V-day celebration in Belgrade

Thursday, February 15^th, REX ( Jevrejska str. 16)

Showing “UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS“ film

Director: Abby Epstein

/ SAD, 2003, 73 min./

Theatrical performance VAGINA MONOLOGUES recording

Director: Jelena Bogavac

/Serbia, 2006, 16 min./

Panel on power, politics and sexuality

Anti Trafficking Center from Belgrade is showing a film “V-DAY: UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS”) and recording of last year’s performance Vagina’s Monologues, which was performed within a V-Day celebration, in Belgrade, on Thursday, February 15^th, REX ( Jevrejska str. 16)

Extraordinarily empowering and heartbreakingly funny, the Sundance favorite V-DAY: UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS chronicles how Eve Ensler's hit Broadway solo show The Vagina Monologues grew into V-Day, an international grassroots movement to stop violence against women and girls. The first of its kind, The Vagina Monologues has been widely recognized as "a celebration of women's sexuality and a condemnation of its violation" (The New York Times) and praised as "frank, humorous and moving" (Chicago Tribune). Over eight hundred cities around the world have participated in V-Day by staging benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues. From locales as diverse as New York, the Phillippines and Kenya, director Abby Epstein's UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS features emotionally charged interviews and readings by everyday and celebrity women (including Rosie Perez, Salma Hayek, Rosario Dawson, Jane Fonda and LisaGay Hamilton), all of whom courageously reveal their intimate experiences and bond together to break the silence that surrounds abuse. More than just a group testimonial, UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS is a moving celebration of community awareness that leaves us with the hope that change can happen.

At the panel after the projection, besides the „Vagina Monologues“ performance director Jelena Bogavac, actress Danica Maksimovic and other performance actresess, as well as other eminent public people would talk.

Why Vagina Monologues?

The author says that, at the beginning of performing of „Vagina Monologues“ each time, every place in the earth, women have approached to her after the performance. First she was delighted, thinking that she will hear inspiring and beautiful stories on the female part of the world, on female understanding of sexuality, relation towards their own bodies... There were some alike but mostly, women taled her how they had been beaten, raped, survived incest, and changed for good with the experience. Many of those women for the first time in their lives found strenght to speak on this.

And this is where the answer lies on a question how the performance that should celebrate female sexuality, body and life, grew to be a story on violence, shame, guilt and suffer. Millions of women around the world are becoming aware of their bodies, start thinking on their bodies just through violence, living it or living in it. The theatre performance empowered women to talk on their own experiences of violence and abuse, to overcome shame, feeling that this is happening only to them and that somehow guilt is theirs.

Violence against women is deeply embodied in society we live in. It shows in different ways – through underestimating almost all that women do, insult and humiliation, making fun rituals, economic exploitation and exhausting women resources, fear and disgust over female physiological needs, viewing female body and female sexuality as something dirty and dangerous, through suppressing female body and sexuality into the silence.

WELCOME TO REX!

"THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES" IN BELGRADE

The preparations for the unique performance of "The Vagina Monologues" in Belgrade, at the Yugoslav Drama Theater (YDT), Saturday, April 22nd are almost finished.

As it is already well known, the director of this famous Eve Ensler's play will be Jelena Bogavac, and the top cast that will perform includes such big names as:

Mirjana Karanovic
Danica Maksimovic
Ana Sofrenovic
Anita Mancic
Natasa Markovic
Danijela Vranjes
Jelena Ilic
Vladislava Djordjevic
Hristina Popovic
Anita Matic, Croatia
and many others

Special guests from abroad:

Beatriz Luengo - popular Spanish actress ( Lola from UN PASO ADELANTE - UPA DANCE )

Myleene Klass - famous English pianist ( ex - singer from pop grupe "Hear's say" )

We would like to inform all interested that tickets for the play "The Vagina Monologues" can be bought at the YDT ticket-office (phone: 011 3061 957, 644 447). The price of the ticket is 700.00 Serbian dinars (about 8 euros) and we strongly encourage you by purchasing tickets contribute to this benefit project.

He®story

· V-Day was born out of Eve Ensler’s award-winning play The Vagina Monologues. Based on intimate interviews with over 200 women of all ages and backgrounds, The Vagina Monologues transforms the shame and secrecy surrounding the female anatomy into a funny, sexy and moving experience.

As Eve toured the play hundreds of women told her their stories of violence and abuse. The experience had unlocked their voices. Something had to be done.

