Last week, former American Idol contestant (and unofficial Filipino person) David Archuleta came out on his Instagram as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. In his post he said "I’ve been open to myself and my close family for some years now that I am not sure about my own sexuality," and goes on to say that once he thought he was gay, then he later believed that he was bisexual, and now believes his lack of sexual desires and urges may be considered asexual behavior. He wrote in the post, "Idk what to make of it and I don't have all the answers."
Over the process of this residency, I have struggled with the position of not knowing, of being caught in headlights like a lost deer in the forest. I was so used to a culture of draft-outline-draft-deadline. Is this my personal proof of the performance orientation of Filipino culture? Even in the hazy, empirical language of the arts and humanities, do we place our highest concerns on product? Our affect? Our facade? (And is this the result of being an overcolonized hybrid of indigenous and empirical cultures? To this day, we seek approval from our Western colonizers). I truly (and most appropriately) felt like...I was trying to move in a cloud. A suspension of liquid in the atmosphere, it is weightless, nebulous, ambiguous. When I attempted to explore it, I panicked. Where was the ground underneath my feet? What can I hold onto?
In doing preliminary research for this project, I came across a TED Talk called "The theatre of gender play" by Jo Michael Rezes. They introduce the idea of "gender rehearsativity" (working within the vocabulary of "gender performance"), where people create safe, supportive spaces in their everyday lives, inviting other people to explore their own genders and sexualities and, most importantly, are given enough space and support to fail in their attempts to locate or identify gender. Q, after all, can mean both Queer and Questioning.
Not knowing is not a sign of weakness. Gender, sexuality, art...these are all part of process. Being able to consider my growth and development and to be able to witness the processes of all these brilliant artists is a wonderful form of affirmation. To confront problems, to create solutions, or to maybe not solve anything at all: we learn to embrace practice, to embrace rehearsal.
I'd like to extend my gratitude to Yi-Kai and everyone at Thinkers' Studio for their incredible support and for bringing this project together (special thanks to Vivien and Cynthia for putting up with me!! you guys are amazing). Thank you to our local team Rafa Lubigan and Paulo Fontilla for the long hours and your dedication to this insane work. Thank you to Boy Rose for the beautiful melodies you set to my stupid lyrics. Thank you to our facilitator Su Pinwen for her expert guidance, for making me think outside the box, and for putting up with my rambling at our meetings. Thank you to Andrei for putting the two of us together! And of course, thank you to my partner and collaborator Phi Palmos, for your honesty, your patience, your time, and your incredible voice. Hope to see you online (or onstage!!) again soon! POST-PERFORMANCE NOTE:
I also just wanted to take this opportunity to clarify that the "myth" of Bulan and Sidapa as presented in our excerpt is not an actual Filipino myth. The narrative of Bulan and Sidapa was a piece of myth-inspired fiction that had circulated in popularity a few years ago, many believing that it was an under-shared element of our precolonial mythology. We kept it in our performance because we felt the narrative itself having a great response did in fact matter to our exploration of how sexuality has been represented in our popular culture. To be a Filipino and to be told that same-sex attraction is as innate as our precolonial identity...why wouldn't we want it to be true. In the longer piece, the falsity would have been addressed of course. But alas, we only had twenty minutes! Hopefully we get to integrate this observation into whatever bigger piece we want to work on. But until then, pretend that we LIED TO YOU!!! See you all soon!
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