ABSTRACT
Many of the performers at the Nova Convention of 1978 were women whose work complemented Burroughs in different ways. Female performers included Laurie Anderson, Julia Heyward, Patti Smith and Anne Waldman. The performance of Laurie Anderson and fellow-artist Julia Heyward demonstrates the nuanced relationship to male Beat authors female artists were developing at the time. Anderson and Heyward performed on the first day of the Nova Convention, which was the November 30, 1978. Laurie Anderson’s performance at the Nova Convention in 1978 is an important moment in the artist’s development as it was the first time she used the harmonizer to alter her voice to make it sound like a man, a technique she would use consistently in her work since then. Years later, Anderson called the filter she used to change her voice a “weapon” and “her defence” against “the machismo surrounding Burroughs” at the time.
