Summer is this one time of year that you take your glass of wine or bottle of beer and drink it straight-up absolved of tomorrow's guilt. It is a hedonistic trip marked by intoxication, drunken behavior, sleep-deprived conversations, illicit love affairs, wicked laughter, letting loose and fun fun fun. The sun beckons and that special musky, pungent, ripened fruit scent accentuated by Durian and curry draws you to seek out pleasure. A pleasure long waiting for the right time to burst and blossom, fertilized by the poetic combination of sun and rain. Below the creases of the earth, buried underneath the rest of the year's composure and restraint bellows long and extended periods of intoxicating debucharies, parties, love, camaraderie and friendships. A cold bottle of beer sits with me at 4 in the afternoon under the forbidding equatorial heat. Yes, the swimming pool, 30 meters away calls out but the heat has crippled even my will so I decide to stay and bask in this rare moment of well-deserved laziness.
My flight came in early, as I waited under the high-afternoon sun, I wondered how Bilqis would recognize me or how I would recognize her. It was my first time in Malaysia and after my grueling Immigration pass, I was in a helpless panic mode. My bearings and reflexes were on a definite low with sleep-deproived lonesome feeling that overtook my body. This was my first time to be away for 3-months, I didn't know how it would turn out to be and how much I would miss Joaquin, my friends and the whole gang back home. But somewhere beneath this lay my relief. Relief to be away from the chaos that have carved itself into my Manila lifestyle. I was in fact excited to finally have that long aspired for studio time, solitude, and all the time to catch up on the books that have otherwise gathered dust. My scheduled artist-in-residency at Rimbun Dahan serendipitously came at a time that I needed to be alone with my thoughts and momentum. Having just came out of a long relationship and ending a short one simultaneously, my spirit was in need of rest. Yet long-due silences are not exempt from the ambient noise that surrounds us. So no matter how I made myself believe that I would embrace isolation, I caught myself doing just the opposite of what I forcibly entailed to do.
As we drove into the peaceful driveway of Rimbun Dahan, I was immediately transported to my childhood memories of sun, trees and leisurely vacations we took to the provinces. Or those short forbidding hot residencies at CASA San Miguel in Zambales where all we did was dance, listening to all-day rehearsals of Bach Cello Suites and Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Only this time there was no beach nearby but a jungle populated by monkeys and squirrels. As Bilqis took me around the 14-acre garden of the Hijjas' I couldn't exactly describe how I felt. It was a mix of gratitude, relief, excitement, anticipation and small anxiety. We were in the middle of nowhere, far from the city. How was I gonna getby? I couldn't drive, and public transport was a 10-minute walk away to the highway. If you're lucky, a bus or taxi comes by in 3 minutes but most of the time, you wait. Wait under the scorching heat of the sun, dust, sweating on the dirt sidewalk trusting the gods that you will somehow accomplish what you have set out to do or finally arrive at the Sungai Buloh KTM station where another journey starts.
A residency is a gift of time and space. Musing over the behavior of time and space for quite some time. Thanks to the eccentric guidance of Einsten inspired by those drinking-jam nights, I obsessed over strategies of manipulating and negotiating these elements in my practice. It is a rare occasion an artist is allowed or even required to just be. When I submitted my proposal to Rimbun Dahan for its Choreographers' Residency Program, I intended to use the residency as an opportunity to sustain my choreographic inquiries and momentum, otherwise put aside in 'daily life.' Confronted with issues of technique, mode of production, pedagogy and aesthetic agenda, along with anxiety of "what to do next?" I anticipated the residency as a fitting time to tease out different elements that inform contemporary dance practice–free from domestic troubles and comfort zone of friends and family. Yet, as Bilqis beautifully put it in her paper, Creation in Isolation, I ended up doing the opposite of that. Astrology is to blame perhaps, Librans attempt to seek balance, in the end embodying contradiction. More so, my craved isolation was in fact broken by new-found affinities, association and camaraderie with the community of young Malaysian artists who I collaborated with for the final showing of my work (in-progress). The result was Extended Periods of Waiting, a multimedia/choreographic research on momentum and interruption. It is still not over though, for how does waiting end?
So what is special and important about a residency for an artist's practice? What is its place in system of contemporary art production and art economy? For sure there are several answers and varying points of view. And there also lies ahead the inescapable debate of creating in isolation (tucked away in some leisurely club-med retreat house for artists) or in context of where the action takes place. I am however beginning to understand that this is no matter to be answered by a 'yes' or 'no.' For unless you are one of those suburban mid-west Americans who refuse to believe that there is a world outside America, one cannot escape from 'the action.' Internet, mobile phones, strong desire to in touch will nevertheless put us in 'the action.' To answer this, I turn to anthropologist Clifford Geertz who speaks of the emic and etic approach to fieldwork, that is is being both an insider and outsider at varying times during the research process. So while complete isolation is not healthy in critical practice, occasional breaks and detachment are necessary for creative process. On a practical note, everybody (artist or not) needs time to focus and concentrate anyway, be it in the privacy of the toilet or studio. Same for all lah!
