ENRILE, ROSCA JOIN VAGINA MONOLOGUES AT THE KENNEDY CENTER

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 28, 2009
Jollene Levid, Gabnet Secretary-General
secgen@gabnet.org
Tel: 323-356-4748

WASHINGTON DC: Two members of the Mariposa Alliance?s Initiating Committee will join the Filipina Women?s Network annual performance of Eve Ensler?s The Vagina Monologues. The gala performance will take place on April 11, 7:30 p.m., at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

University of Southern California associate professor Dr. Annalisa Enrile, who heads Mariposa?s Initiating Committee, will read "Say It," the Comfort Women monologue, while novelist-activist Ninotchka Rosca will read the spotlight monologue on women of the Congo.

Dr. Enrile said she?d asked for the Comfort Women monologue specifically. ?I wanted to be able to speak out about how women suffer a double layer of violence during wartime: the murderous violence of subjugating a people and a territory, and the sexual violence of men against women. The two form a composite whole of the extremes of patriarchal dominance ? which continues to operate in the world today.?

Ms. Rosca, on the other hand, said it was a privilege to be able to speak on behalf of the women of the Congo. ?A Filipina, Indai Sajor, worked for the UN in this area and told me about the unspeakable circumstances there. What was striking was how the women of the Congo continued to set up some form of family life, trying to protect the children. It?s death-dealing male militarism versus life-nurturing women.?

Ensler?s original Vagina Monologues ran in 1996 in an off-Broadway theater and won an Obie Award. Since then additional monologues have been written and each year, on V-Day, performances focus on one country to spotlight the situation of its women. This year, the spotlight is on women of the Congo, where back-to-back civil wars and some 20 militia groups have created a catastrophic refugee situation.

The Kennedy Center in Washington DC is considered a premier performance space. It houses the National Symphony Orchestra, Washington Opera, Washington Ballet and the American Film Institute. It has several theaters and a concert hall.

The FWN?s gala performance will be at the Terrace Theater, which seats 513 and was constructed as a gift of Japan to the United States. Tickets are from $38-$88; FWN members get a $10 discount.