Si le vagin pouvait parler...

[Guysanto]

LeNouvelliste.com

Elles en ont parlé. Haut et fort. Le sexe de la femme en surface comme en profondeur... et avec tous ses petits surnoms pudiques, Magalie Comeau Denis et Paula Péan ont, pendant une cinquantaine de minutes, monologué autour du vagin. Une thérapie pour libérer l'esprit et l'âme des interdits. C'était ce lundi 2 avril 2007 au local de la Fondasyon konesans ak Libète (Fokal) dans « Les monologues du vagin » de Eve Ensler.

« Les monologues du vagin » sont issus d'une série d'entretiens (plus de deux cents), avec des femmes qui ont confié à l'auteur leurs joies leurs angoisses, leurs sensations, leurs traumatismes, leurs aspirations... La révolution sexuelle est vieille de plus de 30 ans, cependant le mot "vagin" reste encore un mot tabou, honteux, ou tout au moins "embarrassant", confie un critique. Dans ces monologues, les interrogations secrètes sur le « vagin » enfermées dans les esprits sont gueulées sur scène. Certains spectateurs paraissent choqués, d'autres se sentent amusés d'entendre autant de dires « interdits » sur le sexe de la femme. L'oeuvre d'Eve Ensler, une introspection, une libération, une thérapie sur la plus passionnante partie du corps de la femme.

Quand tombent les masques

Les voiles tombent. Les tabous et l'indécente pudeur par rapport au sexe aussi. Bas les candeurs. Bas les gênes. Les masques s'en lèvent. L'amende, que dis-je, le vagin, peut être un sujet de conversation. Aussi bien en privé qu'en public. C'est ce qu'ose proposer la poétesse, comédienne, scénariste et militante féministe américaine, Eve Ensler à travers « Les monologues du vagin ». Interprété par l'ex-ministre de la Culture et de la Communication, Magalie Comeau Denis, et Paula Péan sous une mise en scène de Michèle Lemoine, « Les monologues du vagin » ont fait sourciller, rire ou tout simplement le bonheur d'un beau public composé d'une centaine de femmes et d'hommes à la salle Unesco de la Fokal à la veille de la journée nationale de la femme.

Des femmes opinent sur « Les monologue du vagin »

« On ne pense pas assez souvent à parler "vagin" en sortant de son travail... et pourtant ! Ça fait un bien fou ! Surtout quand les actrices sont douées, que le texte est bon et que la connivence avec la salle fonctionne à ce point », opine une femme de 30 ans ayant assisté à une représentation de « Les monologue du vagin ».

« Les monologue du vagin », portés par une nouvelle distribution, font toujours ses petits effets. Parfois sérieux, souvent très drôle, jamais vulgaire, ce texte fait passer un bon moment : extrêmement intime, il ne met jamais mal à l'aise », poursuit-elle.

La finesse du ton, les regards et sourires complices des actrices font que cette pièce reste toujours pudique... même si elle va "au fond des choses", sans mauvais jeu de mots !

Un bon moment à passer entre copines, ou avec son amoureux... qui, vous le constaterez sans doute, ne rit pas forcément au même moment que vous !

Démystification du vagin

« Les monologues du vagin » ont pour qualité première la démystification du sexe de la femme, le vagin. C'est un discours amusant sur la façon d'appréhender l'anatomie et les plaisirs féminins.

« Les monologues du vagin » provoquent le fou rire grâce au ton naturel des entretiens et à la fraîcheur des interprètes, on s'y émeut énormément lorsque les sujets de viols et d'excision y sont abordés. La mise en scène est sobre mais efficace, et les 90 minutes semblent s'écouler trop vite. Bien que la représentation à la Fokal lundi dernier n'a duré que 50 minutes avec l'amputation du dernier acte sur l'accouchement.

Les deux interprètes (Magalie et Paula) ont chacune apporté leur touche personnelle. Délibération de l'une jointe aux sens super-naturels de l'autre ont fort ajouté au charme de ces entretiens.

Les spectatrices sont ravies, les quelques spectateurs le semblent aussi, bien que le spectacle eut la réputation d'un spectacle féministe.... En bref, chacun ressort avec un « petit quelque chose en plus », fait remarquer un spectateur.

Si le vagin pouvait parler...

« Que dirait votre vagin s'il pouvait parler? », les marques d'étonnement de la plupart des spectateurs et spectatrices étaient visibles, quand Magalie a lancé cette question. Admettez qu'il y a de quoi être étonnée par une telle question...qui peut même inquiéter aussi. Mais cette inquiétude est passagère. Car, une fois entrée dans le jeu des actrices, très vite, l'inquiétude s'estompe pour faire place à l'émotion...

