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.
aug 2006
1 comment:
ganda naman piktyurs
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