INFORMATION ABOUT THE FIRST VEGAN FUSION FEST (11/17/07)

First of all, we want to thank all of those who came to the first VEGAN FUSION FEST, both those who live in Valencia or its surrounding area and specially those who came from other much more distant cities (Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, etc.).

We also seize the opportunity to thank all the activists and collaborators of Defensanimal.org for the effort carried out during all the event so that everything was successful as it was planned.

Also, we thank all of those who, unfortunately, could not come because of distance issues or for reasons of work, but who offered their support and courage.

To finish our section of grattitudes, we want to thank the artists that exhibited their anti-speciesist paintings and prints (Verónica Ibarra, Yolanda Calero and Olga Fructuoso), as well as Eva González for her labour as official photographer of the event, Javier Alonso for the design of the official posters, the Yes Brasil group for their performance of Batucada and Capoeira, and the 4 DJ's that played all the night.

The event was very successful both due to the high audience (our expectations were beaten) and due to the anti-speciesist information (for all of those who came because of the music and did not know concepts such as veganism or speciesism).

We are already able to bring forward you that there will be a 2nd VEGAN FUSION FEST the next year, and we hope that the former has been the first edition of many others :)

With regard to the development of the event, it was as follows:

+19'00-Doors Opening

+Piped music while the public was looking at the exhibitions of antispeciesist paintings and prints, visiting the informative stand and tasting the vegan food we had prepared (vegan omelettes, vegan sandwiches, pâtés, croquettes, pies and cakes, etc.)

+20'30-Batucada and capoeira

+21'00-DJ

+22'00-Explanatory lecture about why to do the Vegan Fusion Fest, transmitting to the audience that night we were giving voice to all of those non-human animals that in those instants were being deprived of freedom, slaved and murdered. We asked for everybody to stop being speciesists, and thus to become vegans.

+22'30-Performance: 4 activists symbolised to 4 non-human animals representatives of speciesist activities (hen-food, horse-slavery, rabbit-experimentation, lion-zoos and circuses), while we were showing on the screen a video coordinated with music. The 4 activists wore convict suits and chains. They started to walk slowly among the audience (through the whole room) to later go up to the stage (all this coordinated with key moments in the music and video), and they knelt down over it holding a banner with the slogan "We all want to live and be free". In a moment in which music and images changed the rhythm, the activists got up and turned over the banner showing the slogan "Stop to use of non-human animals - Stop speciesism". Later, other activist appeared on the stage with a human mask symbolising a speciesist human that was passing through... He observed the non-human animals and what the banner said and, after pondering over it, he looked at the audience and took off his jacket showing a "Stop to use of animals" T-shirt. After pointing at what it said, he approached the convicts in order to break them the chains and release them. Subsequently, the non-human animals could take off the convict suits and, shortly after showing their happiness, they invited the audience to continue watching the video that was being shown, which finished with the slogans "Respect for each and every one, Stop speciesism, Stop to use of non-human animals, Become vegan".

Fortunately it seems that the audience enjoyed the performance and, in key moments, the reaction of the public as well as the emotivity which was being transmitted could be heard and felt in the environment (for example, the audience clapped and cheered when the human broke the chains).

+22'45-Viewing of antispeciesist short films:

-"Freedom-1" (http://www.defensanimal.org/videos/libertad_1.htm)

-"You can save a lot of lives" (http://www.defensanimal.org/videos/tupuedessalvarmuchasvidas.htm)

-“Suckling pig”

-"I want to live” (it will be shortly uploaded), is a videoclip with the song of the same name by Futuro VegaPop, with images created by Pedro Allemant and Verónica Ibarra.

-"Action-Performance:Stop to experimentation in non-human animals" (http://www.defensanimal.org/videos/Acto_experimentacion_Moby.htm)

We want to indicate that was planned to show, finally, the short film winner of Berlin Festival. Due to technical problems we could not do it :(

+23'00-The rest of DJ's

+02'00-Closing

Only we must finally encourage, to all of you who were not able to come, to attend the 2008 edition of the Vegan Fusion Fest.