Ova, the women’s band, started life as Rosemary Schonfeld and Jane (now Jana) Runnalls in 1976. Jana had been living in Paris, and Rosemary in London. They fell in love at a time when it was still not cool to be gay or lesbian. They were each singer songwriters, and started playing the music they loved together, contemporary folk songs and Beatles mainly. After getting beaten up and forced out of their North London squat for being lesbian, and finding many of their friends and families hostile to their sexuality, the only people to offer them shelter and solace was a community of gay men living in a number of squats in Railton Road, Brixton. Here began their political awareness, learning new words (to them) such as ‘misogyny’, ‘homophobia’. They started writing songs about their experiences, and soon found themselves in the midst of the burgeoning lesbian and gay subculture. Their first band name was ‘The Dykier than Sky High Forever Band’. That became ‘The Lupin Sisters’, followed by ‘OVA. Over the next few years more women joined and left and joined and left the band, and eventually Ova became the touring and recording duo as it is best remembered.
As a duo Ova recorded four full length self-produced albums, and toured the UK, Europe, Scandinavia and the United States extensively. During this period women still had to fight to be in control of their own musical output, and were generally not allowed anywhere near the technology. In 1983 Rosemary and Jana secured funding from the GLC to set up a music resource and recording studio in North London for women and girls, The Ova Music Studio, with the aim of educating and empowering women and girls through and about music making and music technology
