If Art is Feeling...

then are all artists just pretending? Hmmm...

Watched a contemporary dance event last night at the Green Papaya Project. It was my first time to visit the place despite knowing that its been around like many years already (since I was at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts).

As we got down the place, there was already something happening on the upper floor of the gallery and people could see it because it had like a huge estante where people can view the action from outside. It seemed like a compelling activity that tricycle drivers, tambays and street urchins wanted also in on the action. Guess how that made Donna Miranda feel?

Donna Miranda is a renaissance woman, tackling multiple roles as curator, videographer, choreographer. But she is quite known as a contemporary dancer. She together with her partner, visual artist Peewee Roldan put up Green Papaya Art Projects as an alternative art space where they can showcase their kind of art.

The space is quite small and has that bohemian feel to it. And although the first wave of audiences (the village tambays) were not excatly the target audience for the night's performance, both the performers and viewers were quite pleased with the night's showcase. And if the FWT (first wave tambays) were not around, then the audience will dwindle to a measly 20 people. Sad. Although Donna was quite apprehensive about the audience (they might heckle the performances and even imagine her walking in her undies --- as they will be seeing during the performance), I think it was a good venue for this group of people to be exposed to this kind of art. My only peeve is that they smell like the sun and onions. Not a good thing when you're enclosed in a teeny space together.

Donna performed with other dancers from all around the world as part of this "Chasing the Whale" project. There were artists from Japan, one from Brazil, from Turkey, from the Netherlands, --- well, you get the idea, they were from all around. Bongga because they had this project which brought them to 4 major cities in Asia (Bangkok, Manila, Kyoto and Tokyo) in an effort to research and explore multicultural issues and expressions. Whew!

I'm no big fan of contemporary dance. Heck, the longest time I can watch without breaking into snores is about 30 minutes. So this thingy was purely research for me.

My boss asked me why contemporary dance is not popular in the Philippines. And I told him because it is something that few people can relate to. The movements are so abstract and most of the times, very personal expressions of the dancer/ choreographer that it is so hard to understand. He countered, but art is not all about understanding... it's about feeling. Well, that's well and good if the dance piece evoked some kind of impression or emotion from the audience, but what if there is none? Which is true? That the audience is dumb or the work just plain bad?

I appreciated the performance last night, especially that of Donna's. Hurray Philippines! And I think her piece (though not clearly specified, although I can feel it was hers) was the most hard-hitting and most relevant to me. The others were just sitting down, posing, standing up, writhing, stop. I can do that. hehehehe. Send me on this 3 country trip!

As with the other performances, it was so-so. I did not imagine how Paul Morales and Donna's piece could be uninteresting. But it was. Their piece started with their recollections and dreams -- and they spoke, not danced. Oh they each gave their token turns moving while the other was speaking but it was already an hour of watching contemporary dance for me. more than my quota. I couldn't wait anymore for things to get excited inside, so I quickly slunk out to go home.

After all this, karma has a way of saving the day. I rode a taxi home and instead of me giving a tip, the driver gave me a discount! Thank you!