On March 25th at 6:30 PM, let's dance to end rape and sexual violence against women.
V (formerly Eve Ensler), author of The Vagina Monologues, Honorary Doctor of UCLouvain (2015) and founder of ‘One Billion Rising’ campaign, will then give an exceptional public conference on ‘Feminism, Fascism, Freedom’ in the "Salle du Sénat académique".
To rise up for freedom against violence and hate.
Dare to rise up and dance in the public space, and thus perform a political gesture, an act of moral resistance that leads the way to a cultural revolution. Over 200 countries are taking part in the OBR campaign inaugurated in 2012: One billion Rising. This year more than ever, in the face of the forces of withdrawal and annihilation, it is necessary to rise up and resist together. V (Eve Ensler) invites all those around the world to rise up against violence against women, against violence against human beings, and against all forms of violence against our world. To this end, it calls for dancing and singing together in public spaces once a year around February 14. We've been joining in since 2015, when Eve Ensler received an Honorary Doctorate from UCLouvain, but this year we'll have the great pleasure of dancing with V herself, who will be present in Louvain-la-Neuve on March 25 at 6:30pm. We'll gather on the Place de l'Université and head together to the Place D. Mercier, where we'll be able to express the force of resistance that unfolds when the body, beyond its devastation, regains the strength to dance. Each dance bears witness to the joy that resists the crushing of victims and the dissociation between body and self. It mobilizes our emotions and reunites us. Together, we become “emotional creatures” anew, pushing back the tide of violence, violence of all kinds, because rediscovering this joy also means pushing back the tide of violence within us.
Faire Face - reckoning https://www.eveensler.org
Facing up to violence and daring to denounce it with the right words has been V's goal ever since she wrote The Vagina Monologues, which has now been translated into 48 languages. V's freedom of expression and daring give new life to these shadowy realities. As a dramaturg, writer and feminist, she writes about the female sex and allows the women who hear her to talk about it. She used her writing to combat the inhuman, the unbearable and the intolerable, the rape of women and girls, rape as a weapon of war and social devastation (In the body of the world. A memoir of Cancer and Connection). She dares to be outspoken and liberating, and intends to tackle issues that are often hidden, where domination lies. She refuses to allow our existences to be stifled by half-truths. She unmasks the false pretense of security that shackles us (Insecure at last). She puts her body and bodies on stage, and rather than looking at them (The good body), she sets them free. But she doesn't stop at denouncing and rebelling against violence. Her response is to return to the emotions that protect us from it (I am an emotional creature) and invite us to dance together. That's why she created the V-Day movement and the OBR (One Billion Rising) mobilization in 2012. She also founded the “Cité de la Joie” in Bukavu, eastern Congo, to give a social life back to women who have been raped. She is now struggling against the rise of the extreme right and the new fascisms. What's more, in the face of extreme violence, she refuses to dwell on hatred and opts instead for love when she writes Pardon, the letter she would have liked to receive from her abuser-father. And then, she chooses to drop her name and call herself “V”, her name of freedom.
