My Blog

Wi Fi Body: Indie Dance Fest at CCP

choreographic discourse on
body politics / memory / the other / the aging body / feminism and aesthetics / new performance strategies

with:

airdance
myra beltran/dance forum
chameleon dance theater
dancing wounded contemporary dance commune
green papaya art projects
u.p. dance company
and guest artists powerdance, steps dance studio, kahayag theater company from mindanao plus more

Independent dance artists from the World Dance Alliance-Philippines Choreographers’ Network converge for the first-ever “Wi Fi Body: Independent Contemporary Dance Festival” on August 15-20 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The festival showcases landmark pieces of independent dance companies and choreographers who have been producing and creating exciting, innovative work in contemporary dance. Presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines and supported by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, featured dance artists are from Dance Forum, Airdance, Green Papaya Art Projects, Chameleon Dance Theatre, Dancing Wounded, UP Dance Co., with guests Douglas Nierras’ Powerdance, James Laforteza and STEPS Dance Studio, Kahayag Dance and Theatre Co., and others.

The festival unreels with a series of Informance/lecture/demonstration on August 15-16. Performances are Anatomy Projects: Summer begins and ends as you wish by Green Papaya Art Projects, Volunteers for Comatose by Contemporary Dance Commune, Carmen de la Cruz by Airdance, and Dancing from the Academe by the UP Dance Company along with guest dance schools on August 17-18.

On August 19-20, presentations are Crossing Borders by the Chameleon Dance Theatre, Over 35 and Dancing and Order for Masks by Dance Forum, Wi fi Body Gala with guests Douglas Nierras’ Powerdance, James la Forteza with STEPS Dance Studio, Kahayag Dance and Theatre Co. from Mindanao, and others on. The dance fest concludes with Emerging Choreographers curated by Nina Hayuma Habulan, a party jam featuring young and emergent voices in contemporary dance showcasing their works.

The WDA-Philippines Choreographers’ Network is a chapter member of the World Dance Alliance, a global organization which serves as a primary and support group to promote the recognition and development of all dance forms.
For inquiries please call 3733567 or email wdachoreographers_phil@yahoo.com

FOR TICKET INQUIRIES PLEASE CALL CCP Marketing Department 8321125 local 1801 to 1808 or 8323681
CCP Box Office 8323704 www.culturalcenter.gov.ph
Tickets available at all Ticketworld outlets in National Bookstore branches and Tower Records 8919999

today i stumbled on martin spanberg and tor lindstrand’s international festival website. my mind is blowing. humbled at the same time enthusiastically inspired, i see an endless possibilities of performance. creating performance/performing situations, dances, choreography in spaces where there are none. what are these spaces? spaces in the body, at home watching television, in the kitchen, eating, riding the taxi cab, walking in the park, going to the market, waiting in line, endless…endless. creating and making dances in the everyday, outside and beyond the theater. i have realized how the canvass for creating dances/choreography, action and dramaturgy beyond the surface of the body into objects and beyond the theater and physical space into our psyches, emotions, habits and feelings. involving the audience and challenging the spectator’s relationship with the artist, the dancer onstage. reversing the roles, changing hats and manipulating the sociology of a “performance event”

choreography is producing pleasures that can be taken home…
utterances that sometimes turn into sentences or
utterances that remain nothing but utterances…

packages, objects that intervene and propose new ways of moving, challenging the hierarchy and authorship of a choreographic material.
i think i myself am turning into captain ahab, bwahaha!!!
let’s do a road show and distribute pleasure!

Beyond the feeling and melody

Intriguing the process by which to create an overall texture and volume of space in dance. I have been interested in how to convert a dancing space and manipulate time and space, creating odd textures, in effect proposing an environment while communicating some challenge in the way we view the world, even our own realities. I have lost one day, becoming terribly ill and with this unbelievable cough that hurts inside my chest each time i break into a series of whopping sounds. It pierces my heart and for a moment I experience the sharp pain equal to a heartache. No more fever today but too weak to get up, I have this dance playing repeatedly in my head. Its no help that the weather is this way, I cannot stay in bed anymore. I am getting anxious.

back to this attempted review… Last sunday, deprived of sleep and rest I attend Airdance’s concert of Malakas at Maganda at their studio, Outlet Yard. The concert, brings together the artists exploration of the concept of beauty and strength, through choreography. The studio was draped in black curtains, mimicking a “theatrical space” with dancers doing their exits and entrance and the lights fading out after every piece. As of late, I myself have been interested in the non-coventional methods of theatricality or challenging this “mystique” that pervade and frame the way we do our dance. As for Airdance situation, they have mounted several shows at their studio, challenging the idea of a “performance space” by declaring their studio as such. However their last two shows for the season, the space has been (consciously or unconciously) transformed to mimic a “theater” with black curtains around, distinct entrance and exits, and ocassional “procensium” projection of the other dancers. While the attempt to develop a contemporary vocabulary of moving is clearly seen in the range of repertoire shown, as an audience of dance I find myself looking for something more. Now that a modest audience for contemporary dance is there, the quest to continually challenge their frames of reference remains. Such that it doesnt seem enough to show our contemporary concerns as artists, going out of our “ballet training” or discussing accessible themes in our dances. It is my belief that contemporary dance is not only about “contemporary ways of moving” moreso it should also challenge the conventional frames by which we view dance and the body. To push it even further, to overcome the cliche of dance. Questioning ourselves even while performing, questioning our feeling, challenging the melody in our head. Even its purpose in our lives as dancers.

Maybe its just me and where I am at right now, but I am missing so much more from the show. It didnt help at all that the lights we merely decoration and failed to change the dynamics of the space. Indeed it felt like 3 pm more inside the studio than outside. Billy Forsythe once said that he attempts to colonize the space with his choreography, whereby the whole character of the space is transformed by material, presenting a new dynamics to the space. This attempt did show in Jethro Pioquinto’s choreography with the whole company as cast. It showed a deliberate attempt to challenge our focus as audience, not shifting the focus from one group to another but creating situations with different small groups all happening at the same time and then coming together at some point. This carried me until the end.