The Santa Fe cast of "I Am an Emotional Creature," a dramatic and powerful performance at the Lensic.
Santa Fe was one of several cities chosen nationwide to showcase readings from Eve Ensler’s new book “I Am an Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around the World.” The work had barely left the publisher’s warehouse in early February before it moved onto the list of The New York Times’ best-selling books.
Eve Ensler came to Santa Fe for the event at the Lensic featuring 42 young women from area high schools and colleges (Los Alamos, Espanola, Las Vegas and Santa Fe). The readings were so convincing, at times it seemed as if these were the actual young women portrayed in the work. Director Jocelyn Jansons brought out the best of both the book and the young women who stepped forward onto the stage and turned into a powerful collective force.
This wasn’t a self-congratulatory “girls will be girls, and aren’t they cute?” sort of event. It was a poetic and highly effective call to action, specifically intended to launch a revolution of "v-girls." It's a movement we'll be hearing about for some time. The book, and the reading based on it, explored the depths of social problems as well as solutions. It emphasized the need to celebrate as well as critique and touched on a broad range of subject matter ranging from first-time sex to overturning the present social order.
When it seemed as if nothing more could be said about the experience of girls and young women, Ensler took the material to a new level. This ranged from the power struggle in the Congo where girls and women have been taken hostage, to a Barbie Doll factory in China, to a Kenyan village where a young woman spoke of being a sex slave. The effect left one reeling from the explosion of high energy and feeling.
The area’s girls and young women demonstrated to a sold-out crowd that they have the awareness not only to celebrate their own youth, but to sensitively portray the stories and experiences of girls in very distant places. The focus was on liberating an energy, long suppressed, that’s spilling out all over the globe. It’s resulting in girls and women taking major leadership roles in their own communities and nations, a trend that that’s being referred to as the “emerging feminine” as a major force in evolutionary activism.
As the crowd left the Lensic on San Francisco Street, the sky was filled with snow which hit the ground and immediately melted. The fire of the performance, the bold energy and the intention behind it, had been so powerful, the snow couldn't stick to the ground.
Santa Fe was the last of staged productions around the U.S. before the work goes into commercial production, so this isn't the last we'll be hearing about v-girls and their many manifestations. The Santa Fe reading was a benefit for the Santa Fe Mountain Center, which has been in the business of empowering young people for several decades.
Next steps for v-girls in the Santa Fe area includes plans for reading circles where girls and young women concentrate on discussing “I Am an Emotional Creature.” More exposure of these issues in schools and communities is also planned in New Mexico in order to spread the model of “art and activism” that the “girl revolution” represents.
For information about an expanded v-girls program in Santa Fe, call 505-699-2539.
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