From the Inbox: Invitation to a dance

IndepenDance Forum 1: an instruction manual in low-res
(reflections on Doris Humphrey’s The Art of Making Dances)

Choreography by Myra Beltran and Al Bernard Garcia

Nov. 28-29, 2013, 7pm
Dance Forum Studio
36E West Ave., QC
Pay as you wish, for info: 09277849579

Doris Humphrey (1895-1958), influential choreographer of the 1930s belonged to the second generation of modern dance pioneers whose practice and technique are still taught today. Her reflections on dance-making were published posthumously in a book called “The Art of Making Dances,” a book that is staple reference for compositional theory in dance.

“IndepenDance Forum 1: an instruction manual in low-res” contains our reflections on Humphrey’s book as we try to find the relevance and meaning of our dance practice in contemporary society.

A project of Dance Forum MB with the support of the National Commission for
Culture and the Arts

Our Winged Self

In the place where I work part-time, I have learned another "r" to add to the three "r's" in the environmental cause: reuse, reduce, recycle AND refuse. 

From my inbox this morning came a message from a friend. We have been discussing, back and forth, in our emails the issue of guilt that women get saddled with and makes them capitulate to the pressure of others, whether it's family, friends, colleagues. She wrote that guilt has been used, by men especially, as a way of making women feel less worthy as wives, as mothers, than what they are. She ended her note with a cheerful "This season, let's make this our chant: take no sorrow, give no sorrow."

On the third hour of this morning, while going about cleaning my files, I found this old composition, dating, by my estimate, to sometime in '08 or '09, about the time I was enrolled in an introductory course in print-making.

In my middle age, prayer has morphed into something else. To my mother’s grief, I have stopped attending Catholic mass on Sundays and on holy days of obligation.

In childhood, Sister Gemma of the Cross, SPC, our music teacher and glee club conductor,  told us heartfelt singing has double the power of spoken prayer. That lesson stayed.

Through the years, as I watched the Bolshoi, Alice Reyes  (she dances “with libog” in the immortal words of Lino Brocka), Myra Beltran, Ligaya Amilbangsa, Judith Jamison of the Alvin Ailey troupe, actors like Adul de Leon (before cancer claimed her) and Emily Watson, who channeled cellist Jacqueline Du Pre in a biopic, passionate pianists Cecile Licad and Lang Lang, equally passionate violinists like Alexandru Tomescu, cellist-conductor Mtislav Rostropovich, my godson Diwa de Leon going into a trance as he plays his compositions, my seven-year-old niece Bianca drawing with deep concentration figures on scratch paper or playing a simplified version of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”—then and now, I am convinced that artists have that ineluctable  link to the Force.

In the past five years that I’ve been doing fine arts studies and taking private art lessons, I’ve also felt an eerie feeling come over me when I’m painting, working on a collage and, lately, a rubber-cut. Not only am I in the moment, any form of distraction is unwelcome—a chatty classmate, a buzzing cell phone, a chore that needs doing and nagging me at the back of my head.

When a piece is done, no matter how faulty, I go: “Gee, did I really do that?” I can never call these latest products of my hand “work.” The writing, the editing, yes, that’s work,  work I like doing and was trained to do to enable me to earn some pin money for the occasional Starbucks treat or rum Coke at a bar. 

Painting and other modes of visual art expression have become a form of prayer. The rare remuneration that comes out of it is, for want of a better phrase, accidental grace.

Here is the poet Khalil Gibran ( 1883-1930 ) on the subject of prayer:

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?

And if it is for your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.

And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.

When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.

Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion. For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:

And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:

Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others

you shall not be heard.

It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.

I cannot teach you how to pray in words. God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.

And I cannot teach you the prayer of the seas and the forests and the mountains.

But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,

And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,

Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.

It is thy desire in us that desireth.

It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.

We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.

Pundaquit recollected: Magic amidst a mango orchard

Serendipity is one of those marvelous words in this second language I learned. I was scouring my e-mail files when I stumbled on this report I filed in April 2005 to a newspaper after returning home from a visit to Casa San Miguel in Zambales. The piece was turned down twice in different sections of the same daily. By then, I was too tired to peddle it elsewhere. No heart broken; just an electronic file shelved.

Many mango seasons have gone by, even the data here are dated,chief of which is Coke Bolipata is no longer 40. Another is the fact that travel time to Zambales has been cut drastically with the opening of SCITEX.

But when I stumble upon old words, what am to do but give them a new lease on life (cliche-sounding though that may seem), especially because this piece was turned down on grounds of being too lengthy and too local. Once more, with feeling, the Pundaquit of 2005. And I hope Bolipata has remained faithful to his vision.

