V-Day in Barcelona

This past February, Women’s March Barcelona put on a three-night performance of Eve Ensler’s production A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and a Prayer to celebrate V-Day—a global movement that calls attention to violence against women. This year’s performance included a collection of monologues, musical and dance acts performed in Catalan, Spanish, and English as well as sign-language interpretation and subtitles.

We chose V-Day because it stands up for women and against gendered violence and provides a platform, in this case through theater, that can touch people and arrive at people in different ways.—Cecilia Gomez-Engler

Thanks to the efforts of over 100 dedicated volunteers, Barcelona’s V-Day performance sold over 600 tickets and raised money for Tamaia and Mujeres Pa’lante, two local non-profit organizations. Tamaia provides therapeutic care for women who have suffered abuse while simultaneously raising awareness about gender violence. Mujeres Pa’lante works with immigrant women offering them a supportive space where they can overcome challenges such as trauma and provides them with legal advice, assistance in seeking employment and computer classes.

We sat down with director Severine Koppe and producer Cecilia Gomez-Engler to find out more about the intentions and creative process behind organizing this event.

What attracted you to the project? Why did you choose to put on a V-Day production specifically?

Severine: I’m a bit of an agoraphobic. So it’s very hard for me to go to a march or a demonstration where there are a lot of people. But I felt very compelled to fight for the cause and that [V-Day] was just the right fit. It was an opportunity to use the arts to deliver such a message. Doing it wasn’t just saying “I’m a feminist.” I was actually putting words into actions.

Cecilia: We chose V-Day because it stands up for women and against gendered violence and provides a platform, in this case through theater, that can touch people and arrive at people in different ways. It also allows people to participate, who don’t normally participate in theater at all. Many of the volunteers were victims of or family members of victims of sexual violence, domestic violence, in their own lives. And so for some of them, this was almost a therapeutic process that I’m sure continues to this day.

What was the thought process behind choosing the monologues? How did you adapt them to a Barcelona audience?

Cecilia: Choosing the monologues was actually quite difficult. We had to make some adaptations. A lot of that happened through language. Most of these stories are universal in some ways and so just by adapting them into Catalan or Spanish, we were able to access those cultures and parts of the population that otherwise wouldn’t be able to enjoy the piece. I think language does a lot. In the end, though, many stories of gender violence, wherever they take place, are universal. The truth is that rape is rape no matter where it happens and no matter who commits the crime. It’s still a violation of someone’s body and that’s something that many women, unfortunately, can relate to.

Severine: The intention was not to speak to only one community. It was about giving different perspectives so that the audience could connect with different parts of the stories that were produced. We all wanted to give visibility to the LGBTQ+ community. I find that the monologues don’t really have that in the way that they are written. Many people associate V-Day as being a women-only performance. But now, for the new collection [of monologues], anyone can participate.

This is your second year putting on V-Day. What’s different about this year’s performance and how does it compare to last year?

Severine: Last year we only had a month to put it together. In the first performance, we followed the [V-Day] guidelines a lot. It was a staged reading so it wasn’t quite the same thing. And this year we said we would act it out and go really full on. I suggested that we give each monologue its own director. Each director was left a lot of freedom to be creative and go with their gut. It was easier for each performer to be able to connect with one director.

Cecilia: I personally feel like you could see the extra hours and effort that we put in this year. We started in October so we had several more months of prep. We also had even more volunteers. This year we had a fundraising team and we had an awareness team. We actually put on a teatro foro on the final day which really explored domestic violence, not physical necessarily but more emotionally abusive, and how one deals with that. We were able to touch on more themes this year and in different ways.

What are your hopes and dreams for future V-Day productions?

Cecilia: I hope [V-Day] can continue in Barcelona and that it continues to touch people. My hope would be that we can share more personal and diverse stories going forward. And keep doing what is essentially a unique thing in this city: create a volunteer-driven piece organized and performed by a group of people that never receives a penny of it. 100% of the proceeds raised benefits the selected NGOs—which I think is very rare, not only in Barcelona, but in a lot of places.

Severine: Another volunteer told me that she thinks that V-Day was created so that women would get together and realize that they can do much more...we are already gathering thoughts and will soon launch a call to get more people around us.