· V-Day was founded in 1998 - a vision, a spirit, a movement, a performance. Eve Ensler decided to organize benefit performances of her play. The first took place on Valentine’s Day (14 February) 1998 in New York City .

· V-Day performances celebrate and empower women whilst raising money for charities worldwide. Since 1998 V-Day has raised over € 20million for local, national and international charities that work to end violence against women. In 2004, 2,300 V-Day benefit performances took place in 1,100 cities and communities around the world.

· V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls.

· V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations.

· V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop worldwide violence against women and girls including rape, domestic violence, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sexual slavery.

· V-Day stages large-scale benefits and produces innovative gatherings, films, and programmes to educate and change social attitudes towards violence against women, including the documentary "Until the Violence Stops," community briefings with Amnesty International on the missing and murdered women of Juarez, Mexico; the December 2003 V-Day delegation trip to Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan; the Afghan Women’s Summit; the March 2004 delegation to India; the Stop Rape Contest and the Indian Country Project.

· Through V-Day campaigns, local volunteers and college students produce annual benefit performances of "The Vagina Monologues" to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within their own communities. In 2004, over 2,000 V-Day benefit events were presented by volunteer activists around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls.

· In 2004 over 70 performances took place in the raising approximately £140,000 for over 100 charities providing direct services for women and children and a special performance took place in London on International Woman's Day featuring politicians and peers. The first V-Day in the took place at the Old Vic Theatre in 1999. Since then the campaign has been growing and involving more people all over the . In addition, with the support of the European Commission (Daphne Programme), V-Day has now formed a network of European partners. The national coordinators for V-Day Europe are in , , and the

· Performance is just the beginning. In Africa, the Middle East, and Asia , V-Day commits ongoing support to build movements and anti-violence networks. Working with local organizations, V-Day provided hard-won funding that helped open the first shelters for women in Egypt and Iraq, sponsored annual workshops and three national campaigns in Afghanistan, convened the "Confronting Violence" conference of South Asian women leaders, and donated satellite-phones to Afghan women to keep lines of communication open and action plans moving forward.

· The V-Day movement is growing at a rapid pace throughout the world, in 76 countries from Europe to Asia, to Africa and the Caribbean . V-Day, a non-profit corporation, distributes funds to grassroots, national and international organizations and programs that work to stop violence against women and girls. Beginning Fall 2004, from an office in Cairo, V-Day will work in-depth to build networks ending violence against women and girls in Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.

· In its first year of incorporation (2001), V-Day was named one of Worth Magazine's "100 Best Charities." In seven years, the V-Day movement has raised over $25 million.

· The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina.

The Anti Trafficking Center -ATC is a feminist, non-governmental, non-profit organization which is trying to contribute, through its programs, to eradicating trafficking in human beings, with a special emphasis on the CAUSES of the problem of trafficking, such as gender-based violence, poverty, unemployment, and the lack of suitable opportunities

Why a V-Day Event in Belgrade ?!!?

To challenge and change the notion of borders / boundaries in the region.

To bring some “sparkle” into the often too demanding and tiresome work of the activists. V-Day Belgrade 2006 should bring together activism and art, memories and singing, vision and celebration of women’s bodies.It would aim to strengthen women’s solidarity and support and to send a strong political message: “UNTIL VIOLENCE STOPS”.

V-Day 2006 Spotlight - Comfort Women

Every year V-Day supports a group of Women suffering violence in order to raise media attention and funds to support them. Each year, 10% of all funds raised from V-Day performances go to this spotlight campaign. The 2005 V-Day spotlight campaign was Women of , Under Siege, and the 2006 Spotlight will be focusing on Comfort Women.

August 2005 marked the 60^th anniversary of the Second World War.However, for the many Japanese female civilians or "Comfort Women" forced to provide sexual services to the Japanese military, this memory is not buried in the past. In support of these women and their fight for an official apology and compensation from their government, V-Day has decided to make these "Comfort Women" the 2006 spotlight.

Given the 21^st Century's rapidly increasing armed conflict and the fact that these patterns of systematic rape and sexual violence continue today in places of armed conflict such as Sudan, Congo, and Iraq, the importance of recognising the human rights atrocity committed against these women during The Second World War is ofup most importance.
Seeking a solution to the 223 reported rapes by Japanese troops, he asked for comfort women to be sent for his soldiers in Shanghai, . The Japanese Army used comfort stations extensively until the war ended in the Pacific in 1945. At a typical comfort station, a soldier paid a fee, obtained a ticket and a condom, and was admitted to a woman's space, which might have been partioned with sheets.

