exudes inclusivity, creativity, and joy - time and time again.
Participants:
Winnie (Left)
Laura (Middle)
Léa (Right)
Dagny (Host)
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Dagny: Hey everyone! Shall we jump into things with some introductions.
Laura: Hi I’m Laura, nice to meet you! I’ve got a history in doing events and helping alongside in the production of creative projects. Winnie and Léa are amazing, beautiful musicians and I’m kinda the one behind the scenes doing the boring stuff.
Winnie: I’m Winnie, I’m a musician, I also produce and play guitar and just do the Pengfemmejam with these two lovely people here.
Léa: I’m Léa, I sing and play guitar, and I do Peng Femme Jam as well.
How did you all come up with the name?
Léa: We were all just brainstorming the name the first time we met... I met Winnie in a show and I actually got invited to meet Winnie’s friends whom I wanted to collaborate with. I was intrigued by Winnie’s friend who plays keys, but when I came I just vibed off with Winnie instead. I was like - “This girl is chill, this girl is really cool, I want to hang out with her more”.
This first jam we went to, I met Laura which was so crazy! Laura was there with another musician called xxxx and I fancied her and we locked eyes. In my imagination anyway...
Laura: It’s because, Léa, you were the first person there!
Léa: Yeah, you were like “Do you wanna join us?” and I was like “Yeaaaaah”... So I sat with them and Winnie came after and we all just bounced off each other and shared the same mutual feelings about how much women and non-binary people are underrepresented in the jam scene. Laura had the idea of making an event and put everyone together.
We met up the following week and were all brainstorming and the event turned into jam sessions, and all that was going on in my head was, “What shall we name it!?”. I liked the name “Peng” but then I was like “Maybe ‘femme’”.
Laura: I wanna add that we were really conscious of not putting like “Women Only” and trying to be inclusive with the name so we thought femme encompassed the idea of “femme energy” which can obviously be possessed by anyone and everyone. That was important to us as well.
Léa: I actually had a chat about it. We thought - “What would still have the aspect of males in the building?” because most times guys are like “Oh that’s a girly thing I won't turn up” and we didn’t want any of that, we didn’t want it to be this intense feminist thing, we wanted to make it something that everyone could come to. Just as humans, we are all possessed with male and femme energy.
Dagny: Yeah, I feel like “femme” accomplishes that so perfectly! When I was at the event I felt like the energy of the music was just so “femme” not like “girls” but “femme”. How would you define “jam”? What do you think makes a jam as special and as magical as it is?
Winnie: A jam is kinda of a place where people come to essentially improvise and play instruments. It doesn't always have to be only instruments, it can be musicians, poets as well. Sort of the combination of what an open mic would be and a normal gig I think, the space in between. So we have a house band, and we have people who are able to jump on stage and partake in improvisation; it’s just free-flowing, it doesn’t usually have a specific genre and tends to be open to anyone who wants to come on stage and work on their art form. It’s a really nice way for any artist or any aspiring musician/artist to work on what they do without feeling the pressure of being in a live event.
Dagny: What do you feel is important about collaborating with other creatives — at the root of everything you’re doing? Between you three, but also in terms of collaborating in a more general way with everyone who comes together to perform.
Laura: This is something we’ve been thinking about because we are doing funding applications at the moment, I think it’s made us think about what we want this jam to do for the community and for everyone involved. At the start we just wanted to come together to do this fun thing — I think now we’ve realized the gravity of it, and we want to make sure it’s always pushing in the right direction.
As Winnie said, the musicians that come, the creatives that come, it's really nice for them to get experience playing with other people on stage. Also, we do feature artists; we basically promote it and say “Who wants to play with our house band?” — and so loads of musicians get in touch with us. They’ll say, “I’ve been producing music and stuff in my own room over Covid and I’d love to hear my songs played with a live band”.
Our house band is made up of amazing people who are also such a big part of PFJ and the direction we are going. We have a big group chat and we are always discussing everything with them so they just learn people’s tracks quickly. So musicians who don't necessarily have the means to play with a live band get to perform which is really cool for them. I like to think that we are really accessible on instagram because people message us saying “Oh can I have some experience doing the soundtech productions?” or something of that nature.
Our venues also have all been really amazing, they always give us support and are always really keen for someone to shadow the sound technician so they can get a bit of experience with that, for example.
Dagny: What are the behind the scenes of running a London music event?
Laura: It’s been such a learning curve for us, definitely! One thing I’ve learnt is that if you put your mind to anything, you can do it! When we first started out we were all just sitting down, meeting for the first time, we were all shy. At the beginning we all felt a little bit uncertain and just grateful, which is obviously great and part of the journey, but I think we’ve learnt what we’re worth, our skills, and that actually these events are really benefiting the venues as well.
