In an effort for a worldwide demonstration against domestic violence, Ohio University students took a stand by dancing spontaneously in front of Baker University Center on Thursday.
About 12 OU female students took part in a flash mob as part of an international movement called “One Billion Rising” in protest of violence against women.
The “dance protest,” which was hosted by the Athens Black Contemporary Dancers and V-Day Movement, stopped many students walking into the fourth floor Baker University Center in their tracks.
“I think it went very well,” said Kimberly Murry, one of the performers, a senior studying dance performance and president of the Athens Black Contemporary Dancers. “The girls were very committed to the dancing.”
Reactions were generally positive from the more than 30 onlookers who stopped to watch the flash mob perform. When the routine ended, the audience applauded as the performers repeatedly shouted “One Billion Rising” to symbolize the movement being made across the globe.
One of the organizers for the event, Sydney Parker, a 2012 Hocking College alumna who studied eco-tourism, said she thought the dance was “powerful and meaningful.”
Hannah Stanton-Gockel, V-Day coordinator and a senior studying women’s and gender studies and Spanish, said women should “feel empowered” and said she thinks the One Billion Rising movement can help.
“Violence against women and girls impacts us everyday,” she said. “It needs to stop now.”
Others took a more solemn approach to the topic of domestic violence. Jan Griesinger, a 70-year-old Athens native who helped start My Sister’s Place, a battered women’s shelter, stood nearby with a homemade sign hanging around her neck that read: “Stop the violence against women.”
“There’s not enough discussion going on about who’s doing it and why,” Griesinger said. “I think this movement is amazing. However, I think the problem of violence is not getting solved, but getting worse.”
An estimated 1.3 million women and 835,000 men are physically assaulted by an intimate partner annually in the U.S., according to the American Bar Association.
“I hope that women will be able to feel hope, joy and determination to fight against the situations they are struggling with,” Murray said.
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