Reclaiming the Power: From the V to the C-U-N-T

After seeing the preview of The Vagina Monologues last night, I  now have a pressing urge to talk about my vagina. That's the kind of effect this show has—an opening-up effect.

The only way in or out is through the giant Vagina.



One of the six directors, Michelle Umipeg
It is wonderful, miraculous, empowering to hear so many women speaking openly and honestly about their Vaginas. Viva La Vaginalution!
What do they call it where you're from?
Pam Schildknecht had me swimming in her flooded waters.
Maybe you just call it "down there" if you mention it at all.
Tracy Okubo wrote on the walls with chalk to illustrate her visit to "The Vagina Workshop."
How would you draw your Vagina?
 Okubo's performance was physical and emotional, quite captivating!

Sheela Sharma told me about her friend Bob. Every girl should meet her Bob, "Because He Liked To Look At It."
Amina Peterson, quietly commanding in "What if I Told You I Did Not Have a Vagina."

Some Vaginas are not happy with what the world has to offer them, not happy at all. 
Stacy Pulmano tells it like it is in "My Angry Vagina"

This Vagina, literally torn apart by violence, has two faces: surging anger and shattered innocence. "My Vagina Was My village": Malia Olena Baloyot & Sylvia Flores
"The Little Coochi Snorcher That Could" performed by Riel Uyehara. This was one of my very favorites of the night. Poetic, terrible, funny, and ultimately redemptive.



The five actors above represent, along with the dancer below, all the little girls who suffered because they were born without a Vagina.

C is for what? Cunt! Thanks to Bridget Gray for enunciating the assonance and consonance of those four letters with every nerve in her body, especially, I imagine, the over 8,000 sensory nerve endings in her clitoris. (I learned that last night ;)
A word is what you make of it—that's why women are "Reclaiming Cunt."

How would a six year old girl describe her Vagina?

"The Woman Who Lived to Make Vaginas Happy" gave a thorough and lengthy demonstration of just what that happiness can sound like.


"I Was There In The Room" she tells us, describing the birth of her grandchild.
Lori Kimata was there in real life, too, as she is coincidentally a midwife.
My mother was there in the room, too, when I gave birth two months ago to my daughter. I saw it all in a mirror! The miracle of life coming out of my very own Vagina and seen through the looking glass... Will I be there in the room someday when my daughter gives birth to a daughter? Vaginas coming out of Vaginas coming out of Vaginas like Russian dolls... 

Melissa Kenigton—nearly overcome with infectious emotion—speaks out for our suffering sisters around the world.

The entire ensemble of Vagina sisters!

4 directors: interesting dynamic here... :)

5 directors and the giant Vagina!
Terri Madden, Tony Pisculli, Michelle Poppler, Michelle Umipeg, Lola Love 
(6th director Katharine Rita is missing)
My actual review of the show will be in a forthcoming issue of the Honolulu Weekly. For now I'll just say how much I appreciate this production for its brave performers and dedicated creative team. braVo, and long loVe Vagina, or Cunt, as some prefer to say.

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