photo credit courtesy of See Through Films
Los Angeles Premiere of ACTING LIKE WOMEN
Feature Documentary from Filmmaker/Artist Cheri Gaulke
Free-to-the-Public Screening at The Getty Center
WHO:
Available for Quotes / Interview: Writer/Director, Producer Cheri Gaulke
WHAT:
ACTING LIKE WOMEN Free-to-the-public screening (Reservations are required)
Special viewing of archival objects from the Woman’s Building
Accompanied by a pre-screening conversation between Director Cheri Gaulke and Getty Research Institute chief curator Glenn Phillips from 1:00-3:00pm (PT).
ACTING LIKE WOMEN Feature Documentary Debut of Artist/Filmmaker Cheri Gaulke Executive Produced by Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner
WHERE:
The Getty Center: 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA
Date & Time: Sunday, July 26, at 3:00 pm (Pacific Time), 2026
WHEN:
Please contact See-Through Films if you would like to schedule a Zoom or in-person interview with Filmmaker Cheri Gaulke
WHY:
The highly personal, first-person filmmaking of ACTING LIKE WOMEN addresses themes of feminist, activism, performance art, LGBTQ+, herstory, and art. A rebellious art form, exploding onto the scene in the late 1970s and 1980s gave birth to the “performance art as protest” movement seen around the world today. Led by female, feminist, artists determined to bring women’s bodies and voices into the art world, from a foundational feminist art space called The Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, the radical rebellion gave rise to powerful activism at the apex of the Women’s Movement.
TEASER:
LOGLINE:
Revisiting the groundbreaking feminist performance art movement in 1970s Los Angeles, one artist spotlights the inspirational, transformational, radical community exploding the narrative and status quo.
SYNOPSIS:
Through interviews, archival footage, and personal reflections, feminist artist Cheri Gaulke revisits the 1970s Los Angeles foundational art space, The Woman’s Building, laying bare how a collective of artists transformed their bodies and voices through performance art into a powerful tool for activism, reshaping the cultural landscape for generations of women.
The film includes the voices of over 50 artists including Suzanne Lacy, Judy Chicago, and Senga Nengudi; the works of The Waitresses, Sisters Of Survival, and Feminist Art Workers among others, as well as the music of artists such as Billie Eillish, The Linda Lindas, and Phranc. Original Score is composed by Miriam Cutler.
Acting Like Women builds an intimate narrative where art intersects life. Guided through Gaulke’s lens, the film reveals an explosive time of change and individual empowerment with a through-line enriched by her own experience as the daughter of a Midwestern Lutheran minister, through the sexual revolution where she joins the feminist community, to her realized self as noted performance artist, lesbian, educator, and mother of twins.
The history of performance art is the herstory of California feminist performance art. It’s not a footnote about artists on the fringes, but a tome on the essential and highly influential period at the core of an artistic medium’s development. Interviews reveal personal stories brought to life alongside visually powerful performances, giving insight into what this period meant and means for women, and those struggling to define themselves today.
From the Director
FROM THE DIRECTOR
This film is a love letter to the 1970s, Los Angeles, performance art, and my feminist community at the Woman’s Building. It holds the belief that art can make a difference in society. It is my gift to not only young people, but all of us, who today are still fighting the same battles today for equality and freedom of expression.
When I was four, I found out I could not be a minister like my father, simply because I was a girl. It broke my heart. With that knowledge I became aware that the world is not fair, and especially not for girls. I consider that moment to be my first feminist thought. It instilled a deep sense of injustice in me that I have been fighting against ever since.
As I began to formally study art, I became aware of a new obstacle. Though my classes were over 50% women, the gallery and museum exhibitions rarely showed women at all. Female artists were the lovers and muses of male artists, the subjects, often nude in paintings through time. Our bodies were our only currency.
Being a part of the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman’s Building profoundly changed my life. The entire alternative art scene in Los Angeles was a multicultural hotbed of activity: Women artists and artists of color were mad as hell about being excluded by the art world establishment so we created our own spaces.
A supportive community was key. I learned how to build walls and write a press release, how to bare my body and soul through performance art and get it out in the world. Suzanne Lacy was my performance mentor. Another mentor, art historian Arlene Raven, defined our mission: Feminist art would “raise consciousness, invite dialogue, and transform culture.”
