Lips: The 80-strong feminist choir that will change your life
Reading time: 5 mins
By Amy Harris-Sandstrom & Sally Connor
Ask us what we’re doing on a Thursday night and there will only be one answer. “I’ll be at choir practice”. This will usually be followed by a short conversation. Something like, “Oh you’re in a choir”, “Yeah.” Then, seeing a look of mistrust in their eyes, we’ll follow it with “but it’s not a shit choir it’s, um… a bit… different?”
Sometimes people just nod, smile and change the subject, but mostly folks want to know more, so we’ll tell them. We REALLY tell them. I mean we go on and on and on. We’ll tell them about how we don’t perform boring songs – our repertoire includes banging dance hits; a UK garage mash-up and a 12 song sex positive consent medley. And we’ll tell them that we are a feminist choir, and we believe there are no limits to women’s skills and talents. But mostly we’ll tell them how privileged we are to be in one of the best girl gangs in the world.
Lips Choir was started in summer 2009 by a group of friends who shared a love of singing (mainly the end-of-the-night, shouty variety), but couldn’t find a choir in London which felt like the right fit. It just so happened that one of the group had experience in leading choirs. so we figured we could just do it ourselves.
Those first few months were a blast. There was very little actual technique being learnt, but songs were in (almost) perfect harmony and the after-practice pub visits were becoming legendary. By Christmas, news of the choir had spread. Friends were bringing friends and there was a real-life choir forming. So we decided we had better put on a show.
We were apprehensive about a concert – who would want to come and listen to what was essentially large-scale group karaoke? Who would pay to watch us embarrass ourselves? Turns out, more people than you would think. People actually came to the gig – and lots of them! They got drunk, they cheered and they had a good time.
The reception we’ve had since then has been unbelievable. The handful of people who began Lips has now grown into a choir of 80 amazing women – with over 400 on the waiting list. We’ve sung with Goldfrapp at the Royal Albert Hall, we performed at Bestival (the whole choir married each other in the Chapel of Love afterwards), we put on club nights which provide opportunities for female DJs to play, we support the grassroots group Women Asylum Seekers Together London through fund raising, and perform at protests calling for the end of the detention of Asylum Seekers.
Lips has always been about promoting women in music and we produce at least one show each year ourselves with an outstanding all-woman team of musicians, collaborators, lighting designers and sound engineers. Each year gets bigger and better and we now perform two sell-out nights.
We’d love to think this is because people are blown away by our vocal prowess and musicality (I’m sure there are moments of this right?). But our gig-goers tell us that the bond, camaraderie and sisterhood we share with each other jumps right off the stage and pulls them up there with us. We say this with an unapologetic lack of humility because that feeling of togetherness is felt by every member of the choir – we affectionately call it The LipsWeb.
The LipsWeb encompasses so many things; a network, a support system, a community, a family. The LipsWeb answers every question – we have lawyers, doctors, teachers, musicians, caregivers and everything else you can imagine in between. One of our Lipsters spent the last two years writing legislation to force companies to report on the gender pay gap. Incredible.
When my (Amy’s) daughter was born in 2014 I found out she had a unique chromosomal pattern. Her medical team couldn’t give me much information about it and my knowledge of genetics was non-existent. The situation felt pretty overwhelming. I remembered that one of our Lipsters was doing something ‘sciency’ so I turned to her. As luck would have it, the science stuff she studied was specifically around genetics. She was able to sit me down and explain things to me in a way that I had never been able to understand before. She gave me clarity, breathing space and hope – and all in a 15 minute break from learning Shake It Off by Taylor Swift.
The support we get from each other isn’t just from our professional lives. Society and the media tell us that a large group of women together will always tear each other down. Lips provides the total opposite of that – ours is a genuine culture of support, encouragement and positivity.
We are a community. We have Lipsters who are couples, work mates, sisters, childhood friends, and those who have found Lips entirely on their own. Sometimes people take breaks to go traveling or have babies or focus on their work for a bit. But throughout all of this, and even if you never quite make it back to Thursday night rehearsals, you will always be a part of the LipsWeb. We stay in touch on Facebook and WhatsApp. If a Lipster moves abroad they’ll be sure to be putting up visiting choir members on their sofa for a long time!
Our Lips Socials (‘LipsLash’) have reached epic proportions. We’ve been kicked out of countless pubs in London (and a Tesco Metro) mainly for singing; But the peak of our yearly social calendar is RESO – our annual retreat where we go away together to work on our vocal and performing skills, and to party (mostly to party).
Of course life is not just one big party, every single one of us has our different highs and lows. We’ve helped each other through everything, new jobs, cancer, breakups. We’ve sung at each other’s weddings, celebrated Lips-babies, and through it all, Lips is a constant. When shit gets hard (and let’s face it, it does for all of us at some point), Lips is always there – we’ve got each other’s backs.
A couple of years ago, one of our members summed it up when she posted on our Facebook group after a particularly epic gig AND her first LipsLash. She wrote ‘#foundmytribe’. With one hashtag she summed up what Lips means to those of us lucky enough to be part of it. We are stoked to have found such a powerful gang of women and that the increasing number of LipsBabies will get to grow up in our midst. We hope that they, (and every other person on the planet) will be inspired to find their ‘Lips’ too.
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