When former Mayor Betsy Hodges wanted to blend music, visual art, theater, dance and poetry from Minneapolis into her 2014 inauguration party — with a little progressive politics, too, of course — Camille Gage was the perfect person to employ as a co-organizer.
A musician who performed at First Avenue, an artist whose works hung in the Minneapolis Institute of Art and Weisman Art Museum, a writer and editor who championed environmental and feminist causes, a community activist who fought for Indigenous groups and homeless people, and an overall booster and planner for the arts in Minnesota, Gage died of cancer Monday at age 66.
Gage largely kept her illness private since her diagnosis last February. Her death was met with shock alongside an outpouring of tributes on social media.
"She was a quiet but determined fighter till the end," said her husband, Patrick Mulligan.
Gage originally hit the scene as a singer and songwriter in the '80s sextet Têtes Noires, often heralded as the first all-female rock band in the Twin Cities. Then a single mom, she helped form the band in 1983 after moving to Minneapolis from Racine, Wis. — "because she needed to be somewhere more creatively vibrant," Mulligan said.
"The Têtes," as they were often called, blended girl-group and a cappella pop harmonies with punk/new-wave grooves and gender-equalizing lyrics. The New York Times praised their "dark character studies, blithe melodies and … mock-sweet arrangements."
Keyboardist Angela Frucci said Gage brought "an incredible amount of fun, emotion and enthusiasm" to the group, which would disband after making the 1987 album "Clay Foot Gods," with members of Milwaukee's Violent Femmes. Gage's experiences in the band, however, would shape her art and activism in the years to come.
"Being in an 'all-girl band' and the sexism and challenges we faced, that only sharpened her feminist blade all the more," Frucci said.
