In the age of doing Manila runs of foreign plays versus doing the more creative task of adapting these for local audiences, Dulaang UP’s Titus Andronicus: Tinarantadong Asintado can only be valuable. Directed by Tuxqs Rutaquio and adapted into Filipino by Layeta Bucoy, what’s remarkable about this work is that it does justice to the Shakespeare original while delivering a contemporary narrative that by all counts is a success.
The moment pop/street music filled the theater, the moment the clown (Nicco Manalo) established his role as both symbol of death and life, in those first few minutes Tinarantadong Asintado grabbed me by the throat. Yes, it’s as violent and visceral as it sounds. This might have been an absurd tragedy set in the end of the Roman Empire, in the original that had at its core a cycle of revenge, but in this adaptation the absurd is so bloody real – and that’s no bloody exaggeration. When we say truth is stranger than fiction, we must have the Philippines in mind; in Tinarantadong Asintado the fictional takes that truth and runs away with it.
it’s been quiet here, which isn’t to say that it’s been quiet where i’m at. been finishing up an MA thesis that’s gone on for too long, and is more about closure to a life lived in the academe more than anything else. while that’s happening, i’ve had more interesting conversations than usual, including conversations about art and the state of things in this country, ones that are kept off the record, unspoken of. sometimes it’s limited to Facebook, other times it just refuses to engage in decent debate and discourse, distinct from the personal.
yet there are many things to write still, conversations to be had. but it seems even brave statements of distrust and disgust, even ones that are relevant and worthy of discussion, become feed and fodder for the personal. here lies our un-critical dead end: we are a sensitive bunch of people, very few of us can handle criticism. yet in times of controversy, or just given the space to do it (blogs, newspaper columns), everyone becomes a critic in this country, everyone will claim the title.
which is fine too, were we all working with a sense of what criticism requires, what it entails, what it must necessarily work with. in recent conversations, forced to answer questions about the work i do, the blogging and the writing, and therefore my life in general (hah!), i realized that much of what i had to say reverted back to my sense of what’s relevant and important, to a sense that what i say is secondary to that text that’s in front of me, which is also always a text that’s about nation. i will never claim that i get it right all the time, or even half the time; but i will say that i come from a very clear sense of myself as spectator in the context of the tragedies and sadnesses that are in this space we all inhabit, that any cultural text necessarily sprouts from, no matter how removed these might be.
and just in case it isn’t clear, i’d like to think that any critic is a writer first, because every critic lives off of words, too, lives off of choosing the right words for capturing how she has experienced a text. and as with any writer, the only way to have the words to say, and to have a sense of what’s relevant to discuss, is to be within the enterprise of culture in this country, half the time suspending one’s notions of taste and order, the other half suspending all judgement. all the time it requires this sense of how things are never black and white anymore, that these are gray times, where notions of power and oppression are interspersed/diluted/interlaced with things that are prettier or tastier or just downright addictive.
it’s because of this that i find generalizations to be painfully unfair, if not just usually absolutely wrong. after the success of Ang Babae sa Septic Tank, this generalization was dropped —
i’d like to find out where this indie film crowd hangs out, just because this girl’s got it all wrong about the indie, and the indie film, and even just the idea that there’s a crowd. had she read up on the indie, watched the indie for the past decade or so too, she’d know that this “crowd” doesn’t exist, the hipster students she’s so critical of are a recent aspect of it (and the hipsters are everywhere), and the neo-realist dramas that tend to be pretentious aren’t at all of the indie as a category, but of a kind of Pinoy film in general, indie and otherwise.
in direct contrast to such misinformed generalizations is something as honest as pinoy drama rewind which does movie and TV reviews, as well as episode recaps of contemporary soaps and seryes. this might not be the kind of critical blog that’s celebrated, but it sure as hell’s got more going for it than the misinformed being given space(s) in broadsheets like the Philippine Star. in the latter we just perpetuate the notion that all it takes is space to write and an amount of yabang. in the former, there is an effort at actually and truly coming to terms with the cultural products that we create and live with in this country, and there is a sense of humility more than anything else.
one that we should all learn from, critic and writer, young and old, in broadsheets and online, alike.
