PENG Festival
In 2016, seven women graduates and students of the Folkwang University of the Arts founded the PENG e.V., which has set out to promote women in jazz and strengthening the presence of jazz in society. Based in the Ruhr area, the PENG collective wants to ensure that its activities radiate across the entire cultural landscape of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Germany as a whole.
Material inequality and glass ceilings also exist in the music industry. That is why the PENG collective has set itself the goal of creating a space in which these relationships can be critically examined and broken up again and again. The women want to create a framework in their work in which there is solidarity communication and action and which is free from any structures of oppression, power and dominance. Since 2019 the festival programme also features a panel discussion in which invited guests debate current issues in equal opportunity and anti-discrimination (2019: "Music. Power. Market. - Gender and Justice in Jazz Music").
The PENG Festival, which has been taking place regularly since 2016 and is in part funded by the Anti-Discrimination & Equal Opportunities department, plays a central role in their strategy. The aim of the festival is to raise the profile of outstanding women in jazz who, despite great advances in equal opportunity, are still under-represented in this art form. In 2017, the Equal Opportunities Office was able to support the festival with funds from the State Program for Equal Opportunity at Universities.