Artists have the ability to take part in creating new stories, hence, new cultures and our new history. The conflict, however, lies in how we use that ability—whether in presenting truths or manipulating them. It is the very same ability, which we may use to create our identity and culture as Filipinos, that dancers and choreographers during the Martial Law used, for example, in introducing the Sayaw sa Banga as an “authentic folk dance”, when in fact it was simply a choreography inspired by people carrying bangas at hagdan-hagdang palayans. It is indeed unimaginable for the Cordillerans to dance while carrying these objects. The mass was just convinced that the dance was authentic. The Singkil is also a choreography that was foreign to the Maranaos until an artist constructed it and brought it to their community, leaving the dance for them to claim.

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Historical constructivism. The time of the Martial Law was deemed as the age of exploration or construction of the “Filipino Identity” and its supremeness. It was also the time when the discovery of the Stone Age group, the Tasaday, in Mindanao surfaced. The whole world gushed about this newfound treasure. After ten years, the age of existence of the Tasaday was proven wrong and the truth about them having been payed to bare their skins and act like members of a stone-aged community, innocent of the civilization beyond the confines of theirs. The Tasadays were just figments of imaginative minds, and the group who portrayed them was, undeniably, used as objects, and for what? For establishing an identity and its greatness or for the attention of the world to be diverted from the countless cases of abuse and disorder during the Martial Law?

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During the past year, we’ve heard a lot and too much of Fake News, which the inventors of the Tasaday seemed to be experts at. How much of the stories in our history were fabricated and false? How come the remains of a former dictator now lies in a graveyard reserved for heroes? What influence did artist-choreographers contribute in such fallacies?

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I choose to reveal the untrue, the just, and our capability as artists to construct, deconstruct, and reconstruct—the use of anthropology as a way to create movements to move the audience.

 

-Mt. Makiling, 2018

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Premiered at the National Arts Center, 2018

Solo Body Iteration at Littoral Drifts, Baler, Aurora, 2018, Solidarity in Performance Art, 2018, and at the University of the Philippines Vargas Museum Variations of the Field, 2019

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🔗 CNN Philippines Life! 2018 in Philippine Art