Enjoy Division is a group exhibit not just with a wonderful title, but which had a curatorial note by Antares Gomez Bartolome that the Light&Space Contemporary gallery decided to put down.
the said note was critical of Malaysian curator Adeline Ooi’s assessment of Philippine contemporary art which looked down on us, i.e., “We already know you were conquered by the Spanish, sold to the Americans, raped by the Japanese and totally fucked over by Marcoses” but which praised artists influenced by Roberto Chabet. (that article was up at businessworld which now requires you to pay to see its archives. bleh.)
since Light&Space Contemporary’s censorship of the curatorial note, artists of Enjoy Division have decided to take down the exhibit.
it seems about right that they do, given the fact that there is no intelligent response from the gallery — at least none that’s been made public — other than what’s here.
via @Antares Gomez B. on Facebook (August 29)
Dear Light & Space Contemporary,
I am posting this essay for purposes of establishing a dialogue. Kindly reply with your reason/s for taking the essay down. So far, all I have is a forwarded message from Buen Abrigo, one of our organizers, who received a message from you. It reads: “Ano ba nangyari? tinangal namin yung writeup nyo, sablay sya men, sabihin nyo sa writer nyo, d namin susuportahan yung writeup, di pwde i publish gamit anglight and space. Maganda sana at solid yung show pero panira lang yung writer, gusto mo magusap tayo mamaya para malinaw sa inyo kung bakit d approve yung writeup.”
it’s interesting here how a show is judged as “maganda at solid” extraneous to its a curatorial note. the next step would’ve been for the gallery to explain their reasons for saying yes to this exhibit to begin with — what exactly did they think it would be about? — because they seem to be surprised about that note, when it could only be an integral part of the process of putting up that exhibition. of course it’s entirely possible that the process is different for this gallery, and that they were really truly surprised, then maybe the question should be: why? what was so wrong about an essay that critiques a foreigner’s take on Pinoy art?
and really, how do we deal with the notions of the curatorial note being separate from the exhibit it curates? though maybe let’s start by talking about the difference between the curatorial note and its writer: sablay yung write-up? panira yung writer? ganda.
via @Antares Gomez B. on Facebook UPDATE (August 31):
During our exhibition group’s meeting yesterday evening, we decided to ask the gallery for a written explanation for their decision to ban the essay. We received two text messages from them.
“Right din ng gallery na tanggalin ang mga bagay na negative or nakakasira sa gallery at sa mga tao na involved dito, ayaw namin makisama sa drama nyo kay ooi”
-Pow Martinez 30 Aug 2011 9:43pm
“Pwede naman palitan yung exhibit text nyo na walang name dropping na negative na sinasabi.”
-Pow Martinez 30 Aug 2011 10:08pm
We decided to ask if these two messages constituted the official statement of the gallery as they were rather general and vague.
We then received a telephone call from Pow Martinez where Buen Abrigo explained that the works could not sacrifice the essay, that the works were the manifestations and elaborations of the essay’s sentiment and vice versa, and that the criticism of how certain parties are distorting and exploiting (the making of) art history was integral to the exhibition’s concept.
The reply was that the gallery did not agree with our concept. “Lame” was the word.
We have since decided to withdraw our works from this so-called alternative space.
Despite our disappointment with the gallery management, we take heart that the exhibition was able to highlight the ideological lines that divide the milieu we are part of, lines that help determine the breadth, pitch, and span of critical art production and discourse.
and so it becomes clear: as far as the gallery’s concerned: (1) no curatorial note can say anything negative and/or namedrop, and (2) responding to a foreign curator’s statements about Philippine art is “drama” that’s negative. and yes, we got that loud and clear, it’s the gallery’s right to take down a curatorial note, BUT keep the exhibit that goes with it as if it stands on its own. got it.
on Enjoy Division 1 via Antares Gomez B's Facebookon Enjoy Division 2 via Antares Gomez B's Facebook
so you know, there is actual debate and engagement with the strategies/tragedies/ concepts/ideologies/fictions that create this art world, and then there’s murahan at personalan, walang paliwanagan. and there are mafias and cliques and friendships, a refusal to change the way things are, and the general disregard for and distrust in criticism, even when they dish it against critics who engage them in intelligent discourse.
right here is why i never agreed with the idea that the one great thing to come out of the conservative controversy that was poleteismo is that people will start talking about philippine art. because the censorship of Enjoy Division’s curatorial note was infinitely more offensive and should resonate for anyone who writes — anyone at all — and as such demands involvement from those who joined the fray of kulo’s closure.
but the national artist and the high-and-mighty writers of this world don’t seem to care about art anymore, even when it’s been trampled upon by a foreigner with false grand statements about Pinoy art, even when it is censored in light of protecting one way of viewing art making in this country.
we prove in the end that post-poleteismo, and save for the grand couple of weeks when everyone was suddenly an art critic in this country and no one complained, the issue of censorship in the arts and the systems that allow it — without the noise of the penis — will only fall on deaf ears.
