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MEDILL NEWS SERVICE

The play used to raise shockwaves - and now raises money for the annual V-Day campaign to end violence against women and children.

Chicago has lined up a litany of "V-Day" performances to celebrate the 10th anniversary of women's rights activist Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.

V-Day productions kick off on Valentine's Day at Metropolis Coffee, 1039 W. Granville Ave., Chicago, and include V-Day Chicago 2008 on March 6 and 7 in Wicker Park.

For the "V to the 10th" of what has become a global grassroots movement for women, Ensler included a new play, A Memory, a Monologue, a Rant and a Prayer and the 2004 documentary "Until the Violence Stops."

It's up to local production directors to include the optional additional material.

The V-Day Chicago 2008 performance won't include all those components, but performers are adding another interpretive monologue with music. Many Chicago venues are celebrating V-Day from Valentines Day until the end of March.

"[V-Day] is about celebrating women and what makes us the wonders that we are," said Hollis Rabin, who is directing and organizing V-Day Chicago 2008. "It's about standing up for ourselves and our sisters, and having our voices heard."

Each year, the thousands of V-Day performances in public auditoriums and on college campuses focus on a particular cause, which will benefit the Katrina Warriors Network this year. Ten percent of profits from each performance all over the world go to one spotlight fund.

Katrina Warriors Network is a coalition of organization that helps women in New Orleans and the Gulf. The rest of the profits from V-Day Chicago 2008 will go to the Chicago Abused Women's Coalition.

The spotlight V to the Tenth celebration in the New Orleans Superdome on April 12 will feature V-Day activists from Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Celebrity speakers include Chicago's Oprah Winfrey.

V-Day's official holiday is Valentine's Day, a day to express love to a special someone. V-Day reclaimed the holiday because women rarely "make a point" to love themselves, Rabin said.

"[The day is] to love what makes us women and stand up and work to end the violence," she said. "And we won't stop until we have claimed a victory over it."

------------------ RELATED LINKS ------------------ ------ Title: V to the 10th Web site URL: http://v10.vday.org/ ------ ------ Title: V-Day's Web site URL: http://www.vday.org/main.html ------ ------------------ Sidebar(s) ------------------ ------ Headline: V-Day Performances Body:

V-Day Chicago 2008 Performances of The Vagina Monologues:

Thursday, March 6 at 7 p.m., and Friday, March 7 at 7 p.m, at the Pulaski Park District Auditorium, 1419 W. Blackhawk St, Chicago.

Get Tickets: e-mail vdaychicago2008@gmail.com to reserve tickets. Cash only.

Other Chicago Community Performances:

Feb. 14, 6 p.m., Metropolis Coffee, 1039 W. Granville Ave., Chicago,

March 21 and 22, 8 p.m. - LaCosta Theater, 3931 N. Elston Ave. 2nd floor, Chicago

March 26, 7 p.m. - Center on Halsted, 3656 N Halsted St., Chicago
March 28 and 29, 7:30 p.m. - Hinsdale Community House-Kettering Hall, 415 W. Eighth St., Hinsdale
Scheduled College Performances:

Feb. 15, 7 p.m. and Feb. 16, 1:30 p.m. - McCormick Theological Seminary, Common Room, 5460 S. University Ave., Chicago

Feb. 15 and 16, 7 p.m. - Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Thorne Auditorium, 375 E. Chicago Ave., Chicago

Feb. 16 and 17, 8 p.m. - DePaul University, Student Center, 2250 N Sheffield Ave., MPR Room 120, Chicago

The controversy surrounding immigration has never gone away.

Whether it’s Middle Eastern refugees in Europe or Mexican immigrants in the United States, they’ve all faced similar hardships and prejudice. The Migration of the Negro, an epic series of 60 paintings by Jacob Lawrence, reminds us of the perpetual nature of these struggles.

“It’s a classic story that has universal themes,” says Peter Nesbett, co-director of a new Field Museum exhibit on The Migration that begins this Friday. “[The paintings have] great relevance to contemporary life - the displacement of people all over the world, in search of new homelands, in search of better opportunities…escaping poverty [and] escaping poor social conditions.”

Arguably the most celebrated African-American artist of his time, Lawrence began work on The Migration in 1940, and it received widespread acclaim when the Downtown Gallery in New York exhibited it in November 1941.

“Anyone from any generation or age can come into this work,” says Shelly Bancroft, who also co-directed the Field Museum’s exhibit. Bancroft put on a similar exhibition with Nesbett at their not-for-profit art gallery, Triple Candie in Harlem, and she says the paintings should be appreciated for their unique aesthetic as well.

“They’re very simple in composition, and Lawrence would just use the bare elements to create his paintings so that there’s no distraction," Bancroft says. "[You] can have a huge range of experiences from purely appreciating them visually, to appreciating the breadth of the journey and the sadness at times of the journey...”

In conjunction with the exhibit, the Field Museum plans to record family histories from its own staff and members in the spring, according to Alaka Wali, director of the Center for Cultural Understanding and Change at the Field Museum. “Everybody has a story about a journey,” says Wali, and she says members and staff will have an opportunity to document theirs for posterity.

The exhibit also presents an opportunity to see Lawrence’s work in its entirety. Even though he intended The Migration paintings to be shown as a whole, the series did not remain together long, with different halves sold to the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. The originals have rarely been displayed together since, and though the Field Museum’s exhibit consists of reproductions, Nesbett says they remain a complete and fairly accurate presentation close to Lawrence’s original vision.

The exhibit will be open through July 6 while general admission to the Field Museum, as well as The Migration exhibit, will be free in February.