Eve Ensler's piece "Rising" and me

Twice I've planned to perform Eve Ensler's piece, "Rising", and twice I've decided not to.  Here's the piece:

RISING
Written in Kerala for the women of India who lead the way


This could have been anywhere
And was
Mexico City
Manila
Mumbai
Manhattan
Nighttime men
waiting
like wolves
Drooling
for prey
behind
that single dimly painted door
paying nothing
a couple of  dollars
or euros
rupees
or pesos
to have her
Enter her
Eat her
Devour her
and throw away her bones.

This could have been anywhere
And was
A Buddhist nun on a bus
Trying to stay dry for the night
A woman leader speaking out against
The repressive government
A young woman traveling with her boyfriend
One lost her voice
The other her following
The last one her life

This could have been anywhere and was
Pink wooden crosses
A stack of stones
Red wilting carnations
Empty chairs in a square
Ribbons flying in a sultry wind
I ask Anna Nighat Kamla Monique Tanisha Emily
Why Why
Porque Eran Mujeres
Parce qu'elles étaient des femmes
Because they were women
Because they were women

This could have been anywhere
And was
Where she got fired for being too beautiful
Fined for drinking after she was raped
A serious offer to marry her rapist
Got told it was legitimate but not forcible

This could have been anywhere
They do such a thing
When the girls go for fire wood
Step into the lonely man’s car
Drink a little too much at the college party
Wake up with her uncle’s fingers inside
Run from the screaming machete and guns
Be taken at sunrise
Get a bullet in the brain for learning the alphabet
Be stoned for falling in love
Be burned for seeing the future

I am done
Cataloguing these horrors
Data Porn
2 million women raped and tortured
1 out of 3 women
a woman raped every minute
every second
one out of 2
one out of 5
the same
one
one
one I am done counting
And recounting

Its time to tell a new story
It needs to be our story
It needs to be outrageous and unexpected
It needs to lose control in the middle
It needs to be sexy and in our hips
And our feet
It needs to be angry and a little scary the way storms can be scary
It needs to not ask permission
Or get permits or set up offices
Or make salaries
It wont be recorded or bought or sold
Or counted
It needs to just happen
It is not a question of inventing
But remembering
Buried under the leaves of trauma and sorrow
Beneath the river of
semen and squalor
vaginas and labias
shredded and extracted
stolen
body mines
mined bodies
It is not about asking now
Or waiting
It is about rising

Raise your arm my sister my brother
Raise your one
Billion
Your one heart
Your one of us

I used to be afraid of love
It hurt too much
What never happened
What got ripped away
The rape
The wound
And love
I thought
was salt
But I was wrong
I was wrong
Step into the fire
Raise your arm
Raise your one
Billion
One
One
One
Rising.
Rising.
Rising.
Eve Ensler for One Billion Rising

The first time I was planning to perform the piece was at One Billion Rising here in Richmond at the end of our rally at the Coliseum.  Eve had put the piece out there as something to use at rallies worldwide.  It felt like the perfect fit.  I asked my friend and fabulous actress Jackie Jones if she would help me work it up so I could do it well.  She generously worked with me for a few hours to bring drama and pathos and energy and power to it.  I felt excited at the thought of performing it because it's such a powerful piece.  I was planning to have drummers pick up the beat at the very end where it says One/One/One/Rising/Rising/Rising.  I asked a friend of mine to lead the drumming.  She came over to my house one day very close to the rally to practice so we could get the timing down.

I began reading the piece.  She began drumming.  It threw me off.  We started again.  I couldn't feel in sync with what she was doing so I asked her to listen to the piece all the way through first then we'd try again.  My friend sat on my fireplace hearth and listened intently as I went through the outrages and horrors Eve describes in Rising.  When I finished, my friend told me she felt completely triggered from hearing such graphic images.  We tried again.  It wasn't working.  She said she felt like hearing that piece at the end of a rally to empower women, especially the way we'd crafted the rally, would be like going to the doctor for healing, then, at the end of the doctor's visit, ripping off the bandage and leaving the patient bloody.  I could see her point because just reading it generally left me stoked and energized, but not always in a positive way.  It was hard to perform.  I decided to NOT read the piece at One Billion Rising but instead to read what I had written.  Here's what I used:

We have heard here today some of the horrors being perpetrated here in Richmond as well as around the world.  There is so much pain and suffering, it is terribly difficult to hold it all.