The concept of “acting like women" occurred to me in 1980 when I wrote an essay for High Performance magazine, the first international magazine of performance art. In the essay "Acting Like Women: Performance Art of the Woman’s Building” I began to define feminist performance art in Los Angeles and why it was so unique within the history of art. In many ways, the film Acting Like Women is the cinematic expression of that essay.
In 2019 I turned my attention full-time to this film. I was ambitious about its scope and wanted to be thorough. Much to the chagrin of my producers I decided to interview 50 people, mostly feminist art elders, and a handful of men. I felt a sense of urgency to record their voices because already some of my mentors, like Rachel Rosenthal and Arlene Raven, had passed away. Since filming, two of our interviewees, Ulysses Jenkins and Steven Durland, have also passed away. I knew I had to capture and preserve the remaining voices even if I couldn’t use them all in the film (my dream is that someday they will be available in an archive so others can build new projects from their stories).
Cementing time and place through the age-old tradition of oral storytelling, 50 artists, curators, and scholars sat down in my living room and shared their lived stories and experiences about this largely untold/undocumented era of art history.
After gathering so much rich material my team and I had to weave these many voices into a clear and compelling narrative. Early on it had been suggested that my own story serve as a spine for the film. Initially I was uncomfortable with that because so many women’s stories were equally valid. I had to separate my personal feelings away from my role as director, and I came to understand that my story could bring the audience into the narrative by offering an individual to identify with. Presenting myself as a daughter, artist, mother, teacher, and activist hopefully provides various entry points for all viewers.
An aesthetic challenge in making this film was to bring the intimate storytelling alive through a rich tapestry of archival film, video, and photographic materials. The voices of my interviewees are supported by a dynamic collision of rare archival photographic and video documentation, original collage animation, and performance art recreations.
The animation respectfully brings to life select still images by using collage techniques to provide a moving documentation where in most cases there wasn’t one. By definition, much of the performance art from the time was immediate, ephemeral, and undocumented.
It’s partly why this period of radical art innovation has been so easily marginalized in the art historical canon and the reason capturing these oral histories before they disappear was so important. ACTING LIKE WOMEN works to correct that, placing at the forefront this period of transformational work that is largely missing from art history books and teachings.
One of my goals in making the film is to write women into the history of art. We pioneered new kinds of art and new ways that art could have an impact on society. That deserves being part of the art history canon, which is still dominated by men.
About the Filmmaker Cheri Gaulke
Producer, Director, and Writer: Cheri Gaulke is a pioneer in the feminist art movement in Los Angeles and an award-winning filmmaker whose films have screened in national and international film festivals.
Gaulke’s work has been presented at the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Museum of Contemporary Art (LA), in a Smithsonian-touring exhibition, and in settings all over the world including buses, churches, and prehistoric temples.
Known for her solo performance art, she also co-founded the collaborative performance groups Feminist Art Workers and Sisters Of Survival who were featured in a Getty-sponsored exhibition in 2011. Gaulke has received artist fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, City of Los Angeles, California Community Foundation, and California Humanities.
Recent short films include: Gloria's Call about women and surrealism (40 film festivals; Best Documentary, Ann Arbor Film Festival; 2022 Venice Biennale); Miss Alma Thomas: A Life in Color about this under-recognized African-American artist (for a museum retrospective); Inside the Beauty Bubble about a gay hair salon owner (50 festivals; Audience Awards at San Luis Obispo Film Festival and Dances with Films); and Old Girl in a Tutu: Susan Rennie Disrupts Art History about a queer butch elder artist (40+ festivals).
In addition to her distinguished art and film career, Gaulke is also an award-winning educator, now-retired after having taught at Harvard-Westlake school for 31 years. During her tenure, she co-founded a California youth film festival; created The Righteous Conversations Project for teens and Holocaust survivors to make films that have screened at the Cannes Film Festival; and traveled with students to countries recovering from conflict to make professional documentaries.
Many of her former students (Jason Reitman, Nick Lieberman, Josh Margolin, Liz Yale Marsh, Jamie Ember, Fran Kranz, Gabe Barcia-Colombo) are leaders in the art and entertainment industries and who have created video art for museums and Metro stations, produced TV shows, premiered their films at Sundance, and directed blockbuster and Academy Award-nominated films.
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