Observer: Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan
Introduction:
With the current issues surrounding gender representation receiving much needed traction both online and outside of our screens, it is important to shed light on narratives that bring visibility to marginalized voices and experiences the general public may not be aware of. This limited view, of course, may be due to a variety of cultural, religious, and socio-economic reasons. However, Connect with SEA (Gender Issue): Residency in the Cloud created a safe space for continued conversations on understanding gender and how artistic expression may be able to respond to topics surrounding the complexities of gender equality in Southeast Asia, at large.
Co-organized by Thinkers’ Studio and Dance Nucleus, this program is an innovative platform for contemporary Asian artists that empowers them to wrestle with gender issues existing in Taiwan, Singapore, and the Philippines. Through the perspectives of the artists-in-residence selected to be part of this 5-week program, digital performance pieces were developed with the guidance of facilitators from Taiwan (Yu Wan-Lun, Huang Ding-Yun, and Su Pin-Wen) and Bangkok (Henry Tan), respectively. Audiences were also able to experience these performance-based presentations that challenged imposed gender-normative notions in the region.
This journal is a general observation on the works-in-progress produced by participating Residency in the Cloud artists via Zoom. This is neither a critique, nor a means of questioning the artistic merit or integrity of their work. It is simply a reaction to what I see as an important attempt to probe their curiosities and confront their realities via a collaborative online environment.
Day 1:
History of Phi
The first presentation was a performance-lecture by the Philippine-based duo Gabbi Campomanes and Phi Palmos. Leveraging on their backgrounds in musical theater, Phi being an actor and Gabbi a playwright/performer, the one-person coming-of-age developing work is aptly entitled “The History of Phi”
The excerpt was prefaced by a narration of a viral Facebook post about a sorrowful Filipino god Sidapa who wished for love from the seven moons that guarded the islands of the Philippines. He delved into the darkness hoping that his prayers would be answered. One day, led by fireflies to come down from the heavens, the moon god Bulan searched for Sidapa to provide him the love and care he wished for. Bulan eventually fell into Sidapa’s arms. To this day, the two gods remain lovers as they look over the seas atop Sidapa’s mountain. Their love, a symbol of pre-colonial non-binary relationships existing within the Filipino psyche. If only it was a real Filipino pre-colonial myth. It isn’t. And this anecdote pretty much set the tone for what was presented by Phi and Gabbi. Juxtaposed with ironies and fantasies that nearly every Pinoy ‘femme’ gay boy in the Philippines wished they had or could have – from winning a beauty pageant, participating as the Reyna (queen) in the town fiesta, and even being the star, not the sidekick, of one’s very own musical about, well, about being him!
Based on the life story of Phi, the piece was developed through a series of conversations between the two artists during the residency period. Gabbi took on the role of embodying Phi’s experiences and anecdotes in order to write a cohesive play that Phi could then re-embody to tell his story. What was interesting about the piece is the artists’ use of the term ‘approximation,’ which I can only describe as imbibing what something is, but in process making that something – what it seems it is, but not really.
And herein lies the beauty and potentiality of this collaboration – both Phi and Gabbi’s voices resonate throughout the piece. I felt an empathic and mindful approach in the writing of Phi’s story. Phi created an authentic performance (playing versions of himself), with Gabbi not being lost in the process.
Sex Gender of Intimate Fabrics
The second performance presented on day one was a collaboration between Taiwanese performance artist Tseng Chih-Wei and circus artist Mei Ching-Ling. Their piece called “Sex Gender of Intimate Fabrics” had a two-fold purpose in exploring what they describe as “the gender of clothes.” A term that, for me, meant the designation of which types of garments are assigned to the male and the female body; a confining representation and portrayal of gender through heteronormative lenses.
The piece attempted to delve into the body’s intimate relationship with fabrics in relation to transvestic fetishism or the feeling of sexual arousal through dressing like or putting on clothes traditionally worn and assigned to the opposite gender. The video exploration itself was a sleek presentation that felt like an independently released music video. It highlighted both artists’ control of their bodies and, as an audience member, control of how they may have wanted to be perceived. In terms of presenting the gender of clothes and the body’s intimacy with fabrics – it registered as more performative than sexually arousing for the artists, therefore the audience, as they incorporated movements that may be typically seen as sexually salacious (arch backs, fingers in mouth, dancing nude dance garments, putting on fishnet stockings, etc.). I do feel that the piece relied on binary concepts of gender (male and female, yin and yang) to explore their initial provocation. It was, nonetheless, a beautiful contemporary movement piece on video.
During the presentation they posed a series of questions:
“what if a man needs high heels to feel like a woman? … if he needs high heels to cover his man’s body?... if he needs high heels to be touched like a woman?... if he needs high heels to have sex like a woman?
This line of questioning led me to ask myself: does cross-dressing fill the void and the need to feel like the “other” (i.e. a man crossing dressing to feel like a woman)? Does it have to be about wanting to feel like the “opposite gender”? Is a man or a woman’s arousal triggered by wearing gender-specific clothing because of the need to feel or embody the experience of the opposite sex? Or can a man, woman, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual person just simply wants to dig deeper and connect with the most carnal sexual part of themselves and release uninhibited versions of who they are, one that does not necessarily conform to existing gender binary rules?
Perhaps the two artists also need to explore and challenge themselves with these questions if they decide to develop their piece further.
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