Les témoignages de femmes recueillis par Eve Ensler y sont pour beaucoup.... Mais c'est de la mise en scène que provient cette intensité épluchée et du jeu naturel des deux comédiennes sur scène. Deux femmes d'une même génération qui se parlent et nous parlent de toutes ces femmes, de leurs corps, de leurs expériences, de leurs histoires, de leurs souffrances, de leurs rêves, de leurs plaisirs...

« Dans la salle, le silence et l'attention des spectatrices et des quelques spectateurs, presque palpables au début, ont laissé la place aux rires, aux fous rires, aux larmes parfois... », indique une spectatrice.
« Et puis la fin arrive trop vite, trop tôt...Et je me dis que ces moments forts, intimes, intenses, durs aussi ont résonné...Je ne suis plus tout à fait la même.... Et finalement que dirait mon vagin s'il pouvait parler? », se demande-t-elle.

En présence de l'auteur, Eve Ensler, cette représentation à la Fokal de les « Les monologue du vagin », traduits aujourd'hui en plus de 40 langues, est une initiative du ministère à la Condition féminine et aux Droits de la femme. Ceci pour marquer toute une série d'activités autour de la journée nationales des femmes et pour célébrer l'intégration d'Haïti au mouvement « V-Day ».

Gaspard Dorélien
gasparddorelien@lenouvelliste.com

[Guysanto]

Recently, I had the pleasure and great privilege to see a Haitian community adaptation of the Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The presentation was a smahing success.

Congratulations to DWA FANM, the Haitian Women's Rights organization which thought of bringing this local adaptation to our community and cooperated fully with Eve Ensler to make it real and relevant to a Haitian audience. That presentation was organized as a benefit to DWA FANM and I urge everyone to consider donating to that organization for the great work they have done in the past several years to promote the rights of abused women and girls in Haitian society and the New York based Haitian-American community in particular. To find out more, please go to www.dwafanm.org

The play itself was superbly acted with a distinguished cast of professional women, Haitian and non-Haitian. Among them was Edwidge Danticat in a particularly dramatic reading, relating events in Kosovo (the play covers the plight of women the world over). The most memorable moment of the evening though belonged to Nancy Herard, an accomplished artist, who managed to express clearly an extraordinarily funny ~O~ list of orgasms from women of every nationality, ethnicity or religion. Among them were the Jewish woman, the Irish woman, the White Anglo Saxon Protestant woman, and of course... the Haitian woman (Jezi-Mari-Jozef!!!) In this space, I certainly cannot do Nancy Herard justice. You simply had to be there. Her performance left the audience in tears literally, laughing hysterically.

The theme of the performance varied greatly in content from the casual to the hilarious to the mysterious and the deeply tragic. Incredibly, all handled in good taste, in spite of the obviously provocative nature of the subject matter. The provocation however was pointedly directed at our centuries-old acceptance of generalized violence against women and girls, seemingly everywhere in the world. Eve Ensler's play has a unique purpose: STOP THE VIOLENCE. And she truly thinks that it is possible to do just that. While I am much less of an optimistic nature about human nature, I do want to give in to her dream, to do my part and tell my friends, my neighbors, my compatriots, and every man who has ever thought of doing harm to a woman: IT IS INDEED TIME TO STOP THE VIOLENCE. Women and girls have been the disproportionate victims of gender violence, at the hands of men, whether they are situated as restaveks or government ministers, as battered girlfriends and wives or just the ladies next door, as young girls deserving society's full protection or professional women in a position to make a difference.

Sure, there are other types of violence against humanity and they should all be stopped, but human violence is always inter-related and we can make the greatest difference in areas that are under our direct control. Let each one of us internalize that lesson in our own relationship with the other sex.

[Guysanto]

http://www.vday.org/contents/vday/vmoments/070420

I write to you as I am leaving Port Au Prince, Haiti. I am moved, inspired, in deep sorrow, in outrage. I am filled with a vastness of contradictions that explode the heart and bend the mind. Beauty in the mountains, the sky, the earth, the stars, the air, the jasmine, the moon. Rhythms and music - Boukman Eksperyans, you can feel the entire world pulse through your body. Extreme poverty so devastating it is a serious form of violence. People living on as little as a dollar a day, living in squalor, in terror, in insane deprivation. Poverty and humiliation and rage creating gangs and shootings and kidnappings and of course women's bodies are the battleground on which this war is fought.

One woman told a story of how one of her daughters was shot in the leg and died. (There is little to no medical support for the poor) then her husband was murdered. Then they came and gang raped her 14-year-old daughter and she tried to run away to a Protestant church for help, but they wouldn't let her stay cause she was Catholic. She couldn't go home, but had to get a job to feed her kids. She had no one to help her. She needed to wash and clean houses, but there was no one to take care of her kids. Her raped daughter had almost lost her mind and needed her attention. Her daughter couldn’t tell her who raped her cause she was too terrified they would come back and kill her.