A majority of the women who provided sex for Japanese soldiers were forcibly taken from their families, or were recruited deceptively. Sometimes family members were beaten or killed if they tried to rescue the women, most in their teens. Once the women arrived at the comfort station, they were forced to have sex, typically with 20 to 30 men a day. If they resisted, they were beaten or killed.

A majority of the 80,000 to 200,000 comfort women were from Korea , though others were recruited or kidnapped from China, the Philippines, Burma, and Indonesia. Some Japanese women who worked as prostitutes before the war also became comfort women.

For us-women it’s important to remember unforgettable suffering of women who were forced into the prostitution and sexual slavery during the WW II. It is indisputable that these women were forced, deceived, coerced and abducted to provide sexual services to the Japanese military ... [Japan] violated customary norms of international law concerning war crimes, crimes against humanity, slavery and the trafficking in women and children.

The Vagina Monologues are just the beginning - in 2007 ATC will organize big benefit performance of the “Necessary Targets”, also play by Eve Ensler, dedicated to women who were raped in war(s).

The performance of “The Vagina Monologues”in Belgrade enables women across regional borders to understand each other through the universal language of their bodies. It also reinforces the message of peace in this turbulent region.

“The Vagina Monologues” will perform in Belgrade in Yugoslav Drama Theater on April 22. 2006, at 8pm. www.jdp.co.yu

It is our sincere hope that in this manner we will support the development of inspired thinking and planning of culturally adequate means necessary for the change of plethora of various gender inequalities, so that women and girls would enjoy their right to life free of violence, exploitation, racism, sexism, discrimination, sexual harassment, and so that we can inspire our boys and men to think about patriarchy, power, imposed roles, male solidarity through violence, militarism, militarization and uniformity. We want to support an open discussion about female lifestyles, their advantages and disadvantages, to change the patriarchal expectations of girls, boys, women and men and develop different role models of female policies based on the principles of non-violence and antimilitarism. That will contribute to creating a safe space in which anti-patriarchal attitudes will be primarily asserted as equally valid in our society.

New borders/boundaries and new political circumstances are not barriers for women who dare.