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A dozen seasons have passed since violinist Alfonso "Coke" Bolipata, artistic director of Casa San Miguel, built and opened a cultural center in the heart of a mango orchard in Pundaquit, Zambales, and the artistic fruits are falling from the trees.

Over the weekend at the Ramon Corpus Hall, Myra Beltran, lead dancer-founder of Dance Forum, and Paul Morales, artistic director of Airdance, joined Donna Miranda, Marielle Alonzo, Jethro Pioquinto, Nordic Caraig and Reagan Cornelio through five numbers, most of which danced to live music by Alvo Paert, Johann Sebastian Bach and Ernest Bloch as interpreted by the Pundaquit Chamber Players under Bolipata.

The recital, entitled "Ludus," derived from the writing of St. Thomas Aquinas, connoted movement and play as opposed to stillness, Morales said.

Morales, who referred to Beltran as the country's leading light in modern dance, said it was a challenge to choreograph for a small space or for that matter "make dances that can be performed in any venue."

Then there is the matter of dancing to live music that he said took time to adjust to the tempo. To him dance is "solace, a sanctuary where you always go back to yourself. You keep on observing yourself, pacing yourself."

Beltran, who got back last November from the University of Iowa's theater arts program, brought home sheet music for the chamber music players to perform.

She met Bolipata in 1994 after her first full-length concert that revolved around Roberto Feleo's "Tao-Tao" installation. She wanted to dance wherever it went, and Casa was one of the venues. There she became an artist-in-residence and was featured in Sari Dalena's film "Puting Paalam." She continues to produce work for the Casa once every two years.

Bolipata, 40, who recently recovered from a gall bladder operation that has left him gaunt-looking, has never been more energized with the success of the music, theater and visual arts workshops offered at the Casa this summer.

Casa has as many as 120 participants in the music workshop, the youngest being three years old and the oldest 48. They drop by every Saturday and Sunday for lessons. Some of them are farmers, fisher folk, tricycle drivers, gas station attendants and professionals.

The promising young musicians also teach the younger kids and get paid P50 for each student for every half hour's lesson. For example, the 11-or-12-year old child would teach the four- or five-year olds.

According to Bolipata, senior resident artists come to give short-term workshops. In the past, Casa had violinist Oscar Yatco, writer NVM Gonzalez who used to play the guitar, cellist Renato Lucas and Bolipata himself.

Resident artists are current college/conservatory students who come to the center on weekends to teach throughout the year. These are mostly Bolipata's most advanced students from his teaching studio in Manila.

Asked how Casa San Miguel sustains its yearlong program, he said there are corporate sponsors that are good citizens and know how to give back to the community.

The Casa's educational activities are made possible by contributions to the annual operating fund from Citigroup in New York, the offices of Senators Ramon Magsaysay Jr. and Loi Ejercito as well as grants from the Metrobank Foundation and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. There are also private contributions from individual donors.

Bolipata said more infrastructure support for building and technical upgrades are made possible this year by Siemens and its affiliates, adding, "Beyond all the material support, we exist really because of the goodwill of our dedicated and loyal staff, teachers and volunteers."

Artists' residencies are by informal invitation only and chosen according to the needs of the center. Interested artists can e-mail the Casa at pundaquit@yahoo.com to make a proposal.

Bolipata said there are three young orphans in the group who signed up for therapy and are "getting better than expected." They were given additional scholarships in the art workshop for further therapy. The art teachers are Daniel Querijero and Carlo Gabuco.Bolipata admitted though that the festival is more known by Filipino-Americans abroad who come home as balikbayans after viewing feature documentaries on the place in the Filipino channel. These Filipinos tell their relatives in the home country about this special place in Zambales, and that's how visitors turn up.

Bolipata's work in the first three years of the Casa's existence was to bring people from all over the world to perform or to try the space. The space includes an amphitheater that can comfortably sit 1,000 people, and it was the site of the recent concert of the Metro Manila Community Orchestra under Josefino Toledo. There is also a shadow play theater. The Siemens company sponsored a multi-purpose
hall that can be used for exhibits, workshops and performances. The Alaska room (after the milk company) is used for practice sessions.

Bolipata has branched out to adapting folk tales. In the beginning, Casa San Miguel went into children's illustrated book publishing for which it gave residency grants to young writers to research and document local Zambales folktales. They came up with a collection of a dozen folktales from the province, with a plan to publish one each year featuring a young illustrator and a young writer. Sadly, they only went as far as publishing two stories, "Kablay," retold by Amel Zubiri and illustrated by Felix Mago Miguel, and "Pawikan," an original story by Randy Bustamante, illustrated by Katti Sta. Ana.

Bolipata said, "In the interest of bringing back to life an interest and pride in indigenous stories, hand in hand with the development of a theater program, the dozen
stories provided the necessary material to achieve the objectives of promoting arts and culture at a community level using a native story to be performed by local talents.

