It was almost a week ago when Sir Anril P. Tiatco, PhD said “we are no stranger to typhoons” at the closing of the 66th Annual Conference of the International Federation for Theatre Research 2024 (IFTR 2024) at the Cine Adarna of the UP Film Institute Film Center. At that time, super typhoon Carina/Gaemi had not yet hit the country.
Such events were what Tiatco, a professor at the UP Diliman (UPD) Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts and the co-convener of the IFTR 2024, cited as “everyday tragedies in the islands.”
“We have also suffered, and continue to suffer, the tragedies brought forth by the nation’s complex historical encounters and political structures,” Tiatco added as he closed the conference on July 19.
These kinds of tragedies were the inspirations of the conference’s theme Our States of Emergency: Theatres and Performances of Tragedy.
Tiatco explained that “amidst this emblematic tragic scenarios, there’s a paradox: the Filipino people seem to be happy…. These encounters are our tragic moments: we are freed to realize the absurdity of our situation and to reach a state of contented acceptance. You do not have to imagine us being ‘happy’ and saying all is well. Even the gods are confused. Why are we so happy?”
He continued, “we are happy because five days ago our goal was simple: We wanted you to be happy. We wanted you to live and experience to be alive in a short period of time. Remember, once upon a time, our national motto was ‘it’s more fun in the Philippines.’ We wanted you to remember when you go back home, ‘IFTR was more fun in the Philippines!’”
At the IFTR 2024’s closing, the topic Contemporary Performance Practices of the ‘Tragic’ in the Philippines enabled the plenary speakers to impart how tragic experiences become impetuses of creativity, and with creativity, the hope to go on with life.
The four plenary speakers at the closing ceremony were independent artist and activist Mae Paner; Roselle Pineda, an assistant professor at the UPD Department of Art Studies (DAS); Dessa Quesada-Palm, an artist and founder of Youth Advocates Through Theater Arts (YATTA); and Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez, an associate professor at DAS.
Paner discussed her experiences as an artist at a time when the country was experiencing a spate of extra judicial killings, colloquially known as tokhang. She recalled how she came up with a play that was later turned into film Tao Po. The play tackled the situations of people who were involved in tokhang. Paner said the tragedies of the time enabled her to get in touch with her creative self.
“Life goes on in spite of tragedies,” she said.
Paner also recalled the time she performed her one-act play to a police audience.
“I can’t say I changed their minds, but just to be in conversation with the ‘perpetrators’ was a small victory for me,” Paner said.
She explained that in her performances of Tao Po she knew she was able to connect and be a part of the solution “to the problems of the world.”
“In the state of emergencies, there’s an emergence of courage if you only allow yourselves. Because we can be fearful, we can hide, but tragedies happen outside. There’s an even bigger happening inside of us. I think that is the most important part when we make a connection. Whether it is death or hunger, these are really issues of the heart. [We] transform lives and make people accountable if we get our acts together,” Paner ended her talk.
In discussing Artistic Practice, Radical Care: Making Spaces for Revolution in Times of Precarity, Pineda spoke about the power of silent assemblies.
She said gossiping, eavesdropping in the dark alleys, in the homes, in the kitchen, “even in the treacherous Sierra Madre mountain ranges” create spaces of gathering for the oppressed and dispossessed “to exchange stories, create stories, brew revolutionary ideas.”
“For us working in the thick of things, in the intersection of human rights and art making, we are compelled to understand the notions of tragic, tragedy, and conflict in a more nuanced manner and more so to shape a nuanced approach to addressing them…. Our shared experiences of dispossession could be regarded as points of intersection and solidarity not only within the context of our local communities but also globally…. A global unity of dispossession that could be transformed into a kind of radical care…, an interdependent form of cohabitation where one form of life is not in a position of privilege over one form of life, livable for all not just for the privileged few,” Pineda said.
In Our Island is Crumbling: YATTA’s Search for the Santilmo, Quesada-Palm discussed YATTA’s theatre-making.
“Part of the reason that seeded the excitement about creating YATTA was the absence of any youth theatre programs that cut across social divides in Dumaguete…. The absence of a community-based youth theatre program was particularly ironic since Dumaguete is touted as a university town,” Quesada-Palm said.
She said that “for many YATTA members, it is in community that they have derived a glimmer of hope and a way out of their handed-down narratives.”
Quesada-Palm discussed YATTA’s framework of PAGASA which has navigated the theatre company. PAGASA is pananaw/paninindigan (viewpoint and conviction), galing/gawa (skills/action), and sarili/samahan (self and community).
“My final thought, there is an abundance of tragedies in our midst. In telling and re-telling of these stories, these are transmuted, transformed. For YATTA, the intentional application of PAGASA has kept them grounded in the personal and structural nature of these tragedies but at the same time allow them to embrace the tension between these and their capacity to envision, to dream. It is a delicate balance, and however imperfect and messy this community may be, it is still in their relationships with their kapatid or siblings, their co-creators where the spark of the SANTILMO will continue to provide them with hope, and the possibility to exercise their creative agency,” Quesada-Palm said.
Legaspi-Ramirez, for her part, presented Un-ending Tragedy: Transient Paints and Blowholes.
In her presentation, Legaspi-Ramirez said nowadays, “tragic has tragically also become a survival tactic to gain attention and political headway.”
In addition, she also said “It is through sensual experiences such as pain that we come to have a sense of our skin as bodily surface, as something that keeps us apart from others and as something that mediates the relationship between the internal or external or inside and outside.”
It was also at the closing ceremony where it was announced that the IFTR 2025 would be held in Cologne, Germany.
IFTR 2024 opened on July 15 at the Manila Metropolitan Theater.
UPD Chancellor Edgardo Carlo L. Vistan II, in his message at the opening read by UPD Vice Chancellor for Planning and Development Raquel B. Florendo, said “we are united by a common purpose to explore how tragedy would, in its most profound forms and interpretations, shape our understanding of crisis and resilience. Your presence here reflects not only the total commitment to addressing the pressing issues of our times but also a shared belief in the transformative power of the arts and humanities.”
At the opening, IFTR President Bishnupriya Dutt underscored the importance of locating imperialism and colonialism in research as these are “historic and a very important center [and] critical point of discourse.”
“Academic research anywhere in the world today, in the global south, in the north, engages with the concept of imperialism and colonialism…. It explains the importance of the theme of the conference,” Dutt said.
According to its media invitation, the IFTR 2024 “is envisioned to reevaluate tragedy as an important performance form and theatrical theory in theatre and performance studies.”—With a report from Benito V. Sanvictores Jr.