Eskwela
Friday, November 29 – December 4, 2019
Bellas Artes Projects
Bellas Artes Outpost, 2/F The Alley at Karrivin, 2316 Chino Roces Avenue, Makati
WORKSHOP:
Day 1: November 29, 10am-1pm; 2-6 PM | BAP Outpost
1-2pm Lunch will be provided
Day 2: November 30, 10am-1pm; 2-6 PM | BAP Outpost
1-2pm Lunch will be provided
REHEARSAL:
December 3 TBD
SHOWING:
December 4, 7PM | BAP Outpost
Learn more: https://www.eskwelabap.com/schedule
Performance background at all levels welcome.
Workshop fee: Php 800*
*scholarships available
This two-day workshop will create a new work as the third part of Jocson’s Happyland Series, “Manila Zoo” [working title]. In Happyland 1: Princess, two Filipino performers hijacked the figure of Snow White. Happyland 2: Your Highness, a group of ballet dancers unpacks their formatted ideal bodies made to enter the Disney workforce. This tertiary stage pushes Filipino performativity to transform from anthropomorphic happy animals in the Disneyland park into actual animals captured in the zoo, performing the labor of zoo animals.
The work is grounded in the study of animal behavior in zoos. Animals in the zoo have developed behavioral disorders not found in the wild, such as abnormal repetitive behavior and self-aggression. In confinement, animals suffer from isolation, stress, depression, anxiety, helplessness and boredom, and these symptoms strangely mirror conditions found in humans living in densely populated cities.
By performing as animals, the dancers will exit human logic and refuse to participate in servicing and entertaining as humans. However, as captives of the zoo they are constantly subjected to human voyeurism and exploitation.
About Eisa Jocson
Jocson exposes body politics in the service and entertainment industry as seen through the unique socioeconomic lens of the Philippines. She studies how the body moves and what conditions make it move, be it social mobility or movement out of Philippines through migrant work. In all her creations—from pole to macho dancing and hostess to Disney princess studies—capital is the driving force of movement pushing the indentured body into spatial geographies.
Jocson is a contemporary choreographer and dancer from the Philippines, trained as a visual artist, with a background in ballet. She has been commissioned by and toured extensively in major contemporary festival with her solo triptych: Death of the Pole Dancer (2011), Macho Dancer (2013) and Host (2015). Macho Dancer won the prestigious Zurcher Kantonalbank Acknowledgement Prize at the Zurich Theater Spektakel in 2013. Her new series HAPPYLAND (2017) is a study on Disney Princess and the production of fantasy within the “happiness empire.” She was also a recipient of the 2018 Cultural Centre of the Philippines 13 Artists Awards and was commissioned to create a new performance work in Sharjah Biennale 2019.
ESKWELA is an experimental school period for transdisciplinary thought and context-responsive art making brought together by Bellas Artes Projects.
