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Yesterday, after a weeklong of commuting from Quezon City to CCP, I took a breather and went out to get a tattoo. As I looked forward to a momentary lull from dance-related projects, the timing seemed most fitting as it marked a new period in my personal journey into contemporary dance. Like the other dance artists who participated in the festival, WI_FI Body marks a significant point in our artistic life, representing both our aspirations and frustrations in the state of Philippine contemporary dance. And while the majority of us looked forward to dancing again at the CCP, a small number of us were meanwhile wary of the varied implications that this entailed.

Aware of the contradiction looming over an indie dance festival staged in a mainstream institution such as the CCP, the community and members of the World Dance Alliance (WDA) Choreographers’ Network temporarily suspended cynicism and judgment, plunging into the first independent contemporary dance festival. Maybe, it is about time to consolidate our efforts into a bigger scale, widening our audience beyond the comforts of our environs and community. I must say, a lithe hesitant, that the festival is commendable for having delivered a range of programs that embody the current streams in Philippine contemporary dance.

The four-day festival featured works varying from conceptual pieces that engage performance discourses, such as those from Green Papaya Art Projects’ Summer begins and ends as you wish and Dancing Wounded Contemporary Dance Commune’s Volunteers for Comatose to representational ones drawing specific narratives such as Airdance’s Carmen dela Cruz and Dance Forum’s Order for Masks; and those that lie somewhere in between such as Chameleon Dance Theater and UP Dance Company. While this was a contemporary dance festival, the distinction from modern dance, and even neo-classical ballet, have yet to be drawn as seen in works of guest artists Powerdance, Ballet Philippines, Steps Dance Studio and Kahayag Theater Co. Still, the pieces of young members of the depict an emerging thrust in contemporary dance with young choreographers persevering to unearth their unique voices in dance, borne out of the truths of their own bodies toiled through years of hard work and sweat by their mentors. Appropriately capping off the festival was the book launch of Steve Villaruz’s Treading Through 45 Years of Philippine Dance, the first Philippine dance reader.

Contemporary dance in the Philippines has mainly sprung in the periphery, outside the established institutions of dance. It developed as a result of dancers taking matters into their own hands, searching if not self-producing creative endeavors that seek a contemporary context for dance, borne out of our own ‘imperfect’ bodies and dwindling resources for support in the arts–in true indie spirit.

The last three years have seen the exciting growth of a modest but dynamic community where artists and audience interact within the intimate setting of studio spaces presenting performances which dare to bring in everyday, social and even personal realities into the context of the dance and our bodies. These spaces, home to our creative impulses have also helped us bring art closer to the public, challenging even our own assumptions in doing, seeing and understanding dance. Since coming out, a new breed of audiences and dance enthusiasts is slowly emerging, a far cry from the usual matron, high society balletomanes. Some, bitten by the bug themselves, are now also dancing. A realization that contemporary dance is for everybody, without prejudice to class, training, age, body type, shape, size and color. The recent contemporary dance workshops held last summer by Airdance and Dancing Wounded are affirmation of this recent development with 90 percent of their workshop participants now dancing in this festival.

What struck me most about contemporary dance, during a brief study in Europe last year, was the proportion of dancers who had no formal ballet/dance training! Some were former circus artists, acrobats, opera singers, actors, plus-size women and even middle-aged persons rolling, falling, flying, dancing through space devoid of inhibitions. As I watched them conquer the space with their bodies, I couldn’t help but feel a bit envious of this complete freedom.

