Next month, women will take to the stage at the Cultch, where female-centric theatre, dance, and other events will be presented as part of Femme February. 

All month long, events will highlight the strength and power of the female voice and experience.

"At the Cultch we are always mindful of gender equality and it was really important to me that we highlighted some of the amazing performances being created by women," said Cultch executive director Heather Redfern in a press release detailing the event.

"The works that we have programmed are as different as the people that perform them."

The first show to hit the stage as part of the month-long showcase, Mouthpiece, will be performed by members of the Quote Unquote Collective, a multi-disciplinary performance company from Toronto. The award-winning production follows a grieving woman in search of her voice. Created and performed by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, the duo plays two different halves of the same woman. Though they are of the same body, they demonstrate differences, expressing the all-too-human condition of fractured consciousness.

Mouthpiece opens on January 31 and will run until February 5 at the Cultch's Historic Theatre (1895 Venables Street). 

Fusing Indigenous and contemporary dance, Toronto's Kaha:wi Dance Theatre will present NeoindigenA, a full-length solo performance by award-winning artistic director, choreographer and performer Santee Smith. Performed to a score featuring the voices of Inuit singers Tanya Tagaq and Nelson Tagoona, as well as musical composition by Cris Derksen, Jesse Zubot, Michael Red, and Adrian Harjo, NeoindigenA explores the relationship to ancestors, the living universe, and renewal. Smith calls the dance "a personal ritual performance, an event that I go through which is very much a cermonial journey.... NeoindigenA is my excavation of what is essential energy and intention from old knowing translated to: I am here in this space now."

NeoindigenA will run from February 15 to 19 at the Cultch's Historic Theatre. 

Vancouver choreographer and performer Amber Funk Barton joins forces with director and performer Mindy Parfitt for am a, an exploration of one's identity through the science of neuroplasticity, which examines the brain's capacity for change. An amalgamation of personal and scientific text, dance, and song, am a explores personal confrontation while celebrating the parallels of life's successes and failures. With this performance, the dance artists wanted to move beyond a the confines of a confessional narrative and into more of a personal experiment. "Over the development of am a, we have learnt new performance skills as a way for us to implement the strategies for self-transformation implied by the latest research in neuroplasticity," reads an artists' statement from Barton and Parfitt.

am a will run from February 21 to March 4 at the Vancity Culture Lab (1895 Venables Street). 

Written by Tatiana Fraser and Caia Hagel, Girl Positive is a book that shifts the focus from sensationalized stories to the real-life accounts of how young women and girls from across North America are making positive changes in the world. Offering stories of both struggle and victory, the book highlights women's pursuit of empowerment. At the book's launch, the authors will facilitate a panel discussion uncovering the ways that women are disrupting and innovating culture. Prominent women in the arts will make up the panel, including author, actor, and playwright Carmen Aguirre. 

The Girl Positive book launch and panel will take place on February 9 at 7 p.m. at the Cultch's Historic Theatre, and is free to attend. RSVP here.