“The Vagina Monologues” playwright Eve Ensler planted marsh grass in the moist ground of an urban wildlife refuge in New Orleans, saying it’s important America take care of the wetlands as one would a vagina. “We have to cherish it, nourish it, nurture it,” she said, her black sneakers muddied from traipsing through the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge.

Ensler joined dozens of volunteers Tuesday to plant marsh grass in areas damaged by saltwater intrusion during Hurricane Katrina. She said it’s one way she wanted to give back to the Gulf Coast while in New Orleans this week preparing for the 10th anniversary celebration of V-Day, the global movement she started a decade ago to end violence against women and girls.

After helping to plant some of 10,000 marsh grass plugs Tuesday, Ensler headed to the Louisiana Superdome, where she will be joined this weekend by a host of big-name film and music industry stars for the two-day celebration. It begins Friday, and among those to attend are Jane Fonda, Jessica Alba, Faith Hill, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Hudson and Rosario Dawson. Other celebrities arrived early. Actress Kerry Washington came Sunday to prepare for her role in Friday night’s “Swimming Upstream,” a theatrical interpretation of the experiences of New Orleans women after Katrina and during its slow recovery.

“I am blessed to be doing this piece,” said Washington, who played Ray Charles’ wife in the 2004 film “Ray.” She also will moderate a panel discussion with young women to compare their lives and experiences to “find parallels and celebrate differences.” That panel, slated for Saturday morning, includes actresses Rosario Dawson, Amber Tamblyn and Ali Larter. “It’s really important to celebrate and highlight young women who are doing well and are aware of their power, their strength,” Washington said.

“The Vagina Monologues” playwright Eve Ensler planted marsh grass in the moist ground of an urban wildlife refuge in New Orleans, saying it’s important America take care of the wetlands as one would a vagina. “We have to cherish it, nourish it, nurture it,” she said, her black sneakers muddied from traipsing through the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge.

Ensler joined dozens of volunteers Tuesday to plant marsh grass in areas damaged by saltwater intrusion during Hurricane Katrina. She said it’s one way she wanted to give back to the Gulf Coast while in New Orleans this week preparing for the 10th anniversary celebration of V-Day, the global movement she started a decade ago to end violence against women and girls.

After helping to plant some of 10,000 marsh grass plugs Tuesday, Ensler headed to the Louisiana Superdome, where she will be joined this weekend by a host of big-name film and music industry stars for the two-day celebration.

It begins Friday, and among those to attend are Jane Fonda, Jessica Alba, Faith Hill, Salma Hayek, Jennifer Hudson and Rosario Dawson.

Other celebrities arrived early. Actress Kerry Washington came Sunday to prepare for her role in Friday night’s “Swimming Upstream,” a theatrical interpretation of the experiences of New Orleans women after Katrina and during its slow recovery.

“I am blessed to be doing this piece,” said Washington, who played Ray Charles’ wife in the 2004 film “Ray.” She also will moderate a panel discussion with young women to compare their lives and experiences to “find parallels and celebrate differences.”

That panel, slated for Saturday morning, includes actresses Rosario Dawson, Amber Tamblyn and Ali Larter.

“It’s really important to celebrate and highlight young women who are doing well and are aware of their power, their strength,” Washington said.

Actress Jennifer Beals also will be in town, eager to watch and participate in the monologues.

“There’s a power in storytelling, in self-discovery,” the actress, who rose to stardom after playing the lead in 1983’s “Flashdance,” said in an earlier interview. “The act of having many many many people tell their stories and have access to their stories has a huge potential to change a community, change a person.”

Beals is to perform this weekend with cast members of Showtime’s “The L Word,” the series about a diverse group of Los Angeles lesbians, in which she stars.

The series is in its fourth season and tackles such serious subject matter as the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, the legality of same-sex marriages and the challenges of transgender transition.

Beals, a married heterosexual woman with a 2-year-old daughter, says she feels “connected to all women everywhere.”

Each year, the V-Day organization spotlights a group of women who resist violence with courage and vision. This year, the focus is on “Katrina Warriors” — the women of New Orleans — for their strength and resilience in the face of devastating loss.

The celebrities will be joined by women from across the nation and world, says Ensler, to transform the dome — a place of great suffering and despair during Hurricane Katrina — into a place of love and hope.

“It will be a vaginal wonder, a vaginal dome,” said Ensler, who founded V-Day after being inspired by the overwhelming response to “The Vagina Monologues,” in which actors share hilarious and heartbreaking anecdotes about their bodies.

The celebration, including therapy sessions, medical exams, makeovers, massages, meditation and yoga, is free and open to the public. There is a charge to enter Saturday night’s “V to the Tenth” at the New Orleans Arena. It will include readings and musical performances by Faith Hill, Jane Fonda, Jennifer Hudson, Jessica Alba, Glenn Close and Charmaine Neville, among others.

Oprah Winfrey is expected to perform a monologue based on the life of a New Orleans woman, Ensler said.

Ensler said hundreds of New Orleans women who have not returned to the city since evacuating or being forced from their homes during Katrina’s flooding in August 2005 will be bussed into the city.

“That, for me, is going to be one of the happiest things that weekend, bringing those women home,” Ensler said. She said she couldn’t think of a better place than New Orleans to celebrate V-Day’s 10th anniversary.

The storm, she says, revealed many problems in this country, among them a lack of an effective government rescue plan. It also illustrated the link between race and poverty and disempowerment, she said.

“In many ways the storm washed up existing problems of lack of information, lack of education, lack of infrastructure,” she said. “I was devastated by the gross negligence and abandonment.”

Ensler said the 10th anniversary of V-Day was an opportunity to celebrate the city’s women, who are among “the most resilient, generous, community-based women I’ve met anywhere.”

Since its founding 10 years ago, V-Day has grown to reach 119 countries and has raised $50 million to increase awareness about violence against women. It raises money and awareness through benefit productions of “The Vagina Monologues.”

To date, the V-Day movement has raised over $50 million and educated millions about the issue of violence against women and the efforts to end it. In 2008, more than 3,700 V-Day events are taking place in the U.S. and around the world.

 Source: The Associated Press

April 9th, 2008
Categories: Appearances, Philanthrophy, Events, News . Author: Joliz

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