Unlike in Europe, ballet continues to be the entry point for those wishing to do contemporary dance here. Though gradually changing within the community, contemporary dance is still sometimes imbued, if not mediated with the lens of a ballet. Critics and cultural managers continue to look for ‘beauty in form’, easily impressed by technical skill over the communicative potential of dance in the everyday. Sometimes, even us dancers fall into the same trap of objectifying ourselves through the lens of ‘beauty’ and impressing audiences with physicality rather than engaging our audiences with varied propositions that challenge the way of seeing the body in the dance and art. Thus, during the past year we have seen new dance entrants who were either previously trained other in movement-related disciplines or had none at all. Jose Jay Cruz’s Love is Pretty Ugly, performed during the gala exemplifies this exciting turn-around with Myra Beltran sharing a pas de deux with little person whom Cruz met and ‘recruited’ at Hobbit House in Malate. His latest piece Gestures of the Flesh, performed at Instituto Cervantes also involved non-dancers, including two elder actors (talents in a TV soap opera) who have never stepped onstage as ‘dancers’ their entire life.

If Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham ushered in Modern Dance by throwing their ballet slippers and dancing barefoot, contemporary dance was ushered in by a declaration of NO to spectacle! and maybe even no to dance, for some avant-garde and more experimental artists. Closely linked to the Judson Church movement and post-modern dance in New York, and later on to the European landscape , contemporary dance questions the most basic assumptions of the body; inextricably linked with the politics of gender, power, history, memory and representation.; buzzwords artists working in the postmodern and post-colonial global situation. Yet, while Manila seems far away from such ‘Eurocentric ‘notions, these issues inevitably condition our modes of producing and practicing art. This is perhaps where the CCP might have missed the point of independent contemporary dance.

Independent contemporary dance is not without its problematics. The term encloses two important points: ‘independent’ and ‘contemporary.’ Loosely defined, independent initiatives connote those that operate outside established structures and agenda, independent of regular state support. While at some point these companies have received subsidy from NCCA, like this festival, most of projects are self-subsidized. Consequently, such economic relations of production would influence the aesthetics and philosophy of the work both in terms of form and structures framing it. In this situation, the artist goes outside the once stable art-patron relationship, putting aside the idea of marketability and instead exposing their thinking and imperfect bodies ‘onstage.’ Therefore conventional ideas of ‘standard’ simply become inapplicable if not render it irrelevant. Why? Because this standard is always changing, according to the nature of the work, funding availability and most importantly, space where it is performed.

When Myra Beltran established her studio-theater, Dance Forum Space in West Avenue ten years ago, she laid down the predicate of what is now known as independent dance. Venturing into a space no other choreographer of her time dared to go, she espoused an important direction in Philippine dance. By stripping dance of its spectacle-oriented aesthetics and presenting it in the bare confines of her studio, Beltran opened the possibility of presenting dance beyond the borders of an established stage. Tilting the power balance between the artist and establishment. In this situation the artist takes hold of the terms by which to present/re-present his/er work, in the frame that the artist views most appropriate.

Ten years after Dance Forum, Hotmail and GoogleSearch, Beltran has influenced a new generation of dance artists brave enough to situate dance beyond established terms. Dancing outside the stage and beyond, making ‘stages’ and creating performances where there are none. It is in these studios and spaces, spread across Metro Manila, that contemporary dance has and is taking shape, proposing mundane but innovative physicality, conceptually engaging and exciting stories of their bodies. Learning to look beyond, in touch with global dance community, these dance artists are now expanding their wings to participate in international training program, artists-in-residency programs, cross-border collaborations and festivals. Only last year have we seen Beltran in a residency project in Taipei and Elena Laniog for the Young Choreographers Project also in Taiwan In the same year, I came along with Christine Maranan to attend Pointe-to-Point, Asia Europe Dance Forum in Tokyo, Japan after completing the 2005 DanceWEB Europe Scholarship Program in Vienna, Austria. Meanwhile, during the first half of 2006 Jose Jay Cruz and Myra Beltran danced at the Hong Kong Dance Festival; I held creative residency at Patravadi Theater in Bangkok and Tokyo Wondersite in Tokyo, Japan and Green Papaya hosted a multinational collaborative performance residency. Just coming back from Vienna is Jethro Pioquinto who is this year’s Philippine representative to the 2006 DanceWEB Europe Scholarship Program. We look forward to the arrival of Cruz who is now on dance residency grant at Dance Omi.

