UCR Newsroom

• A to Z Listing
• Campus Map
• Find People

UCR Today: New News, New Look. Go!

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) -- UC Riverside’s V-Day Campaign will present two performances of “The Vagina Monologues” to benefit the Riverside Area Rape Crisis Center and UC Riverside student groups. The first, which will include an American Sign Language interpreter, is scheduled for 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, at the University Lecture Hall. A Spanish language performance begins at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20, at Watkins 1000.

Tickets are $12 and can be purchased through the UCR Ticket Office, 787-4331. Parking is $5.

The V-Day Campaign is a collaborative effort supported by the Women’s Studies Dept., Chicano Student Programs, LGBT Resource Center, Housing, and the Women’s Resource Center. Other V-Day Campaign events include a January 29, 2004 screening of the film "Señorita Extraviada" — a documentary film on the unsolved murders of the women of Juarez, Mexico; and a Vagina Festival on February 11, 2004 at UCR Commons. Latinic Societas Unitas will present a workshop addressing violence against women on February 24, 2004.

Launched in 1998 as a way to help end violence against women, Eve Ensler’s play “Vagina Monologues” is a series of women speaking in passionate and graphic terms about their sexual experiences, their body image and their hopes and dreams as women. Last year’s V-Day performances at UC Riverside raised more than $7,000 to help end domestic violence, said Nancy Tubbs, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Center and one of the organizers of UC Riverside’s V-Day events.

“Since the beginning, the movement has encountered incredible women working to end violence against women and girls in their communities,” Tubbs said. “These women have often experienced violence personally or witnessed it within their communities and dedicated themselves toward ending such violence through effective, grassroots means. They have been the very heart of V-Day since it was conceived as a worldwide movement to empower and enable local activists to raise awareness and funds locally through V-Day benefit productions of "The Vagina Monologues."

This year, V-Day's 2004 events and campaigns will celebrate these women whom Founder/Artistic Director Eve Ensler has dubbed ‘Vagina Warriors.’ Each V-Day production will select and honor up to three Vagina Warriors from the local community. Nominations can be made through Feb. 2 through the UC Riverside Women’s Resource Center, 787-3337 or online at http://csw.ucr.edu/v-day/ . Alicia Arrizon, professor of women’s studies, is directing a cast of UCR students.

“In every community there are humble activists working every day, beat by beat, to undo suffering,” said playwright Eve Ensler. “They sit by hospital beds, pass new laws, chant taboo words, write proposals, beg for money, demonstrate and hold vigils in the streets. Every woman has a warrior inside waiting to be born. In order to guarantee a world without violence, in a time of danger and escalating madness, we urge them to come out.”

The University of California, Riverside (www.ucr.edu) is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment has exceeded 20,500 students. The campus will open a medical school in 2013 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion.

A broadcast studio with fiber cable to the AT&T Hollywood hub is available for live or taped interviews. UCR also has ISDN for radio interviews. To learn more, call (951) UCR-NEWS.