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ATC Home Until the violence stops News Donours Gallery Promo materials Radio commercials TV commercials Press clipping Search Find		V-day celebration in Belgrade Thursday, February 15^th, REX ( Jevrejska str. 16) Showing “UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS“ film Director: Abby Epstein / SAD, 2003, 73 min./ + Theatrical performance VAGINA MONOLOGUES recording Director: Jelena Bogavac /Serbia, 2006, 16 min./ + Panel on power, politics and sexuality Anti Trafficking Center from Belgrade is showing a film “V-DAY: UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS”) and recording of last year’s performance Vagina’s Monologues, which was performed within a V-Day celebration, in Belgrade, on Thursday, February 15^th, REX ( Jevrejska str. 16) Extraordinarily empowering and heartbreakingly funny, the Sundance favorite V-DAY: UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS chronicles how Eve Ensler's hit Broadway solo show The Vagina Monologues grew into V-Day, an international grassroots movement to stop violence against women and girls. The first of its kind, The Vagina Monologues has been widely recognized as "a celebration of women's sexuality and a condemnation of its violation" (The New York Times) and praised as "frank, humorous and moving" (Chicago Tribune). Over eight hundred cities around the world have participated in V-Day by staging benefit performances of The Vagina Monologues. From locales as diverse as New York, the Phillippines and Kenya, director Abby Epstein's UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS features emotionally charged interviews and readings by everyday and celebrity women (including Rosie Perez, Salma Hayek, Rosario Dawson, Jane Fonda and LisaGay Hamilton), all of whom courageously reveal their intimate experiences and bond together to break the silence that surrounds abuse. More than just a group testimonial, UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS is a moving celebration of community awareness that leaves us with the hope that change can happen. At the panel after the projection, besides the „Vagina Monologues“ performance director Jelena Bogavac, actress Danica Maksimovic and other performance actresess, as well as other eminent public people would talk. *Why Vagina Monologues?* The author says that, at the beginning of performing of „Vagina Monologues“ each time, every place in the earth, women have approached to her after the performance. First she was delighted, thinking that she will hear inspiring and beautiful stories on the female part of the world, on female understanding of sexuality, relation towards their own bodies... There were some alike but mostly, women taled her how they had been beaten, raped, survived incest, and changed for good with the experience. Many of those women for the first time in their lives found strenght to speak on this. And this is where the answer lies on a question how the performance that should celebrate female sexuality, body and life, grew to be a story on violence, shame, guilt and suffer. Millions of women around the world are becoming aware of their bodies, start thinking on their bodies just through violence, living it or living in it. The theatre performance empowered women to talk on their own experiences of violence and abuse, to overcome shame, feeling that this is happening only to them and that somehow guilt is theirs. Violence against women is deeply embodied in society we live in. It shows in different ways – through underestimating almost all that women do, insult and humiliation, making fun rituals, economic exploitation and exhausting women resources, fear and disgust over female physiological needs, viewing female body and female sexuality as something dirty and dangerous, through suppressing female body and sexuality into the silence. WELCOME TO REX! "THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES" IN BELGRADE The preparations for the unique performance of "The Vagina Monologues" in Belgrade, at the Yugoslav Drama Theater (YDT), Saturday, April 22nd are almost finished. As it is already well known, the director of this famous Eve Ensler's play will be Jelena Bogavac, and the top cast that will perform includes such big names as: Mirjana Karanovic Danica Maksimovic Ana Sofrenovic Anita Mancic Natasa Markovic Danijela Vranjes Jelena Ilic Vladislava Djordjevic Hristina Popovic Anita Matic, Croatia and many others Special guests from abroad: Beatriz Luengo - popular Spanish actress ( Lola from UN PASO ADELANTE - UPA DANCE ) Myleene Klass - famous English pianist ( ex - singer from pop grupe "Hear's say" ) We would like to inform all interested that tickets for the play "The Vagina Monologues" can be bought at the YDT ticket-office (phone: 011 3061 957, 644 447). The price of the ticket is 700.00 Serbian dinars (about 8 euros) and we strongly encourage you by purchasing tickets contribute to this benefit project. He®story · V-Day was born out of Eve Ensler’s award-winning play The Vagina Monologues. Based on intimate interviews with over 200 women of all ages and backgrounds, The Vagina Monologues transforms the shame and secrecy surrounding the female anatomy into a funny, sexy and moving experience. As Eve toured the play hundreds of women told her their stories of violence and abuse. The experience had unlocked their voices. Something had to be done. · V-Day was founded in 1998 - a vision, a spirit, a movement, a performance. Eve Ensler decided to organize benefit performances of her play. The first took place on Valentine’s Day (14 February) 1998 in New York City . · V-Day performances celebrate and empower women whilst raising money for charities worldwide. Since 1998 V-Day has raised over € 20million for local, national and international charities that work to end violence against women. In 2004, 2,300 V-Day benefit performances took place in 1,100 cities and communities around the world. · V-Day is a global movement to end violence against women and girls. · V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness, raise money, and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence organizations. · V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to stop worldwide violence against women and girls including rape, domestic violence, incest, female genital mutilation (FGM), and sexual slavery. · V-Day stages large-scale benefits and produces innovative gatherings, films, and programmes to educate and change social attitudes towards violence against women, including the documentary "Until the Violence Stops," community briefings with Amnesty International on the missing and murdered women of Juarez, Mexico; the December 2003 V-Day delegation trip to Israel, Palestine, Egypt and Jordan; the Afghan Women’s Summit; the March 2004 delegation to India; the Stop Rape Contest and the Indian Country Project. · Through V-Day campaigns, local volunteers and college students produce annual benefit performances of "The Vagina Monologues" to raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups within their own communities. In 2004, over 2,000 V-Day benefit events were presented by volunteer activists around the world, educating millions of people about the reality of violence against women and girls. · In 2004 over 70 performances took place in the raising approximately £140,000 for over 100 charities providing direct services for women and children and a special performance took place in London on International Woman's Day featuring politicians and peers. The first V-Day in the took place at the Old Vic Theatre in 1999. Since then the campaign has been growing and involving more people all over the . In addition, with the support of the European Commission (Daphne Programme), V-Day has now formed a network of European partners. The national coordinators for V-Day Europe are in , , and the · Performance is just the beginning. In Africa, the Middle East, and Asia , V-Day commits ongoing support to build movements and anti-violence networks. Working with local organizations, V-Day provided hard-won funding that helped open the first shelters for women in Egypt and Iraq, sponsored annual workshops and three national campaigns in Afghanistan, convened the "Confronting Violence" conference of South Asian women leaders, and donated satellite-phones to Afghan women to keep lines of communication open and action plans moving forward. · The V-Day movement is growing at a rapid pace throughout the world, in 76 countries from Europe to Asia, to Africa and the Caribbean . V-Day, a non-profit corporation, distributes funds to grassroots, national and international organizations and programs that work to stop violence against women and girls. Beginning Fall 2004, from an office in Cairo, V-Day will work in-depth to build networks ending violence against women and girls in Egypt, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. · In its first year of incorporation (2001), V-Day was named one of Worth Magazine's "100 Best Charities." In seven years, the V-Day movement has raised over $25 million. · The 'V' in V-Day stands for Victory, Valentine and Vagina. The Anti Trafficking Center -ATC is a feminist, non-governmental, non-profit organization which is trying to contribute, through its programs, to eradicating trafficking in human beings, with a special emphasis on the CAUSES of the problem of trafficking, such as gender-based violence, poverty, unemployment, and the lack of suitable opportunities Why a V-Day Event in Belgrade ?!!? *To challenge and change the notion of borders / boundaries in the region.* To bring some “sparkle” into the often too demanding and tiresome work of the activists. V-Day Belgrade 2006 should bring together activism and art, memories and singing, vision and celebration of women’s bodies.It would aim to strengthen women’s solidarity and support and to send a strong political message: “UNTIL VIOLENCE STOPS”. V-Day 2006 Spotlight - Comfort Women Every year V-Day supports a group of Women suffering violence in order to raise media attention and funds to support them. Each year, 10% of all funds raised from V-Day performances go to this spotlight campaign. The 2005 V-Day spotlight campaign was Women of , Under Siege, and the 2006 Spotlight will be focusing on Comfort Women. August 2005 marked the 60^th anniversary of the Second World War.However, for the many Japanese female civilians or "Comfort Women" forced to provide sexual services to the Japanese military, this memory is not buried in the past. In support of these women and their fight for an official apology and compensation from their government, V-Day has decided to make these "Comfort Women" the 2006 spotlight. Given the 21^st Century's rapidly increasing armed conflict and the fact that these patterns of systematic rape and sexual violence continue today in places of armed conflict such as Sudan, Congo, and Iraq, the importance of recognising the human rights atrocity committed against these women during The Second World War is ofup most importance. Seeking a solution to the 223 reported rapes by Japanese troops, he asked for comfort women to be sent for his soldiers in Shanghai, . The Japanese Army used comfort stations extensively until the war ended in the Pacific in 1945. At a typical comfort station, a soldier paid a fee, obtained a ticket and a condom, and was admitted to a woman's space, which might have been partioned with sheets. A majority of the women who provided sex for Japanese soldiers were forcibly taken from their families, or were recruited deceptively. Sometimes family members were beaten or killed if they tried to rescue the women, most in their teens. Once the women arrived at the comfort station, they were forced to have sex, typically with 20 to 30 men a day. If they resisted, they were beaten or killed. A majority of the 80,000 to 200,000 comfort women were from Korea , though others were recruited or kidnapped from China, the Philippines, Burma, and Indonesia. Some Japanese women who worked as prostitutes before the war also became comfort women. For us-women it’s important to remember unforgettable suffering of women who were forced into the prostitution and sexual slavery during the WW II. It is indisputable that these women were forced, deceived, coerced and abducted to provide sexual services to the Japanese military ... [Japan] violated customary norms of international law concerning war crimes, crimes against humanity, slavery and the trafficking in women and children. The Vagina Monologues are just the beginning - in 2007 ATC will organize big benefit performance of the “Necessary Targets”, also play by Eve Ensler, dedicated to women who were raped in war(s). The performance of “The Vagina Monologues”in Belgrade enables women across regional borders to understand each other through the universal language of their bodies. It also reinforces the message of peace in this turbulent region. “The Vagina Monologues” will perform in Belgrade in Yugoslav Drama Theater on April 22. 2006, at 8pm. www.jdp.co.yu It is our sincere hope that in this manner we will support the development of inspired thinking and planning of culturally adequate means necessary for the change of plethora of various gender inequalities, so that women and girls would enjoy their right to life free of violence, exploitation, racism, sexism, discrimination, sexual harassment, and so that we can inspire our boys and men to think about patriarchy, power, imposed roles, male solidarity through violence, militarism, militarization and uniformity. We want to support an open discussion about female lifestyles, their advantages and disadvantages, to change the patriarchal expectations of girls, boys, women and men and develop different role models of female policies based on the principles of non-violence and antimilitarism. That will contribute to creating a safe space in which anti-patriarchal attitudes will be primarily asserted as equally valid in our society. *New borders/boundaries and new political circumstances are not barriers for women who dare.*
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