Behind the scenes is about making connections with the right people — we’ve really relied on feeling out whether a venue or partner is right or not; it’s been a lot of intuition. Also being confident and honest - “This is what we can pay or this we can’t pay”. We never got paid for doing any of this. We got a grant to kick us off, but we don’t have money to pay for venues so much.
Winnie: It’s not as easy as it looks...
Léa: It looks easy when you just put it out there and say “Hey guys come”, but there’s a lot of setbacks, a lot of replanning and rerouting. I feel like we got a bit disheartened when we first started because we were like “Okay, we’re all broke, we can’t put our money into something, let’s start doing grants”. I remember me and Winnie completing the funding application a couple minutes before we’d see our friends perform. We were also messaging Laura like “Is this okay?!”.
Thank God we got offered some money to kick-start our project... The journey is always a bit uncertain but we’ve had really great people along the way; great promoters, great venues. Everyone has been really receptive which is a massive boost.
On the down days we have people that believe in us buying tickets.. etcetera, and it just means a lot and keeps us going.
Dagny: Do you have any tips for creatives when they feel disheartened, something you think to yourself when you are feeling a little bit down?
Winnie: I’d definitely say work with your friends or work with people you genuinely know. The basis of you working together is a little bit of friendship as well, even if it’s just professional. In this instance we are basically like a collective, we are not an organization and we are not funded by anyone— we are doing it because we love it. We also met up as people who initially liked each other’s energy and we wanted to be around each other, not only because of an event. I think that is one of the major things, when we’re down we have our group.
And we are so vulnerable with each other as well and that makes it even more real. We support each other in our own individual lives as well because we know it can be very overwhelming doing this as well as being a human.
Work with people close to you... Sometimes people feel they need to work with people who are big, doing amazing stuff which is great but is also important to work with people within your reach as well.
Dagny: I feel that — even if they don't consider themselves ‘creatives’ or whatever - I feel your friends can really come in handy sometimes by just having the energy and going from there.
Léa: Yeah. And make fun of things, that’s how we get by! Like “Oh this happened... LOL”, make fun of it. And make fun of the hard disheartening stuff; it really helps.
Dagny: Would you be able to share an example of something that happened recently that has gone wrong and you made fun of?
Laura: When we were just getting started in our second venue, there was a tube strike. The first two jams went really well at a smaller venue then we went to a bigger venue. The first one was really good, the second one kind of dropped off and then the third one literally four people came. And we were like “OMG, what do we do here?!”
Our house band was so amazing and so major that we didn’t want them to play to only four people because they deserve more than that. We were like “Oh it’s not happening” and then the house band just went across the road to another venue.
Dagny: Hahaha it happens! You guys reacted really admirably. How would you describe Peng Femme Jam in three emojis?
Laura, Léa, Winnie: 😈☠️ 🌈
Dagny: If a famous artist walked up to the stage to join the jam who would you want it to be?
Laura: I’d love it to be Joy Crooks because I think she is so sick, best voice ever in the world, and because she’s so London-based/all her songs are about being in London. She would love to come, we would love it as well.
Winnie: I’d say Leikeli47. I went to her show and had the best time of my entire life.
Léa: I’d go with Michael Jackson, like can you imagine ?! Or Prince!
Dagny: If you girls were doing something other than your creative pursuits, what is the obscure profession that you would be pursuing?
Léa: I’d be doing acting, because I originally came to London to do acting but I got into music because it’s been a great part of my life. Or I’d study psychology.
Laura: What is funny for me, is that my career path is not necessarily creative. I’m doing a degree at the moment and figuring out what kind of job I wanna be doing. The job that I have some experience in and wanna do revolves around community development projects. I’m hoping after I graduate in September that I can work with young people or LGBTQ+ people and make development projects focusing on different sections of the community. Especially in boroughs that don’t have access to more creative opportunities and give more people access to creative paths.
Winnie: I think I’d do performing arts because I did it and there’s a part of me that can be a little bit cheesy. But then it annoyed me so that’s why I stopped it. Performing arts can be very annoying.
Dagny: What is coming up next for Peng Femme Jam?
Léa: We take it day by day, we don't think too much, we just let the universe decide for us. Like you, you came by and wanted to interview us and different opportunities will come in like that. We do have goals of where we want to go, but ultimately we are just letting people lead the way.
Laura: One thing we have spoken about that’s not necessarily tangibly in the pipeline, is that we would love to do a jam tent at a festival. Around Christmas we did a manifestation session where Winnie got our hands together and we manifested what we wanted. But the main thing before we do that is funding.
Léa: We are getting people offering us festival gigs, but they’re not quite aligning with what we want so we are gonna wait until things do so.
Winnie: Until the funding is right and the intention is right.
Dagny: What would be Peng Femme Jam’s mission in a couple sentences or sentence?
Laura: We want to support, represent and encourage creatives who are more marginalized, and just create a good energy and a vibe for everyone to bounce off each other, have fun and make music.