"I wrote the mermaid story three years ago because it had a mystical relevance in my life, details of which are too strange to relate now. The story is the universal tale of the mermaid who takes a young boy to her world, only for him (Julian) to realize that he belongs to the mortal world, to accept the fate of mortality and take on the obligation of caring for aging parents.

"The mermaid, through the human and mortal Julian, learns to love, dream and shed tears. In her world there were no shadows, no darkness, no love and no tears. The mermaid lets him go, warning him that he will have no memory of her. Upon returning, he is shocked to see that 50 years have gone by, thinking he had merely fallen asleep. In the end, Julian takes on the responsibility of making a life for his family. At times, while in fishing from his banca, he peers into its depths filled with a sense of the familiar, while the mermaid (unseen) stares back at him from beneath."

Getting there:

Casa San Miguel is on Evangelista St., Barrio San Miguel, a fishing village in the town of San Antonio, Zambales. By bus, take the Victory Liner from Caloocan Terminal, also known as Monumento. Buy a ticket headed for Iba. This will take you north to Olongapo, and upon reaching Marcelino, the bus will head west towards San Antonio. Get off at San Antonio, where you will have to get on a tricycle, right
across from the the bus station. Tell the driver to take you to Casa San Miguel. Travel time from Manila to Casa is about four hours.

By car: Take the North Expressway which brings you through the provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga and Bataan. Enter the Subic Port to save 15 minutes. Upon exiting continue on the National Road through Subic town, Castillejos and San Marcelino. In San Marcelino, take a left to San Antonio. Upon entering San Antonio, you will pass the
municipal hall and town plaza, and see a school at the end of the road. Take a left here past two small blocks and a right on Evangelista St. Drive for about three kilometers and you will see a sign that says: "Welcome to Casa San Miguel." If you hit the beach, you've gone too far!

Photo source: http://www.waypoints.ph/photo_detail.php?wpt=casasm&passfile=casasm01.jpg

A Conspiracy of Priests

Virginia R. Moreno’s Itim Asu (also known as The Onyx Wolf in English or La Loba Negra in Spanish) lends itself to collaborative work since it was first staged at Fort Santiago in the 1960s. In its latest reincarnation as a multi-media dance project of Myra Beltran’s Dance Forum, Itim Asu still has something to say to a 2010 audience although what is depicted is based on an assassination of a governor general in Manila in the Spanish colonial era and the aftermath of said murder where the assassin-priests go unpunished.

Historical archives are vague about this incident that was also the subject of a painting by the master Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Since the friars/priests were the power clique of that period, they could make records vanish.

The murdered Governor General Bustamante was ordered by the king of Spain to look into the corruption that ate the galleon trade traveling from Mexico to the Philippines and back. He was an effective fiscalizer, to the chagrin of these priests whose pockets were lined by the system of “put here, put there.” This is nothing new. Even during the time of Henry VIII, a bishop or a cardinal was virtually running England while His Majesty spent his time engaged in sports and bedazzling the ladies. Royal sovereigns all over Europe greased the Pope’s hands to get their applications of annulment of their marriages approved.

Bustamante said, “Enough!” with a fatal consequence. His cold-blooded murder moves his Aztec-blooded wife to go underground and join the peasants. She turns into an avenging angel, killing priests in various towns in Laguna. One surmises these priests were connected to her husband’s murder.

Last Wednesday’s one-night staging of Itim Asu at the Carlos Romulo Auditorium of the Yuchengco Tower in Makati City takes off from this plot. Choreographer-dancer Beltran throws in an armada of 21st-century media to add a contemporary flavor to this historical piece whose veracity has even been questioned as the clergy made sure not a trace of Bustamante’s assassination was left in the Royal Audiencia’s archives in Manila. She and her collaborators put in snatches of film and stills in the backdrop, classical piano and guitar, dissonant modern music, audio footage from the surrender of the Japanese to the Americans in World War II and a host of dance styles that have a touch of the tango, folk, Martha Graham gestures—anything but leotards, tights, ballet slippers and frail, delicate tutus.

Ms. Moreno might be uncomfortable with the word “feminist”, but her classic Itim Asu is better than any hortatory feminist tract or a year’s reading of Ms. Magazine. Like her poetry, her heroine in this dance drama has tender and tensile strong qualities. At a pause during the ovation for the dancers, Beltran and Moreno, she pointed out the dualities present in Itim Asu like the double-faced masks she is fascinated with: sacred and profane, criminal and victim, etc.

If only Señora de Bustamante can dance on other stages north and south of the archipelago. Better than countless consciousness-raising sessions on women’s issues and how repression and poverty are caused by the Catholic patriarchy.