Lesson 11
Lesson 11
Lesson 11
content, but the ways in which these channels of exchange are used and defined.
So-called “end-users” can become creative users themselves.
Artists’ initiatives such as Project Space and DiscLab also present us alternative
support systems that provide the environment for facilitating production and the
circulation or distribution of art. Rather than becoming fully dependent on the
state and private businesses, these initiatives are largely independent. They band
together and reach out to communities from which they draw their knowledge,
ideas and materials. The stereotype of the artist working alone in his studio is
no longer applicable in such collaborations. Artists are reaching out to their
audiences, who have become—especially in interactive works—very much a part
of the creative process.
We have also seen how artists are able to collaborate by benefitting from
technology, which has become not only a tool for research, but also as platform
for disseminating their art and building and sustaining networks with their
communities and beyond—from face-to-face encounters on to virtual networks
and spaces.
We also note that in the aforementioned performances, the shift from one
space to another figures in the way art may be received. Note the transformation,
from the communal and private spaces of Boac, Marinduque to the proscenium
stage in France and the Cultural Center of the Philippines. We see this too in how
encountering art shifts from personal listening device to a shared platform in
the case of Digital Tagalog, and from the streets of the Lucban to cyberspace in
the case of Pahiyas-timed Lucban Assembly/Systems of Irrigation project. Such
relocations lead us to ask questions about the experience of witnessing the dance
and the installations.
How do the meaning and our experience of the artwork change with the shifts from town to
stage, with altered space, lights, and pace; or from the streets, to installations and electronic
documentation?
Figure 10.3. Promotional material for the PETA production of Rabindranath Tagore’s The Post Office,
adaptation by Rody Vera
In other adaptations and reinventions, local materials could also refer to folk
stories. Take the case of the staging of Fugtong: The Black Dog by the community
theatre group, Aanak di Kabiligan (Children of the Mountains) which was organized
through the efforts of the Cordillera Green Network. The production revolves
around a folk story about a family ostracized for keeping a black dog commonly
perceived as bringing bad omens. On one level, we can interpret the narrative as
being all about how the different is seen as dangerous or threatening. On another
level, while the story was introduced by a brief English annotation of the plot, the
narrative itself unfolded in multiple languages as the performers from Ifugao, Mt.
Province, Kalinga, and Benguet spoke in Kalinga, Kankaney, Ilocano, and Ibaloi. It
was a deliberate means to keep the atmospheric feel of the story taking place in
the Cordilleras.
Fugtong was directed by theater artist, Rey Angelo Aurelio who is also behind
another community theatre production featuring Smokey Mountain-based youths
rapping, dancing, and acting in Bakata: Battle of the Street Poets, which was
also staged at the Tiu Theater in May 2015. The young people Aurelio works with
come from informal settler communities struggling to deal with problems such
as unsustained education opportunities, unemployed or underemployed parents,
and lack of secure housing, among others. Working with these youths is one way
by which artists may creatively respond to these conditions through immersion
and sharing their know-how about performance, movement, projection, etc.
Teaching these children how to express themselves may not bring big solutions to
their complex problems, but at the very least, they could build a stronger sense of
identity as they learn to process and express their emotions and thoughts. Apart
Figure 10.4. Fugtong as staged at the Tiu Theater, Makati, June 2014 Photo courtesy of the
Philippine Daily Inquirer
How does the intersection of the creative and socially-engaged provide us with a more
grounded or rooted sense of ourselves? How can it challenge our thinking to expand how
and what we think about what may be unfamiliar or difficult to understand initially?
Let us not forget that what we have been discussing so far are works performed
live before a group of people. In that case, the experience of encountering
artists’ bodies physically moving through a space shared by audiences brings an
altogether different dimension to the reception of the work. The experience of
light, sound, motion would not only be felt up close but would be subject to much
more immediate feedback like applause, silence, transfixed gazes, perked up ears,
and so on. We are of course only encountering these now in a mediated version,
that is through uploaded video and photographs appearing in this book.
To further play up how the bodily senses figure in how we receive and make
sense of art, we take another work, this time something Lani Maestro produced
as a commissioned project called Limen (2014) in France. Here, she carefully
considered where the work was to be placed, how people might relate with it,
and what sort of past or backstory the site had. The space is known as the Bata
compound and was primarily an industrial site. Much like in most mechanized
factories, workers performed rigidly defined and repetitive, mind-numbing tasks.
In response to the above considerations, Maestro decided to build a see-through
bridge that poetically took people out to a liminal point, as the title suggests—the
It is in regard to works such as this in which the viewer or beholder is made to decide on how
he/she can physically interact with the work. Would it suffice for him or her to merely take
the bridge in from a distance? Or would he/she venture on to the bridge and take a chance
upon experiencing it in a more sensate way—with feet touching the boards, holding on to
the supports, also able to take in the garden in more detail because he/she positioned his/
her body in closer vantage of the work?
1. How has your idea of what is local changed or not changed after going out to
do field work?
2. What have you learned about your community and yourself? How much of
that self can remain constant and how much can remain open to change?
PIN IT How do you keep a sense of community at the same time build a sense of self
that assumes varied roles in an environment that constantly shifts?