Going to art exhibits and events since 2009, I find that what I enjoy most about it is the solitude and silence. I’m not known in art circles (or any circle for that matter) and can go around unobtrusively; on “gallery days” it’s rare that there are other spectators, least of all someone I know, in these art spaces. It’s a gift, a break I take even as it requires trips to places from UN Avenue in Manila to West Avenue in Quezon City. The time becomes mine, the art I own with my gaze.
It was with this same gaze, within the same task of going to see as many exhibits as I can, that I went to Kulô at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) on July 2 2011. I was doing Virgin Labfest 7 marathons, and made sure to come early to spend a good hour at the gallery. A day or so after, I virtually happened upon participating artist Pocholo Goitia and told him how much I loved the exhibit, the best of the Rizal efforts I’d seen so far; a couple of weeks after he tells me in passing that it’s gotten into some controversy or other and I brush it off: who has cared about art in the past three years that I’ve been engaging with it in my own way(s)? Given Kulô’s premises I also thought the only ones who’d wrongly take offense would be the University of Santo Tomas (UST), alumni as the exhibiting artists are of the said university, the Goitia essay particularly placing the exhibit within, beyond and against the said institution. (more…)
it was daunting more than anything else, though at some point all that operated was an amount of yabang: i’ve seen friends do this before, i’ve seen wonderful beautiful local books happen without a big publisher behind it, without press releases coming out in papers. and this book, i knew, deserved the major major effort of blood/sweat/tears because it is about family and history. because it is unconventional in form, an almost refusal to fall within the genres that are familiar, a straddling among creative non-fiction/historical essay/memoir. because it demanded a freedom from the standard limitations of publishing, given its refusal as well to deal with the ways in which things are usually written, how they usually look, what can usually be said.
and so Revolutionary Routes can be infinitely controversial, familiar as many of the personalities within its pages are, from former presidents Manuel Quezon to Ramon Magsaysay, Vicente Sotto to Artemio Ricarte to Tomas Mapua, yet here, more than anything they are revealed to be people. there should be no fear in that. there should be freedom in it.
because that is also what it means to family: a great amount of freedom. to be able to let go of these stories, and more than sharing it with the world, show the world how our Lola Concha,unnamed and anonymous, knew somehow to sit down and write, in long hand, about the life she lived. with no pretenses at publication, no grand narrative tying everything together, no effort at making saints out of sinners. in the process she left not just a narrative about family, but a history both local and national in the voice of someone who actually lived within it. Reynaldo Ileto’s Foreword to the book begins:
Revolutionary Routes is more than a family history across four generations. Author Angela Stuart-Santiago has deftly woven together the memoirs, clippings, correspondence and other traces of her family’s past into a microhistory that spans the late 19th century up to the 1950s. While this book is rooted in the specific experiences of a family that lived in Tiaong and its adjoining towns in southwestern Tayabas (now Quezon) province, it also tells us much, from the ground up, about everyday life in the countryside under the shadow of successive imperial and national regimes. This book can also be read as a modern history of the Philippines.
it seemed there was no other way to do this book, but to take it by the horns and make it walk a path we were making up as we went along. a kind of tribute to the way Lola Concha lived believing in hard work and with more heart — heart — than i can muster. a tribute to Lola Nena who could see most clearly even as she was blind, who inadvertently led me to reading beyond my years, whose sadnesses are a thread i find strength in. and really, ultimately, a glass raised to Angela, whose writing’s a gift in the most basic and complex of ways.
today these arrived in the house and home that Lola Concha and Lola Nena continue to provide us in Mandaluyong:
Revolutionary Routes books!
and i realized there was no other way, no other way at all, but to have taken the path we did, difficult/stressful/frustrating as it was. and today, i felt as close to this joy as i could, as in the end, this route could only be liberating, in all ways imaginable.
***
we’re launching Revolutionary Routes, on August 20 2011, 5 to 8PM at the Filipinas Heritage Library. come buy a book and have Angela sign it! we’re celebrating family and Tayabas, and Elias from Rizal’s Noli who we now know to be a crucial part of our story.
if at all, you’ll get to meet us beyond our blogs, with partying the only thing on our minds, no fangs included. do come!
Revolutionary Routes by Angela Stuart-Santiago
Revolutionary Routes, Five Stories of Incarceration, Exile, Murder and Betrayal in Tayabas Province 1891-1980 by Angela Stuart-Santiago
based on the memoirs in Spanish of Concepcion Herrera vda de Umali
as translated into English by Concepcion Umali Stuart
foreword by Reynaldo C. Ileto
book design and overall layout by Adam David
cover design and Elias illustration by Mervin Malonzo official website by Joel Santiago