But we have also heard tales of joy and empowerment and triumph – Claire’s daughter’s tragic murder led Claire to become a tireless advocate for others.  Carol’s mother’s death has not gone unnoticed, and thousands of children are better cared for thanks to Carol and her mother.  Rebiya Kadeer’s life has been full of pain and suffering, even as now two of her children are imprisoned just as she was.  Despite all that, we have witnessed her determination to take the higher path and to devote her life to the autonomy and safety of her beloved Uyghur people, especially the women. 

Each of the women you heard speak today is a beautiful example of power used for good.  Each has accessed her life’s purpose, the reason she is on this planet, the reason her life matters, and each is boldly and courageously pursuing her vision for a better world.

Take the time, I beg you, to listen deep within to your own still small voice that knows why you’re here, what you are meant to be doing, and pledge today to do one thing to grow that voice, one thing each day, to give voice to the beauty you have to offer the world.   Just imagine a world where each of us is living the life we were born to lead – giving the world the gifts that only we have to bestow.

THAT is the vision of SEVEN billion rising and of Heaven on Earth.  Thank you.

I think my friend was so right about Rising in that case and that it was kinder and gentler to not use it.

The next opportunity I had was to perform it, memorized, in the Richmond production of The Vagina Monologues in April.  Julie Willard cast me to do that monologue.  I felt honored to be chosen to do that one because it's the final piece in the show and is so dramatic.  I also felt a little bit scared - would I actually be able to memorize it?  how would it be to perform on stage again after 30+ years?

I started going to rehearsals and practicing it, working on memorizing it.  At rehearsals, I noticed that after I read it, I would feel hot and flushed.  My adrenalin would be pumping.  It would take me a while to calm down.  OK.  Something to notice.

I practiced it one on one with Julie.  She gave me excellent direction to say it with less umph, less drama - let the words do the talking.  Maybe I didn't need to "perform" it - maybe I could just put it out there and let the words do the work.  Be more understated.  It was good coaching.  It felt very different.  I was performing it the way a preacher performs a rousing sermon.  Speaking it as if I were talking to a friend, telling her these outrages, telling her I was done, that something different had to happen, brought it home in a different way.  I think it was more powerful.  I don't think it was any less disturbing.

I started to memorize it.  Chris helped me while we were on vacation at the beach.  I started dreaming about the images in the poem.  Nightmares.  Uncomfortable images.  Uncomfortable stories going through my head.  It wasn't fun. The words would flow through my head during the day since I was trying to commit it to memory.  I started to wonder if this was the right thing for me to be doing?

Right around this time, I got the email from the Uyghurs asking me to speak in Paris at their conference.  It was to be 2 days before The Vagina Monologues.  I could come back in time for the play then leave again shortly thereafter for China to see Dylan, a trip I'd already planned.  Then I realized that was too much.  I felt like it would be physically too grueling.  I realized that if I would go to Paris, I could fly more easily to Beijing from there.  It would mean missing The Vagina Monologues, but everything else fit really well.  I spoke with my friend Denise Bennett, a consummate storyteller, actress, and performer, to see if she might be interested in doing the monologue.  She jumped right on it!  Then I contacted Julie to let her know the situation.  She could not have been more gracious. 

I felt tremendous relief to not be doing that particular piece.  It felt perfect for Denise to be doing it.  And it felt wonderful to think of going to Paris to speak before a group of women about women's empowerment, my topic for the Uyghurs.

It occurred to me that, again, I wasn't performing "Rising". 

Then I remembered when I spoke with Eve at the Omega Institute in September.  I said to her, "When I grow up, I want to be just like you."  Without skipping a beat, she looked me in the eye fiercely and clearly and with defiant love and said, "No, be YOU!"

It occurs to me that, with "Rising", I was trying to speak her words, but they just weren't fitting.  What worked, instead, was for me to write my own words and to speak those.  She was so right - her job is to be her.  My job is to be me.  Thanks, Eve, for wise, wonderful words, very well placed.  There's only one Eve, and there's only one me, and the world needs both of us.  And there is also only one YOU!  What unique gifts are you offering the world these days?  I'd love to hear!

What it took to put on OBR - YOU!

One Billion Rising RVA has come - and gone - like a tornado rushing through my life.  For five weeks, from Jan 7 until Feb 14, my brain was in its highest gear, working to create a powerful, life-changing event for Richmonders, one that would put an end to violence against women, once and for all.

That may have been a too-lofty goal, but it didn't keep me from envisioning it and working towards it.