3. In the face of so much information, and the many ways by which this
information reach us, how does one keep from just merely going with the
flow or becoming blindly subject to what is trending? How would a student
today nurture his/her self-identity?
FLAG
THREAD FAQ How will we translate the concept and storyline into actual production?
1. Choose the most appropriate art form that is most applicable for your
Creation Story storyline and concept. Possible forms include: video, live
theater, photo essay, installation, performance art, or a combination,
among others.
2. Assign roles for overall director, performers (dancers, musicians, actors),
set and costume designers, photographers or cinematographers,
editors, etc.
3. Prepare a storyboard. You may use the attached templates, or avail of
one of your own. If you are making a video, it will be helpful to also
include the estimated duration for each sequence.
4. Draw up a production schedule, which will include (whatever is
applicable), rehearsals, creating production designs, shooting, etc. The
will organize a festival to present each group’s project
5. Accomplish the attached rubric for self-assessment and peer review.
TMLSS
D-I-Y
Search examples of videos that are made by artists in your communities and
can immediately be found in artists’ studios, archives, or blogs, in Internet video
streaming sites, etc. If these are not available, check out for screening and initial
discussion such examples as Mababangong Bangungot/Digital Tagalog opening
LEVEL UP
interaction, Video of Roberto Villanueva performance-installation at Asia-Pacific
Triennale Out of the Shadows, or the performance of Santiago Bose-Villanueva in
SF Bay Area.
Lloyd, Karen J. “4:3 (TV) Vertical Film Template.” Karen J Lloyd’s Storyboard Blog.
Accessed 18 Feb 2013. http://storyboardblog.com.
“Pedagogical Benefits.” The University of Queensland Australia. Accessed 24 July
TL; DR 2015. http://uq.edu.au/tediteach/video-teach-learn/ped-benefits.html.
Squier, Joseph. “Writing with Video : Grading Rubric.”Writing with Video. Accessed 25
Mar 2013. http://writingwithvideo.net/readingsReferences/module03Rubric.
pdf.
Index
137
Hodobu, 31 lithography, 25
hue, 103 local, 123
lost wax, 18
I Lowland Christian art, 21
identity, 113 Lowland Christians, 21
Ifugao fale, 36 luhul, 20
ilustrado, 25
inamong, 16 M
indigenous, see pre-conquest madrasa, 19
infrastructure projects, 61 Magpupukot (1975), 6
interactive, 94 Manlilikha ng Bayan, 57
Islam, 19 man-manok, 16
Islamic colonial, 19 Manuel Conde, 69
Islamic faith, 19 Manunggul jar, 17
Itak sa Puso ni Mang Juan (1978), 38 map, 25
medium, 89
J mihrab, 20
Japanese Information Bureau, see Militarization, 61
Hodobu mimetic representation, 34
Japanese occupation, 31 mining projects, 61
Jose Maceda, 36 mixed media, 10
Julie Lluch, 48 mode of production, 47
Modern Art, 2, 4, 5, 30–31
K moro, 23
Ka’bah, 20 moro-moro, see komedya
kadaliwas, 16 movement, 108–109
Kaisahan, 39 mumbaki, 46
kanyaw, see canao Museo San Ysidro de Pulilan, 78
Kashawing ritual, 16 musical arts, 91
kendi, 19 musical culture, 16
Kidlat Tahimik, 11 musician, 90
kinabua, 16 Muslim architecture, 20
Kinupot (1978), 39
komedya, 23 N
kundiman, 22 narrative arts, 91
National Artist Awards, 36, 65–66
L National Arts Center, 35
Leandro Locsin, 35, 68 National Commission for Culture and
Limen (2014), 128 the Arts, 57, 79
line, 102 National Museum of the Philippines, 78
lingua franca, 28 native dance forms, 16
Index
139
simplified forms, 34 traditional Ivatan house, 49
simulacrum, 96 Treaty of Paris, 28
Sipat Lawin Ensemble, 75 Tromp l’oeil, 22
site-specific work, 94 Tuba Drinkers, 32
social realism, 7, 38
Southern Tagalog Exposure, 75 U
Spanish colonial period, 21 ummah, 19
Spoliarium, 27 UP Kontra Gapi, 78
Street Musicians (1952), 34 urna, 25
Study of an Aeta, 32
Stylistic Overview, 8 V
subject, 113 value, 103, 105
Sungduan, 79 vanua, 118
support systems, 75 Variations of Sabel (2015), 66
vaudeville, 28
T Via Crucis, 22
tabungaw hats, 57 Victorio Edades, 30
Tagbanwa, 16 Virgenes christianas expuestas al
Talaandig artists, 48 populacho, 27
Tales of the Manuvu (1985), 69 viriña, 25
Talip dance, 16
tataya, 117 W
tattoos, 18 weaving:
Tawhid, 19 basket, 18
technique, 91 mat, 18
Teofilo Garcia, 56 textile, 17
texture, 102, 105 traditional, 17
The Beggars (1952), 32 western ballet, 24
The Builders, 30 writer, 90
The Contrast, (1940), 7, 32
theater, 90 Z
themes, 113 zarzuela, 23
Thirteen Moderns, 30
time-based artifact, 92
tinikling, 16, 49
T’nalak, 48, 105
tone, 103
torogan, 20
Tos del pais, 25
tourism, 60
traditional art, 10, 57