Second semester always brings Romeo and Juliet to the English 1 classes. Ms. Dearborn and Ms. Bodenheimer, assisted by dancing master/librarian Ms. Schaal, enhance this unit with a performance of the Renaissance dance Pilgrims and Saints. Teaching the girls this dance helps them to experience what it might have been like at the party where Romeo and Juliet met in Verona. It connects them in a kinesthetic way to the culture of Renaissance Italy and the milieu of the play. There is also a research component: they research what men and women of this era would have worn to a party and wear an article of clothing as they perform the dance. Girls have worn hats, scarves, skirts, shoes, dresses, swords, belts, hair ribbons. Here, Ms. Bodenheimer's class shows off their masks as they dance palm to palm, as "pilgrims' hands do touch."

MERCY CELEBRATES ITS 10TH ANNUAL V-DAY

In 1994, Eve Ensler's play The Vagina Monologues opened off Broadway in New York City. Four years later on Valentine's Day 1998, V-Day was established because of the overwhelming outpour of women coming forward to share their very personal stories after seeing The Vagina Monologues.

V-Day's mission is simple. It demands that violence against women and girls must end.

V-Day is grounded in four core beliefs:

• Art has the power to transform thinking and inspire people to act
• Lasting social and cultural change is spread by ordinary people doing extraordinary things
• Local women best know what their communities need and can become unstoppable leaders
• One must look at the intersection of race, class, and gender to understand violence against women.

As is our tradition, the entire Mercy community began the V-Day celebration with prayer and then viewed a short but very powerful video called American Rape Culture. This was followed by an amazing keynote speaker Robin Rivera, a survivor of sex trafficking, who is currently employed by Runaway Girl, FPC - California Flexible Purpose Corporation that aims to create employment and career development opportunities for former runaways and survivors of abuse, neglect, trauma, and more. Students and faculty were able to interact with Ms. Rivera during a question and answer exchange and we wrapped up the assembly with a fabulous slideshow produced by the student V-Day committee, which highlighted V-Day celebrations over the past 10 years at Mercy and worldwide. All and all, it was a very inspiring day!

ETTY HILLESUM BOOK COMES TO LIFE

Mercy High School invites you to a showing of ETTY, a one woman play written from the diary and letters of Etty Hillesum, a Dutch Jew who lived and worked for a time in the holding camp of Westerbork, Holland, and died in Auschwitz in 1944. The adult version will be shown on Sunday, March 8 at 3pm (click here to make your reservation) and the student version on the following day at school. 

On March 9 and 10, Susan Stein (solo performer of the one woman play) and Jacob Boas (born in Westerbork camp in 1942), will be visiting classes and meeting with small groups of students. Jacob has written We Are Witnesses, based on the diaries of five teenagers - from Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, - ending with the famous story of Anne Frank from Holland.

Mercy students are reading many of the Letters from Westerbork. In keeping with the tradition of the whole school reading a book, studying it from various disciplines, and then inviting the author to speak, Susan Stein will address the student body at a school assembly.

MERCY HIGH SCHOOL SUMMER PROGRAMS