Emotional Creatures Around the World

By an IPS Correspondent Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 19 2012 (IPS) - ‘‘I am sixteen. I am owned by them. They do what they want. Sometimes they refuse to use condoms. If we refuse them, we are beaten,’’ said Molly Carden who portrayed a girl who tells of being sex trafficked in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Credit: Julia Kallas/ IPS

In conjunction with V-Day, a non-profit global activist movement to end violence against women and girls, the Broadway show ‘‘Emotional Creature’’ is now playing at the Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at the Pershing Square Signature Center in New York City.  The movement was founded in 1998.

V-Girls, created by V-Day, a network of women and a dynamic group of young leaders from around the world who are activists and advocates.  V-Girls is also a platform for girls to ignite their activism and claim their authentic selves, a thriving network of over 6,000 active members in over 450 local clubs and school groups across 26 countries.

‘‘On V-Day’s 15th Anniversary, 2.14.13, we are inviting one billion women and those who love them to walk out, dance, rise up, and demand an end to this violence. One billion rising will move the earth, activating women and men across every country. V-Day wants the world to see our collective strength, our numbers, our solidarity across borders,’’ said Eve Ensler, Tony Award winning playwright, performer, activist, founder of V-Day and writer of the 2010 bestseller book ‘Emotional Creature’.

Sade Namei performed a girl from Tehran, Iran, whose parents took her to get her nose done so she could look like a ‘‘princess’’. ‘‘My parents who loved me paid a man on my sixteenth birthday to take my nose out. They hired a hit man to take my poor nose down. The only problem is that my nose was attached to me,’’ said Namei.

The monologue that follows, called Free Barbie was the part portrayed by Olivia Oguma. She performed the role of a 15-year-old factory worker from Kwai Yong, China. ‘‘ I know a lot about Barbie. I am one of the people who makes her head,’’ said Ugama,‘‘Many, many of us girls are needed to make Barbie because three Barbies are sold every second,’’ added Ugama.

“I have a whole village after my clitoris,” said Courtney Thomas who performed a monologue of a young girl who was suffering female genital mutilation and climbs to the top of the Mountain of God in Tanzania to ask her God for help.

‘‘How come you will let them cut and sell me and stop me from going to school? I’m sorry, but I think there is a mistake,’’ said Thomas.

At the end of the play the cast portrayed different women from different countries, who have suffered issues related to the ones performed at the show.

‘‘I am Maria Lorena Barros, 22, murdered feminist, poet, revolutionary. Died so the women of the Philippines could be more than the children, the kitchen or the bed,’’ said Ugama.

‘‘I am Xaio Lu, 26. I shot my own artwork in order to explode the walls of Chinese suppression,’’ said Namei.  ‘‘I am an emotional creature. Everything is intense to me. 
I am an emotional devotional irrotional creature. Why would you want to shut me down, or turn me off,’’ was the chorus of the final song, called Refuser Dance, sang by all the cast.