"Silence Is Violence" at the College of Staten Island

Dear Diary,

What a fun feminist mid-week adventure!  After a train, a ferry, a cab, and a lot of Earl Grey tea, we arrived at the College of Staten Island!  Oh man, is that campus beautiful.  Fall foliage is finally happening!!! 

At 10 am we led our classic poster making workshop with a group of theatre students.  These young thinkers came up with a ton of creative themes for what "pisses them off".  Go figure!  Youth having opinions -- my favorite!  After a lot of brainstorming and collaboration, they came up with some gripping posters addressing issues such as violence against women, animal abuse, corrupt cops, the media's obsession with Ebola, "sexy" Halloween costumes, and a topic that we really loveeeee, FEMINISM!  These students were super smart!  After this workshop, we knew were in for a great audience for our evening show.

On our break, we discovered many things about the College of Staten Island.  For example, there are large water fountains decorating the campus that apparently light up with different colors.  Students are charged 10 cents for cutlery if it's being used for an item not purchased on campus -- what?!  And they really like their hand sanitizer dispensers.  Gotta keep those students healthy!

After sorting out a few sound cues, tech for the show went very smoothly.  It seemed like it was the student volunteer's very first time on stage!  Yay for courage Crystal!!!  After we finished tech, we were treated like stars and enjoyed a delicious dinner in the green room.  Then, we dolled ourselves up, donned our guerrilla masks and prepared to PERFORM.  And, WHAT a performance!  The audience was totally digging it from the get go! They especially loved the "Reclaiming Lesbian, Vagina, Feminist" song and the free bananas!  Most importantly, I felt like we were able to really reach them with our message -- that raising awareness about feminism and violence against women is imperative but, that it can be done in a funny and informative way. 

Riding the ferry back to our home island, we were tuckered out but all smiles.  Thanks for a wonderful day, College of Staten Island!  Keep rocking out and speaking up!  

Love,

Azu(cena) Villaflor