FEMME at The Hoxton

Photographs by Sean Chin.

This was a night of girl power, banging music and hyper sexuality. It couldn’t have started more appropriately than with Laura Bettinson, better known as FEMME. With her fur scarf and a pink pixie haircut, she waltzed out onto the stage like a 60’s glamour model. Once the music got going and FEMME got interactive with the crowd, we realized that her drive was anything but old fashioned. With many sexual gestures (that ranged from subtle hip bumps to gestures that implied male masturbation), FEMME was both sultry and comical. She was not trying to turn anyone on with these moves, so it seems. She did flirt with a number of audience members, however, with a wink over there and a smirk over here. All in all, FEMME was quite a cheeky minx who both made fun of attraction but got a bit caught up in it herself.

Her set was a bit like the casting of The Sylvia North Story when Camilla Rhodes begins to audition. FEMME is heavily influenced by retro music, without question. She has a paradoxical naughtily innocent way about her, much like The Shangri-Las would (but with today’s lax views of sexuality in mind). She danced like a member of The B-52’s and had a very Lynchian way about her: She was as real in a Hollywood sense as she was surreal. It was her first time performing in Toronto, and she used that time to fancy in her own interests. Luckily, she’s naturally magnetic and we become as involved in her passions as she is. Like a character from a movie, she came and went like the scene had ended. Unlike a film, where there would be some sort of metaphor or symbolism behind her appearance, this is reality, and she is merely FEMME; An artist who simply is.