{"id":559,"date":"2014-02-20T18:30:04","date_gmt":"2014-02-20T18:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=559"},"modified":"2014-02-20T18:30:04","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T18:30:04","slug":"vagina-monologues-takes-campus-by-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2014\/02\/20\/vagina-monologues-takes-campus-by-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"Vagina Monologues takes campus by storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alec Hudson<\/strong> – Staff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n

Eve Ensler\u2019s The Vagina Monologues has been a major cultural achievement for the feminist movement since its premiere in 1996.
\nOn Feb. 18 and 19, a group of Centre College students, with funding provided by CentrePlayers, put on two performances of the work to raise awareness about sexual violence toward women and girls. All proceeds from the performances benefited Kentucky\u2019s own Bluegrass Rape Crisis Center in Danville, Ky., and the V-Day organization, which sponsors the play.
\nThe Vagina Monologues is a production unlike most that Centre has put on. The monologues are not fictional \u2013 they are real stories of real women that seek to realistically portray the experience of women\u2019s lives in modern society.<\/p>\n

\"From<\/a>
From left to right: juniors Morgan Whitehead, Annie Wolff, and Amanda Ramsey; and seniors Hallie Forbess, Warren McKnight, and Samantha Cahall, preparing for their roles in The Vagina Monologues. Performances took place in Weisiger Theatre on Feb. 18 and 19<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some are amalgamations of the stories of many women, and some are the stories of specific individuals. Yet they are all brutally honest, especially when it comes to the realities of harassment, discrimination, patriarchy, and sexual violence that still plague our modern world.
\nBecause the monologues are true stories, the performances entail less acting and more of a spoken-word style, making each adaptation fresh and unique.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re assigned a piece, look over your piece a few times, meet with the directors for read-throughs, and focus on logistics,\u201d senior Chelsea Faist said. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to portray someone else\u2019s story as honestly as possible \u2013 you\u2019re not there to be a dramatic spectacle.\u201d
\nSophomore Mariah Watkins described the authenticity of each performance as \u201ca display of organic, genuine emotions\u201d rather than a traditional character-driven narrative. \u201cThe monologues are genuine,\u201d she said. \u201cTherefore the performance should be.\u201d
\nThe feminism of this production is overt, and that is how the cast and crew like it.
\nSenior and Co-Director Anna Ellis said that many people assume The Vagina Monologues is \u201ca man-bashing show,\u201d but this misunderstanding is the basis for the production.
\n\u201cWhat I have been telling people is that the point of this show is not just to shock and awe and freak people out,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cIt\u2019s to make it safer for women to be out on their own at night without having to worry that they\u2019ll be raped; it\u2019s to show people that women as a whole are a powerhouse; it\u2019s to teach this campus that treating women well, like humans deserve to be treated, is no longer an optional thing.\u201d
\nFaist similarly described the Monologues as important because they force the audience to think about the realities women face everyday.
\n\u201cWe live in a world where narratives such as the ones portrayed in The Vagina Monologues are commonplace,\u201d she said. \u201cWe live in a patriarchy where old white men get to tell me what to do with my body, and demand that I keep quiet about it. The Vagina Monologues is all about speaking up, about being a woman and what being a woman entails.\u201d
\nThe presentation of The Vagina Monologues is part of a movement known as \u201cV-Day,\u201d with the \u201cV\u201d standing for victory, valentine, and vagina. The movement sponsors performances of the play from February to April, with most of the productions coinciding with Valentine\u2019s Day.
\nAccording to the mission statement of V-Day, its goal is to create \u201ca world where women live safely and freely,\u201d and hopes that because of this, \u201cwomen spend their lives creating and thriving rather than surviving or recovering from terrible atrocities.\u201d
\nWhen asked whether they believed such a movement could truly help end sexual violence and patriarchal tendencies in society, the cast members seemed hopeful.
\n\u201cTrue change comes from within a person,\u201d Watkins said. \u201cThis production gives everybody a chance to become aware that vaginas are not only a vessel to life or for sexual pleasure, but an attachment of the body that is alive and should be respected because it is attached to people who play such active roles in society.\u201d
\nAnother women\u2019s rights movement sponsored by V-Day and The Vagina Monologues is One Billion Rising.
\n\u201cEvery year there is the set Vagina Monologues script,\u201d sophomore and Co-Director Emily Morrell said, \u201cand every year, there is a spotlight piece at the end that focuses on the sponsored movement for that year. This year, that\u2019s One Billion Rising.\u201d
\nThe movement is a global call to women to gather peaceably outside places where they are entitled to justice \u2013 like police stations and courthouses \u2013 and dance.
\n\u201cOne Billion Rising is not hateful and aggressive,\u201d Morrell said, \u201cbut it\u2019s a movement based in joy and celebrating all that women are and all that we should be. So, we dance.\u201d
\nWith all of the violence and hardship women around the world face, performances of The Vagina Monologues have the opportunity to educate and enlighten the public about the necessity of treating women as equals in our modern society.
\nMore information about the V-Day and One Billion Rising movements can be found at www.vday.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Alec Hudson – Staff Writer Eve Ensler\u2019s The Vagina Monologues has been a major cultural achievement for the feminist movement since its premiere in 1996. On Feb. 18 and 19, a group of Centre College students, with funding provided by CentrePlayers, put on two performances of the work to raise awareness about sexual violence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-leisure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}