V20 London Rising Announced: Calling London to RISE
8/20/2018
Press Release
For Immediate Release
V20 London Rising Announced: Calling London to RISE
Join Eve Ensler, V-Day Board Member Thandie Newton* and One Billion Rising Global Director Monique Wilson, Artists, Musicians & Activists
Twenty years ago, Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues gave birth to V-DAY, a global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender and gender non-conforming). The play and the playwright exploded onto the scene, garnering headlines and rave reviews, filling the theater night after night, breaking taboos, opening spaces for dialogue where they hadn’t existed before, and shattering the silence around women’s experiences with sexuality and violence.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of The Vagina Monologues and V-DAY and to celebrate, One Billion Rising and V-Day are calling on activists in London to Rise, Resist, and Unite for a special evening at Café De Paris.
V20 London Rising is an Artistic UpRising. It’s a celebration of The Vagina Monologues, V-DAY and One Billion Rising, as well as an honoring of the amazing revolutionary work of One Billion Rising activists and artists around the world. The evening will be an artistic event boldly fusing music, theatre, dance, poetry, movement, and film in an exciting night of creatively subversive, beautiful, sensual, provocative and powerful performance art celebrating women.
The evening will also be a creative resistance Rising like no other, urgently needed in these times of escalating violence in every sphere - from violence towards young women and girls - which has escalated One Billion Rising Youth Risings globally - to workers and refugees and all displaced people, as well as the tremendous desecration now of our beloved Mother Earth. The time is now, to keep building, fostering, nurturing, and inspiring real, powerful solidarity amongst all movements. And to keep creating art as forms of rebellion, disruption, celebration and hope. Art that calls on us all to Rise for love and life.
Join Eve, V-Day Board Member Thandie Newton* and One Billion Rising Global Director Monique Wilson along with an astounding line up of artists and activists from the UK, US, Congo, Croatia, India and the Philippines to celebrate the pioneering achievements of the last 20 years. This Artistic UpRising also features Vocalist KARIN BELLO, Women from the LONDON CAPOEIRA COMMUNITY, UK multi-platform artist, singer, musician, actress, songwriter RIAH KNIGHT, dance group LAHING KAYUMANGGI doing the Philippine indigenous “Banga” fierce warrior women dance, THE ALPACAS- a London based multi-national pop rock band with members coming from Romania, Mexico, UK and Japan, International Circus Artists led by JACKIE LE - doing aerial acrobatic performances in silk and hoop duo, and the MONAMAN THEATRE COMPANY - an international theatre company based in London led by Greek born actresses who do devised work that alter and defy all traditional theatrical rules. Igniting the dancing for the evening will be one of the world’s most in-demand and top female DJ’s DJ PHILLY with her trademark Hip Hop, R’nB’ and House music.
The evening also features several grand flash mobs of the One Billion Rising theme song “Break The Chain” as well as the One Billion Rising Tilburg, Netherlands original dance/song “We Are Beautiful” - featuring over 50 international actors from the East 15 Acting School as well as West End actors, who will be joined by women refugees and women workers from Voice of Domestic Workers.
The evening is produced by New Voice Company (UK) Limited, Rossana Abueva/One Billion Rising UK Coordinator and V-Day/One Billion Rising.
Tickets are £36.00 www.onebillionrising.org/londonrising
Ends
Notes to Editors
V20: Background on V-Day, One Billion Rising and Eve Ensler
About V-Day:
Twenty years ago, Eve Ensler’s play The Vagina Monologues gave birth to V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and gender non-conforming).
Since 1998, The Vagina Monologues and other works have been performed across the world by local V-Day activists, raising over $100 million dollars for grassroots anti-violence groups, rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, and safe houses in places like Kenya and Afghanistan. V-Day supports and launched the City of Joy, a revolutionary center for women survivors of gender violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has graduated over 1100 women leaders.
Activists look at the intersection of class, race, gender, environmental destruction, imperialism, militarism, patriarchy, poverty, and war, as women face abuse and exploitation across layers of systematic and societal oppression, with the most marginalized and excluded often facing increased levels of violence.
In 2013, V-Day gave birth to One Billion Rising – the largest mass action to demand an end to violence against women in history. V-Day and One Billion Rising are a crucial part of the global fight to stop gender-based violence through attacking the silence — public and private — that allows violence against women to continue.
With ingenuity and determination, V-Day activists around the world are tirelessly working to end harassment, rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sex slavery.
In London:
London activists have been on the leading edge of the V-Day and One Billion Rising efforts to end violence against women and girls, raising awareness for change on a global scale. V-Day benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues have been staged in London - including the Royal Albert Hall (The Vagina Monologues 2002) - raising funds for local rape crisis center and domestic violence shelters. One Billion Rising events have been held every year in London (Trafalgar Square for One Billion Rising 2013) since the campaign first launched globally on Valentine’s Day 2012 as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than ONE BILLION WOMEN AND GIRLS. On 14 February 2013, ONE BILLION people across the world came together to express their outrage, strike, dance, and RISE in defiance of the injustices women suffer, demanding an end at last to violence against women. Since then, events have taken place every year as the OBR campaign has deepened and expanded globally into a movement unto itself.
Eve Ensler
Eve Ensler is the Tony Award winning playwright, activist, and author of the theatrical Obie award winning phenomenon, The Vagina Monologues, published in 48 languages and performed in over 140 countries. Her plays include Lemonade, Extraordinary Measures, Necessary Targets, OPC, Emotional Creature and most recently In the Body of the World and Fruit Trilogy, which both recently wrapped Off-Broadway runs in NYC.
Her books include Insecure At Last: A Political Memoir and the New York Times bestseller I Am An Emotional Creature. She recently finished performing In the Body of the World at Manhattan Theatre Club, a one-woman show, which she adapted for the stage from her critically acclaimed memoir and first debuted the American Repertory Theater. Film credits include The Vagina Monologues, What I Want My Words to Do to You, and City of Joy.
Ms. Ensler is the founder of V-Day, the 20-year-old global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, which has raised over 100 million dollars. V-Day led her to also found One Billion Rising, the biggest global mass action to end violence against women in over 200 countries. She is a regular contributor for The Guardian. She was named one of Newsweek’s “150 Women Who Changed the World” and The Guardian’s “100 Most Influential Women.” Ms. Ensler is the recent recipient of the Lucille Lortel 2018 Lifetime Achievement Award and a 2018 Lilly Award.
Websites:
V-Day: https://vday.org/
One Billion Rising: https://www.onebillionrising.org/
City of Joy: https://drc.vday.org/
Social Media:
Facebook.com/vday
Instagram: @vdayorg, @one_billion_rising, @cityofjoyfilm
Twitter: @vday, @cityofjoyfilm
Media Information
For media information and press accreditation for V20 London Rising or to request a 20th Anniversary Edition of The Vagina Monologues (featuring six never-before-published V-DAY monologues) please contact Hannah Bryce at Verdun PR. Eve Ensler and Monique Wilson will be in London from Tuesday 25th September and are available for interviews.
Email: media (at) vday.org / Mobile: 07590545802
* pending scheduling