This is a terrible story, but all too common in the slums. Seven-year-olds are raped by three men, people’s houses are set on fire in the middle of the night, children kidnapped and sold. Myriam Merlet, the Chief of Staff of the Ministry for Women said, "That since the 1991 coup d'etat, war taught a country to rape. Before there was rape of course, but it was not a common practice. Now when a man wants to rape, he rapes. It was used as weapon of war - the military institutionalized it and now when a robber gets into your house, he rapes you.” She said, "What is different about Haiti than other countries is that fifty percent of the women who are raped in the country are not raped in their house but they are raped by a stranger."

The situation is grim in Haiti. But then there are the women working with their lives for change. These women are fierce and beautiful and devoted and passionate. They inspired me to be bigger, bolder, more devoted, to believe deeper, to keep going.

We were hosted and treated with care and kindness by the Minister of Women's Affairs and Rights, Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue, and her extraordinary team, Myriam Merlet and Ann Valerie Timothee Milfort. It is a wonder to see Feminist activist women in power. There were press conferences, interviews, dancing under the moon, fruit punch, a siren armed motorcade that took us everywhere, a women's march in the hot Haitian sun through the streets of Cap Haitian, chanting, dancing, wild passion, young and old, and there was Elvire Eugène, one of the great women activists of the world and her group, AFASDA, a Cap Haitian based, solely volunteer organization that networks and raises awareness about violence facing women.

We visited a hospital where we discovered there is not even a camera to take pictures of corpses for autopsies. There are no procedures to seek or secure evidence for women who are raped. There is no ambulance or car or doctor to receive the dead. The woman who runs this unit, the director of the Forensic Institute, Marie Claude Jasmin said that coming to work is” like dancing folklore.”

There was no support, no resources. Everywhere we went in Haiti women were inventing something out of nothing. A common theme was women saying they couldn't afford to think about what's going on, they couldn't let themselves get depressed. They simply had to keep going. There were three sold out performances of The Vagina Monologues in Port Au Prince in French and Creole. One performance in Cap Haitian was in a Catholic girls school where 500 people showed up on a hot steamy night. Many men stood at the end promising to stop the violence. There were meetings with local women's groups and testimonies from women from Grand Ravine and Cité Soleil who gathered in Port Au Prince on April 3, National Haitian Women's Movement Day.

One of the main problems in Haiti is the lack of justice, the failure of law, the lack of accountability. We visited the women's prison - the only one in Haiti, built for 78 women, it now holds nearly 400. Women are crammed into small cells, sometimes holding up to 22 women in a single cell. Many of the women I spoke to have been there 1- 3 years and have never been charged. They get infections in their vaginas from the dirty water. They rarely have a visitor. Only a few had lawyers. Most have no idea when their case will be processed. There was a gas leak in one of the cells and the women there were feeling very ill. Many of the women were young - lots of teenagers. I interviewed one woman, Erina Dorjilus who was there because she had stabbed her husband. He had been violently beating her, kicking her, tying her up with steel strips. She showed us scars all over her body. The last time he almost murdered her and she grabbed a knife and stabbed him. She brought herself to the police. She had been in the prison for nine months and did not know if her husband was alive or dead. She had never been charged and she had not seen her children as they had no idea where she was. It was Kafkaesque. The disappearance of people - kidnappings, arrests, murders, is a theme. The people of Haiti have been forgotten and made invisible by the world.

We made this trip to see how V-Day could join forces with the women of Haiti. When we asked what they most needed, they were totally clear. They wanted a Safe House in Port Au Prince. One out of every three woman is raped or beaten in Haiti. There is nowhere for women to escape. THE GOOD NEWS, THE MIRACULOUS NEWS IS THAT WE ARE NOW IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE MINISTRY OF WOMEN AND HAVE AGREED TO HELP THEM OPEN THE FIRST V-DAY SAFE HOUSE FOR WOMEN IN HAITI. Our new safe house will be a place of refuge and more importantly will be a place where women who have been abused get treated for trauma and trained for jobs. Marie-Laurence had already scouted ten houses before we left. The excitement level was that high.

We hope the house will open very soon and we would so love any support that you can give us. We have committed to supporting the house for three years with the hope that at the end of this time the Haitian government will take on the house as its own. There are already plans for a huge V-Day next year in Port Au Prince.

The trip simply ripped my heart open. We are all responsible for what happens to the people of Haiti. If I have learned anything in these years, it is that we are intrinsically connected. I urge each of you, to read about Haiti, to think about Haiti, to get active in groups that are working to change the situation there, to give generously to our new Safe House. V-Day stands with the women of Haiti today and will remain with the women of Haiti until this terrible violence ends and each Haitian woman is free and safe.

Eve Ensler