Should indie be co-opted by the institutions whose values it has previously resisted it should be able engage it through discourses in performance, body, theatricality and contemporary art. In the same token, the institution should not only recognize the intricacy and complexity this context but also collaborate in this proposition. Making their space and resources available for varied negotiations and engagements connected with dance instead of simply seeing themselves as a regular hosts for performance. It would have been exciting to see CCP go out and support these performances in the original contexts in which they have been created. Is it not refreshing to see a festival sponsored by the CCP but one which takes place in different artist-run venues across the city? Then we realize that indeed this bastion of artistic and cultural creativity sees art beyond the walls of its imposing architecture. Then we can truly say that contemporary dance is for everybody.

Donna Miranda / aug 2006

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.

teenage infauation catches me as i least expect it. what frustrates me is not the naive inexplcable space that separates our bodies but the inability to communicate . i cannot speak this language and no matter what sign language can explain, at this age i would really rather not and get straight to the point. i wish to speak more and share more, laugh at things understandable only through the rhythm and meaningless of words. but to no avail. here i pour out out of the frustration seeking lonesome, unaffected heart. i only wish to feel in this city of a million senses. what`s lost is the feeling. riding the metro and watching the people, i wonder how they make out of their life for i know what i am feeling is not unique as i would always wish it were. i may be amazed at how much they make a life out of the limitation of the last train or the atrociously expensive taxi ride, you wish you were not drunk, alcohol quickly fades away feeling. we have too much freedom in manila, believe it or not tokyo will bore our punk attitude to life. i miss QC and the cheap taxi rides , the friends who will drive you home or tricycle drivers who will ply any route you wish to take at the ungodly hour of 3am. in tokyo at 3am you only have three options: 1, miss the train and wait for the train in the morning, alone. 2, miss the train, talking and drinking with someone, maybe spending the night together somewhere or 3, dont miss the train, go home sober or drunk alone in your hotel room watching incomprehensible TV or retreating to a book you think will make your life less lonely than you think it is. i think of joaquin and this very first night i sleep with him wrapped in my arms. so what now of my teenage infatuation, i move to and fro…

after having consumed my last pack of cigarettes from manila, i am now rolling tobacco. maybe i am smoking less now as it takes a long time before i can get my tobacco fix, which is better for my dancing. my body is beginning to feel the weariness of travel but i am not complaining this project has taught me a great deal about myself and tendencies as an artist. a good time to understand yourself especially as we pass through the “shall i kill myself before 27″ stage. its been awfully frustrating and strangely fulfilling at the same time. frustrated and lost, somehow we find how to re-affirm center and understand what moves this body. as of late i have been asking myself about the basic unit of dance and when dance is not moving or just speaking and talking, movement ceases to be the basic unit of dance. myra says dance is always about imagination. i am realizing that this is true, where to get the energy to move and do the work when the body just wants to rest…how to overcome our humanity and realize it at the same time…
…yesterday, i was tripping in shimokitazawa. i dont know why i feel so hyped about this area in tokyo. i guess because it feels unlike most of tokyo. narrow, winding streets. intimate cafes, no english menu. its good to somehow blend in the crowd, mistaken as a japanese, apologetic that i cannot speak japanese. i hope i can. i dont mind that people talk japanese around me. why not learn it anyway… slighting on a trippy mood after smoking in daikanyama with jacob, the breeze hitting my face. the mild but dry spring weather is good but where is the humidity. i am filipino i need some moisture. i miss the putrid, sea urchin smell of my jungle home. one more week, i hope not to slouch into the im done i want to move on mode and instead enjoy the last bits of what i have left in this city of 35 million people. meeting someone two weeks ago, i have come to accept the fact that bumping into him in throngs of milliion people crossing shibuya is quite an impossibility. today, is a build up of the performances to come. we are still not sure where we are going. i have learned to let go and instead live in the moment of dance. tomorrow you may never have it anyway…

