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
