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Arts & Entertainment Arts & Entertainment Aboriginal take on Vagina Monologues
Arts & Entertainment Arts & Entertainment Aboriginal take on Vagina Monologues
| Aboriginal take on Vagina Monologues |
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| Written by Hannah Lawrie |
| Friday, 16 April 2010 12:42 |
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To a packed audience at the Leacock Theatre in Mount Royal University, Autumn EagleSpeaker produced her rendition of the Vagina Monologues. Presented by the Calgary Aboriginal Women’s Group, EagleSpeaker, with a cast of 23 aboriginal women, hoped to bring to light a topic that is rarely talked about. “Sexuality is a taboo subject in native culture,” said EagleSpeaker, 32. “(It) has a lot to do with the residential school area.” In producing the Vagina Monologues, she said she hoped to create a platform for which sex was a topic of open discussion. “By performing the Vagina Monologues in our own way, we are reclaiming our own sexuality,” EagleSpeaker said. Within the play, she dedicated a monologue to the issues of violence on aboriginal women. 
Autumn EagleSpeaker produced an aboriginal rendition of the Vagina Monologues.
Photo: Hannah Lawrie/ Calgary Journal
The Vagina Monologues is a play originally written and produced by American playwright Eve Ensler. Each monologue of the play relates in some way to the vagina. Using the proceeds from the Vagina Monologues, Ensler created V-Day, a non-profit group that raises funds for organizations aimed at stopping violence against women. Wilma Pelly, 73, was among the 23 aboriginal women who acted in the play at Mount Royal. A former T.V. actor with North of 60, she said she knows the play’s subject matter is a sensitive issue. “I know there are a lot of people out there who don’t believe in things like this because they grew up in proper upbringings,” Pelly said. “But I’m doing this for the women who have lost their lives under vicious circumstances.” The play comes at a time when the Harper government has pledged $10 million to address the issue of violence against aboriginal women. Our national statistics show that aboriginal women are eight times more likely than non-aboriginal women to die as a result from homicide. According to a 2004 Amnesty International study, aboriginal women experience sexual violence at five times the rate of non-aboriginal women. Pelly said she hopes the play brought awareness to the conditions of many aboriginal women. The federal government has yet to announce how the $10 million will be used, but to Sisters in Spirit, an advocacy group for aboriginal women’s research, has announced their federal funding has not been renewed. Since 2005, Sisters in Spirit have compiled a database of over 500 aboriginal women who have either gone missing or were murdered since the 1960s. The money raised from tickets for EagleSpeaker’s Vagina Monologues went to The Awo Taan Healing Lodge, a Calgary resource centre and shelter for aboriginal women and children in abusive situations and to V-Day. |
