ENSLER

Several years ago, Nancy Rafi was sitting with friends in the audience for The Vagina Monologues in Boston, when the playwright and actor Eve Ensler began telling the stories of Bosnian women who had been corralled into camps and raped by Serb soldiers and paramilitaries.

A woman in the audience suddenly fainted. The house lights came up. As someone tended to the overcome audience member, Ensler explained that the woman’s reaction wasn’t unusual. The play weaves the stories of women from around the world who’ve suffered from rape, genital mutilation, sexual slavery and incest. Hearing those stories triggers pain and sorrow, and for some in the audience, terrible memories and understanding. Ensler said that was the reason for her performances.

“I was [thinking], wow, this is big,” Rafi remembered, “because I’m a survivor of sexual assault, and I realized that this would be a safe place for other people to talk about it.”

That moment eventually led to a friendship with Ensler and Rafi’s involvement with The Vagina Monologues and the organization of the first “V-Day” women’s festival, held in New York City in 2006. The festival featured events with messages about ending violence against women and girls. When Ensler suggested to organizers that they bring the festival to their own cities, Rafi didn’t hesitate.

This Friday begins the nine-day V-Day festival in Providence, which joins Paris and Los Angeles as the three cities chosen to pilot the festival this year. “Until the Violence STOPS: Providence” opens with a photo exhibit at the HIVE gallery in Pawtucket and concludes March 8 with a performance of The Vagina Monologues at the Providence Biltmore. The events include a poetry slam, burlesque show, classes in sexuality and self-defense, and discussion panels.

Ensler will speak about the V-Day movement on March 2 at the Beneficent Congregational Church, in Providence — the same church that offered to let Providence College students host a performance of The Vagina Monologues in 2006 and 2007 after the play was banned from the campus. Three of Ensler’s other plays — Necessary Targets, Any One of Us, and A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and A Prayer — are also being performed.

The ticket sales to the events will raise money for local and outside organizations that are working to end violence against women and girls, such as the Rhode Island Crisis Assistance Center, the YWCA of Northern Rhode Island, Day One, the Sojourner House, the Katrina Warriors in New Orleans and the Panzai Hospital in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“I think it’s very positive. It’s going to raise awareness,” said Christine Pellegri, the director of development at Day One, which helps victims of sexual assault and domestic violence.

Day One will benefit from ticket sales to Saturday’s two shows, V is for Variety: A Bellaminx Burly-Q Revue, at The Carriage House Theatre, in Providence.

About 1 in 8 women in Rhode Island has been sexually assaulted during her lifetime, according to Day One. In Providence, the number of reported rapes dropped last year to 34, from 45 in 2006, according to crime statistics reported by the Providence police. Numbers are deceiving, as experts in the field of investigating sexual assaults say that rapes are underreported by victims.

The goal of the festival is to raise awareness about violence — and to motivate everyone to take action against it, Rafi said. Especially if it means giving the victims of violence a voice.

“Anytime you can open that door for women, it opens the doors for growth and change,” Rafi said.

amilkovi@projo.com