Kelsey Bedolli, Janett Forte, Julie Willard, Susan Singer

Five of us women: Janett Forte, Kelsey Bedolli, Julie Willard, Alba Jaramillo, and I, worked countless hours each day to pull together a huge event in a very short span of time.  It was exhilarating, fascinating, frustrating, dramatic, satisfying, maddening, and ultimately one of the biggest highs of my life.  It was amazing to see how the five of us worked together.  Without even talking about what needed to be done, each of us would work on parts of the project that needed to be with hardly any overlap ever.  It was almost magical!

Here's a very brief overview of what had to be done in five weeks:

•  Find a location for the rally - the Richmond Coliseum was truly perfect, and the people we worked with there could not have been more helpful.  A completely positive experience.

• Find a fiscal sponsor so we could run donations through a non-profit, making the donations tax-deductible and therefore easier to ask folks for - the Action Alliance was a gracious sponsor, allowing us to also use their copier to run off 1000's of flyers to promote the event, and to use their offices to meet in
• set up a way to get donations - Indiegogo worked beautifully, and we raised $3315 in little over a month through the generosity of friends and co-workers and family members and strangers.  It was thrilling each day to check in and see what had happened since the last time I'd looked.  Thank you!
• Find speakers - we were exceedingly blessed to find many good speakers to share their stories with the attendees.

Claire Sheppard and Kristi VanAudenhove

1. Mayor Dwight Jones inspired us to contact our legislators to let them know we insist that VAWA be passed.  Thanks, Mayor Jones, for joining us!
2. Claire Hylton Sheppard shared the painful story of her daughter's murder and inspired us with her courage and determination to make sure it doesn't happen to others.
3. Carol Adams of the Richmond Police Department told us about her mother's murder at the hands of her father and how it affected her as a child.  She has gone on to be a powerful advocate for children ever since.  It's great seeing pain turned into activism.
4. Rebiya Kadeer, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, shared with us the predicament the Uyghurs, a minority ethnic group in East Turkestan in China, are in.  Her life story is powerful and full of pain and suffering, but she is a powerful reminder of what just one person can do to bring attention to the plight of others through outspoken advocacy and efforts.



Rebiya Kadeer and her translator Omer Kadat



Carol Adams

5. Kristi VanAudenhove of the Action Alliance shared with the attendees what the Action Alliance does and gave people ways to get involved themselves so they can make a difference just like our speakers have done.  She also encouraged all of us to take the One Billion Rising pledge to do at least one thing this year to help end violence against women.  Here's the pledge:

I am one of the One Billion Rising and I PLEDGE that on 14 February 2013, I will make violence against women and girls the central issue of our time and help to end it in my family, school, job, community/city/state/country by doing the following. 

•  Find musicians - Gaye Adegbalola and the Wild Roots were the perfect accompaniment to the speakers.  Their music is powerful and evocative and empowering and gave us a chance to dance and feel the power in our bodies.
• Find an emcee who could keep things flowing.  Christina Feerick of WRIC TV8 was super!  She, like all of the speakers, donated her time to help the cause of ending violence against women.  She promoted the rally on the news, on FB, on Twitter.  She was terrific!
• Find Halal meals for Ms. Kadeer and her translator - first I had to learn what that was - thanks, Julie! - then I had to find someplace to get them for them.  This was not so easy, but we managed!



Khalima

• Find entertainers for the time slot from 11-12 and coordinate them all.

1. Khalima did her wonderful belly dancing
2. Sara Heifitz stepped in at the last minute to substitute for another actress who couldn't come and performed a couple of Vagina Monologues beautifully and powerfully.  There was another actress who did a monologue, but I don't know her name.  If you were she, please let me know!
3. Aja Hull and John Blake brought slam poetry to the OBR arena and added immense power to the happenings.
4. Glow spinners and hoopers took part to add to the multigenerational aspect.
5. Susan DePhillip came and sang and played her guitar and added much beauty to the day.
6. Denise Bennett told a funny and meaningful story in Spanish and English then sang a beautiful a capella song to entertain us all.



Aja Hull



Denise Bennett



Drummer in the hallway

7.  
8. Drummers came to drum at the end of the rally so we could all dance - Diana Harris brought 15 drums to the Coliseum so that that could happen.

• Create a way for participants to acknowledge their own experience.  Shirley Silberman learned how to do Papier and Cloth mache' in order to create the Dragon so people could Conquer their Dragons. So beautiful and creative!