i long to remember my dreams. this afternoon i had a short nap and dreamed that i was a leopard sitting on a chair inside tokyo wondersite. imagination weary, i summon all that i have if only to begin to feel. to recreate what was once there that brought me to make this dance, that brought me to move. what is the basic unit of dance? this morning i learned it’s imagination. after drunken night, lucky not to miss the train, i know i drop into a long needed slumber and fast into dreamland. maybe, going thru the events from the past day or two that just passed or images of home. a boy sitting beside me on a jeepney, a boy who is not mine, lying on my lap. longing to be embraced. i embrace him…

now the sun is out after many weeks without it, after only rain and clouds and chilly wind. tokyo still amazes me this second time but also been going westwards and walking into small streets, old stores, little intimate shops/resturants. spending time on the train for more than an hour, is this the end of the world? also, great to be walking. still, i cannot allow myself to fully engage in this backpacker/hippie looking. where is my work, cramming inside my head and frustrated over the vastness of space around me, i struggle to find the perfect red suitcase. last saturday, i made the usual rounds of young people seeking sanctuary for their romantic, passionate and perverted fantasies. no-full, no-full, after seven tries we found one. my debut into this world that actually fascinated me. now i understand. now, i think i have become more sick and perverted. jacob says, donna is growing up. where could my car interior designer be now. no mobile, no email. absolutely casual. shocking yet liberating. what is there to have, anyway? how can we believe that who we choose is not but a random choice among millions of souls passing through this arbitrary world. but still i think of him, somewhere inside my pretentious hard heart is a wish that i bump into him among the throngs of people crossing Shibuya.

more than two weeks ago, i came in the cold. freezing and unsure if i was gonna make it. inside my chest wanted to cry out and go into my usual fit of hysteria but i found more satisfaction in resisting this involution. glad to be back with the bike, convinced of its therapeutic effect on my nerves i shall find a way to squeeze in a bike in the suicidal streets of my warm manila. now, i go and leave. two weeks has gone by so fast. kyoto is genteel and pleasant. just when i was beginning to find my ground and feel my way carelessly along the streets, tiny alley i have to temporarily leave. resume the nomad. now my restless body now yearns for light, sound, noise and more chaos, hello tokyo.

feverish in dreamland. waiting for deep restful slumber, body wishing of sleep and deep decent rest. weekend deprived, i hope to survive this suicidal february month. for your love-filled heartaches, bruises and fantasies, laughter and embarrassing wishes come to:

Anatomy of Humiliation in Desire
choreographies nina hayuma habulan / donna miranda / jethro pioquinto
visual design future prospects
sound design ria muñoz and pow martinez
with kit sanchez / proseso gelladuga / ava maureen villanueva / issa lopez

16-17 FEBRUARY 2006 / 9PM
GREEN PAPAYA ART PROJECTS
TICKET P100

Anatomy of Humiliation in Desire (Anatomy Project 3) is a collaborative research project by artists from diverse disciplines as contemporary dance, video, new media and sound, that captures the awkward, hesitation and poignant in human relationships. It aims to investigate the paradox of love by venturing into the ambiguous space that separates love from hate, violence and tenderness, anticipation and hesitation, fear and bewilderment. Dancers research on the physicality of naïve and inexplicable emotions by exploring the gestures, movement and bodily attitude suggesting the violence, fear, irony, humor and humiliation of falling in love. Both audience and artists attempt the cartography of humiliation in desire in an evening of frenzied awkwardness, anxious hesitation, laughter and frustration.

A collaborative project of Green Papaya Art Projects and Future Prospects
with support from the National Commission from Culture and the Arts (NCCA) special thanks to Airdance

Green Papaya Art Projects www.greenpapaya.org
124A Maginhawa St., Teachers Village East, Diliman, Quezon City Phone/Fax 9262096 or 0917 5013401