This brings me to the point and idea of artists' increasing mobility in different parts of the world. While it remains particular to a few artists compared to the rest who struggle with realities of visa, strict immigration policies and economic factors, mobility is becoming a compelling reality in the social organization of art. Corina Suteu in her essay Not Afraid to be an Alien, identifies three important reasons for mobility. She starts off by noting that an artist is by definition, an Alien, a stranger, as they live outside the world. I would rather suggest dancer/choreographer Martin Nachbar's point of view instead that artists go through varying degrees of distanciation in order to abstract dance from the everyday movement and gestures. So we are both in and out of the world. Suteu stats off by reminding us that we live in a world painted with the illusion that 'we know' everything. Such that we are set up for a battery of stereotypes that are very hard to break. Suteu asserts that mobility is the only dynamics that takes us out of this comfort to render us back the conscience that we don't know. The experience of mobility debunks this illusory ideal as the artist thrusts him/herself into the foreign sensations of moving in a new environment, different time zones, belief system and cultural values. This is just what Gabrielle Bates (Australian visual artist in resident at Rimbun Dahan) and I found out as we adjusted the first months in Malaysia. As for myself, Malaysian seemed so familiar to Philippine environment but felt so glaringly different. I was jolted into this on my first day as walked the predominantly male streets of Kwang, waiting for a taxi in my spaghetti straps, short pants, tattoo, dotting short hair and all. Ah, yes I have arrived. My stubborn feminism put aside as went through my 3-months worth of wardrobe. I remember nights we would retreat to the comfort of her veranda, drinking our last ration of rum, mulling over random subversive acts in the face of censorship that confronted critical practice in KL. Growing up in Edsa-fought Philippine democracy, I learned that time, space and resources are not the only luxuries of artistic practice but freedom as well.
A feeling of insecurity slowly crept in, as I constantly checked myself for do's and dont's. At my artist talk, I showed a naked piece that caused a minor stir. Amidst the conversations that ensued, Pang (artistic director of Annexe) quietly pulled aside his coordinator reminding him that any form of nudity is not allowed in public spaces. I was lucky to get away with it along with my other performances that came off as 'provocative' to a conservative Malaysian culture. While I silently rebelled against the idea, my practice running alongside issues of embodiment, I reckoned that it was also an opportune time to approach this topic from a different strategy. Suteu adds that "mobility is necessary to help us continue to feel insecure." Feeling insecure pre-supposes fragility, openness, sensitivity and being attentive:
"We are too much today under the belief that total security exists, that we can be safe! Or from time to time, one need to render oneself humbly to the world, and to encounter new audiences, take new challenges and feel, whatever his age and recognition level, as an emergent, fragile, emotionally alive, 'unsafe' artist. Thinking oneself too secure might mean also becoming creatively dead..."
The feeling of vulnerability, like a physical injury, inevitably pushes us to venture into new strategies, imaginative tools, pedagogic approach, pulling us out of the staid comfort of our own tried and tested 'formulas' of survival. Rimbun Dahan did just this, aside from the obvious cultural barriers that faced my rebellious Filipino Catholic body, the experience taught me to move beyond my comfortable rebellion and re-asses prankster acts of provoking discussion.
Lastly, mobility contributes to a deeper understanding and awareness of 'home' and 'the other.' My experiences have been teaching me that while I keep on running away, I simultaneously find myself running back. Even craving to run back. Like a banyan tree whose roots and veins spread towards other trees but still firmly rooted in its place. I catch myself in anticpation of the temperamental madness of Manila, longing to be embraced by its chaotic polluted streets, imbibing the faithful laughter to fight off trafedy.
Towards the end of my residency in Malaysia, I met a group of traveling circus artists who've biked their way around the continents the last six years. I watched with amazed, albiet fears as I caught their tired weary eyes. I was on the verge of fear and panic. While I was supposedly going 'home,' I have made KL my home the last three months. Marriage proposals aside, I entertained the idea of settling in to KL and starting anew. I have anyway made friends and found a support group whom I share similar concerns in art-making. It could work, maybe I was travel weary and wanted to settle down. Done with the disenchantment, displacement, traveling, airport security checks and nasty immigration lines, I welcomed the idea of settling down. Stopping and being domestic. In fact, I came back a month after going back to Manila. And then the veneer was slowly lifted, even my stupor became sober. I realized that at home, though always itching to go out, I knew I could stay because I didn't feel trapped. At the same time, its always a take-off point. I could be a tree that emerged towards different directions. So I went back to Manila, embracing the fact that I could never be in one place all the time but nevertheless need a place where my root can spread from. A quasi-nomad in constant place of leaving and settling.
Saying goodbye to the year that has passed as I turn 28 tomorrow, catching 30 soon I am slowly letting go of my emerging state–a state of fulfilling the 'promise' that my teachers, mentors, family, friends and loved ones believe I have. An insecurity that grows into fits of self-doubt, regret, shame and even anger that one is never good enough. Instead I soon look forward to finally emerging. Landing emergent, whole and forgiving. The residency at Rimbun Dahan indeed threw me off my momentum only to lead me get me out of the jungle and emerge.
Till the next summer...
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