Studio X

Dogtown Dance and Khalima

Planned Parenthood volunteer

 

• Organize a resource fair so folks could find help or volunteer opportunities if they felt so led - the YWCA, Action Alliance, Safe Harbor, First Things First, Planned Parenthood, Studio X, dogtown Dance, Beyond Barbie, Hollaback, Circle Safety & Health Consultants, and a bus from the Latin American Art Association were present to support and enrich our attendees' lives.  We even managed to find a T shirt vendor who traveled from Waynesboro to sell T shirts for the event.
• Spread the word about One Billion Rising RVA - we had a Facebook page, a Facebook event page, a website, a Twitter account, Instagram, Pinterest - you name it, if it was social media-related, I think we had it!  And we had volunteers who helped us fill each with interesting things for folks to read!  We also sent out 5 different press releases to the local media.  We had articles in several blogs - La Diff furniture store even wrote a piece about us!  We were on TV, on the radio, in the newspaper, in Style Weekly, etc.  I'll post all the links in another blog post.  Our Facebook reach maxxed out at 13,497, with 735 people "liking" us - so far.  
• Organize marches the day of the rally to let people in the area know it was happening.  Carly Evans, Alba Jaramillo, Lori Gardener, Diana Harris along with Kelly and Eugene from American Family Fitness Center held a rally at 8, and the YWCA held another at 10.  They certainly enlivened the city with their enthusiastic support of OBR!
• Print up countless flyers as well as programs for the events.  The Action Alliance provided us with access to their printers for the flyers and Conquest graphics generously donated the programs for the rally.



The YWCA supporters walk to the Coliseum from the Y



Bobby Lohr, T shirt vendor with customers

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• Create complementary events to support OBR and to spread the word and the energy even further.

Renee King and They Dance When They're Happy

1. Women Rise! a juried art show held at Crossroads Art Center.
2. Cranksrising - a bike race/scavenger hunt organized by Lorene Davidson and created to raise awareness and to provide supplies for the women at Safe Harbor shelter
3. Beyond Barbie: Four Fridays in February - a performance series produced by Dawn Flores consisting of four nights of entertainment around issues of importance to women.  Denise Bennett, Lisette Johnson, Kathleen MacDonald, Sylvia Clute, Peggy O'Neill, Jess Lucia, Jackie Jones, Jenny Warne, Paige Russell Rosemond Rosemond and Susan DePhilip, (and perhaps others I've regrettably not remembered to include) graced the stage and moved us with their candor and courage.
4. Hollaback had a benefit at Babes of Carytown on Valentine's Day which benefitted OBR.



Hollaback's Afton and Jenn

5. The Vagina Monologues, directed by Julie Willard, will take place at the Gottwald Theater, April 26-27 and will be the last of the series of complementary events for One Billion Rising!  Watch our FB page for info on how to get tickets.  It sold out last year - we're expecting the same this year.

• Find volunteers to help us create all these wonders and to help out the day of the event.  Our email list of volunteers ultimately had 60 people on it.  What a testament to each of you for your solidarity in ending violence against women.
• Make the event run smoothly Valentine's Day!  Julie Willard was the stage manager who kept things running.  Kelsey Bedolli helped the volunteers get where they needed to go so they could do what they needed to do.  Janett Forte picked up the slack wherever necessary.  I spoke from the podium before the other speakers to set the tone for the day.
• Get insurance in case someone got hurt.  That involved estimating how many people would attend and making sure we had enough insurance but not too much. Our insurance agent, Mike Cushnie, was kind and helpful beyond reasonable expectations.  When I told him we needed to insure for 10,000, he gracefully helped me lower my expectations so the insurance wouldn't cost us $750, but only $495.  He was a true gift and a kind man.
• Raise $7500 in 5 weeks!  We had a private individual who was willing to take the risk and put up the money for the Coliseum, agreeing to take the loss if necessary.  That made all of us feel determined to raise enough to keep her from losing money.  Thankfully many of you - 116 to be exact - answered our call for donations and helped us out.  That doesn't include the kind souls who donated cash at the event and can't be enumerated or thanked individually.  It does include AlterNatives and Extreme Pizza who held profit sharing events to help us out as well.  We were blessed by a generous community which is also committed to ending violence against women.  
• Organize a Flash Mob so we'd have a very cool dance to start and end the program.

That's probably a long enough list!  I know you get the idea!  And I'm certain I've left out people - I apologize for that!  Please let me know who I've left out and I'll happily include them - each of us Lead Organizers took on different parts of the rally, so I may not even know everything that got done!  Despite that, I am deeply grateful.

Thank you, each and every one of you who helped in any way to put One Billion Rising RVA together.  I wish I could give each of you my personal thanks for working so hard to make this event happen.  There was such an incredible outpouring of love and support and caring!  The energy the day of the event was palpable and powerful.  It makes me believe that violence against women truly can end if we all put our minds to it and say NO.

I can see it on the horizon.  Can you?