The 14th annual festival celebrating women in Whanganui, La Fiesta, leaps into action this Friday. The action-packed opening weekend kicks off with a very special launch event. In partnership with Magpie-Rachael Garland Studio, we bring you Love Letters, a group exhibition featuring more than 20 female artists. The show will bring you an eclectic compilation of pieces that centre around individual responses to the theme of speaking from the heart - unspoken words, love, language, communication, what the heart speaks, memories, relationships and more. We will also have some actual love letters to share. The exhibition will be open for viewing during the first week of the festival at the Magpie, 7a Victoria Avenue. It would be wonderful to see you on Friday from 5.30pm to launch a month of festival fun featuring more than 135 events.
Continuing with the love theme, La Fiesta once again celebrates One Billion Rising [OBR] this Valentine’s Day. This worldwide campaign marks its 10th anniversary this year, and we are proud to be involved. Founded by the formidable V (formerly known as Eve Ensler), OBR is an extension of her groundbreaking The Vagina Monologues, which offered the world a piece of art like nothing it had seen before. Based on dozens of interviews V conducted with women, the play addressed women’s sexuality and the social stigma surrounding rape and abuse, creating a new conversation about and with women. The Vagina Monologues ran off Broadway for five years in New York after its debut in 1994, then toured the US. Four years later on Valentine’s Day in 1998, V and a group of women from New York founded V-Day, with a mission that demands that violence against all women, girls and the planet must end.
In 2013, the world came together to strike, dance and rise to end violence against women (cisgender and transgender), gender-diverse people, girls and the planet, making One Billion Rising the biggest mass call to action to end violence against women in human history. It began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that one in three women on the planet will be beaten or raped during their lifetimes. With the world population at eight billion, this adds up to more than one billion women and girls.
“Every February, we rise – in countries across the world – to show our local communities and the world what one billion looks like and shine a light on the rampant impunity and injustice that survivors most often face. We rise through dance to express joy and community and celebrate the fact that we have not been defeated by this violence. We rise to show we are determined to create a new kind of consciousness – one where violence will be resisted until it is unthinkable.” [Quote sourced from What is one billion rising? - V-Day]
In conjunction with our Whanganui Violence Intervention Network whānau, we welcome you to join us as we rise for revolution on Valentine’s Day, February 14 in Majestic Square from 11am - 2pm. There will be opportunities for dancing as we commemorate the OBR signature tune Break the Chain and its associated choreography, which we will be performing each hour, on the hour. Feel free to join us for our final dance practice on Sunday, February 12 at 10.30am at the Women’s Network; all welcome. Speaking of dancing, the Royal New Zealand Ballet is also getting in on the act this Valentine’s Day with a children’s dance workshop. Adults have an opportunity the following day, on February 15 from 12.30pm, to step into the studio, learn dance steps from the current RNZB Tutus on Tour production and find a new happy place in a friendly, welcoming environment with their professional dance educators, all for the princely sum of $10. If you have never tried ballet before, or haven’t danced in decades, these are the classes for you. Book your spot via mynzballet.org.nz.
