Heather Conn Blogs

Curious pedestrians stopped to watch. A man in a taxi stared out the back-seat window. A nearby sidewalk vendor with a kazoo and crazy red costume sold Valentine’s trinkets to passersby.

But as darkness descended last Thursday, thirteen women in downtown Vancouver, BC, Canada focused on slow, spontaneous movement, in silent unison. We were part of the global solidarity dance One Billion Rising, held on Valentine’s Day as a symbolic demand to end violence against women and girls. (The name of the event, created by Eve Ensler’s organization V Day, refers to the reality that one in three females on earth will be beaten or raped in her lifetime, which amounts to more than a billion women.)

While women in cities around the world gyrated, sang, and held flash mobs, our group, arranged in a line, clutched a long, rolled-up red cloth. We lay it on the ground in front of the old courthouse steps on Robson Street, now part of the Vancouver Art Gallery. This defined our space, as a symbolic boundary, while a supportive male friend watched our belongings.

With informal facilitator Ingrid Rose, we took turns leading an improvised series of synchronized movements, decided in the moment by each rotating “leader.” Some of us used flashlights to spark the night as we all clasped hands to our hearts, raised arms skyward, bent down to touch the earth, and maintained an ongoing fluid flow of motions with our arms and legs.

I learned that such group movement with no set pattern or formation, yet with everyone doing the same motions, is called “flocking.”

This group activity, embodying the intention of nonviolence, felt like a combination of tai chi, yoga in motion, and Gabrielle Roth’s “flow” rhythm. All but one of the women were strangers to me, yet sharing this collective action felt like an ongoing hug from warm friends. We came together, we cared, we acted, without attachment to others’ reactions, and without fear in the night.

We danced not as spectacle or as separate performance, but as an extension of everyday life. Beside us, a First Nations man displayed hand-carved wooden masks, laid out on the steps for potential buyers. Electric trolley buses rattled past. From the top of the steps, a drunk man with a beer can heckled us briefly, then ignored us.

We were dancing both for ourselves and for women and children everywhere. Some in the group cried out or intoned as we danced. After forty minutes, we stopped and formed a circle. Without any planning or discussion, we each spontaneously called out words or phrases that our dance had inspired, things like “empowerment,”  “peace,” and “safety.”

Under a crescent moon, amidst the harsh lights and noise of the city, it was a rare opportunity to extend and experience a soulful presence. It invited us to redefine our relationships through peace, not just with others, but with ourselves.

In Sechelt on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast, about 25 women and one man danced at Trail Bay Mall in front of Clayton’s supermarket as part of One Billion Rising.  As Jan Jensen led a lively group to song lyrics that celebrated women, more than two dozen people watched and clapped in appreciation. Dance participant Wendy Crumpler says: “It was amazing: a very moving experience as well as being fun. Afterwards, there was this wonderful feeling of having done something together that was important.”

Click here to see video of One Billion Rising event in Sechelt.

Amidst the blush of Valentine’s Day, with its cliché red hearts, roses, and lipstick smudges, I’d like to offer a more tarnished version of this commercial event.

Take this snuggling couple above, for instance, who recently appeared in the window of a second-hand furniture store (love as used goods?) on Commercial Drive in Vancouver, BC. (I like the symbolism of them behind bars—the imprisonment of stereotypes.)

The dummy, in a lounge-lizard smoking jacket à la Hugh Hefner, clearly needs an eyebrow trim. Speaking of Hef, it’s pathetic that mainstream media drools with lust and envy over his lifestyle, as if there’s nothing sick or predatory about an 80-something man frolicking with—let alone marrying—a 20ish nymphette. What role models we have!

This dummy has opted for the usual ploys: flowers (but no water) and chocolate. But is his approach working? Don’t think so. His date looks comatose, like the glazed eyes of the woman on the cover of the book Love and the Facts of Life, which my mom gave me at puberty back in the 1970s. That book’s main message to female readers was: even if your sweetie’s talk bores you, act like you’re interested. Read up on a few recent sports scores so you’ll have some conversation to offer. What gender roles we’ve been taught!

This gal must have read the same book. Someone better tell her that bright blue eyeshadow and rouged cheeks went out of vogue in the 1950s, unless you were portraying a lady of the night or buxom madam in a western.

But enough about appearances. What about the subtleties of love—sideways glances, caring attention, and thoughtful gestures? No lingering eye contact for these two. They’re more interested in ceiling patterns.

Who could better represent love-gone-wrong than a dummy and a model? That’s what advertisers want us all to be.

Let’s redefine our love relationships, creating ones that honour who we truly are. Forget the media images that blast us daily with what love is supposed to look, act, sound, and be like. . . Diamonds are a girl’s best friend, and all that bullshit.

Let’s scrap the gender stereotypes, especially those about females. They’re dangerous. They reinforce lies like women want to be raped.

On February 14, join the mass movement One Billion Rising, sponsored by V Day. In cities across the globe, this event invites us all to gather in our communities to dance and demand an end to violence against women and girls. One in three women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. That is more than one billion women!

In Vancouver, BC, join the dance at the Roundhouse from 7:15 to 9:15. Dance wherever you are. That’s a lot better than lying in the arms of a dummy.