A brand-new arts platform is coming to Manila this October! Fringe Manila in partnership with The Japan Foundation, Manila is proud to present 1SA – Solo Arts Platform, celebrating solo artists and presenting their works on the Philippine stage in this year’s Museums and Galleries Month. In its premiere year, 1SA serves as an avenue for solo performers and artists to engage with local communities. With the variety of local and international artists in participation, 1SA explores various mediums of artistic expression that unravel the artmaking process, the passion, and the tenacity of individuals who straddle hyphenate identities and cultures.
1SA’s inaugural iteration will feature a variety of solo performances, such as Takao Kawaguchi from Japan, Mark Valino, Dulaang UP, Daniel Darwin, Ea Torrado, Gabbi Campomanes, Gabe Mercado, and Herminio Tan, Jr.
1SA – Solo Arts Platform will be held from October 20-28, 2018 at Power Mac Center Spotlight and Pineapple Lab. Tickets will be made available at TicketWorld (891-9999) or at ticketworld.com.ph for some performances.
For more details and updates visit https://www.facebook.com/pg/FringeMNL/events/
MITOLOHIYA 2018 BY HERMINIO TAN, JR.
OPENING OCTOBER 20, 6:00 PM | PINEAPPLE LAB
FREE
Pineapple Lab and 1SA Solo Arts Platform present Herminio Tan Jr.’s sculpture exhibit Mitolohiya 2018, depicting mythological creatures and modern Filipinos alike experience the daily horrors of contemporary urban life.
An analogy and satire of our current ways of living as a developing country, Mitolohiya 2018 is a glimpse into an alternate reality where the creatures and beings from Filipino Mythology coexist with us and share in the same sentiments and woes of the modern day Filipino.
Drawing inspiration from the graphic novel Trese by Budjette Tan and Kajo Baldisimo and the animated series Adventure Time, Mitolohiya 2018 is a ten-piece sculpture exhibit molded in clay and cast in fiberglass and resin, painted in acrylic gloss.
Mitolohiya 2018 opens October 20, 2018 (6 PM). Works will be available for viewing starting October 20, 2018 to November 4, 2018 at Pineapple Lab Gallery at 6053 R. Palma Street, Barangay Poblacion, Makati City. Operating hours are 11am to 6pm from Tuesdays through Sundays.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Herminio Tan, Jr. is a visual artist from Binangonan, Rizal. Before making wearable sculptures, he started his career in the design industry by collecting real bones and creating unconventional, but wearable pieces. Most of his works are inspired by children’s shows and black comedy. He makes pieces “inspired by the dead, for the living”, displaying his interest in the macabre, the cute, and the irony of both. His works have been featured in film, digital and print magazines, runways, and exhibits. He likes everything strawberry flavored and doesn’t like slasher films.
MOMENTS OF MOVEMENT BY MARK VALINO
OCTOBER 20, 7:00 PM | HOLLOW BLOCK AT PINEAPPLE LAB)
FREE
“Moments of Movement” is a dance video series created by Director & Cinematographer – Mark Valino. Often shot with one-take, and completed within three hours, the artists meet, choose a song, then begin filming. This series explores the collaboration and expression of 3 different mediums: dance, cinematography, and the universal language of music. The artists not only connect to the music, but also to their surroundings, where simple corners turn into visual canvases.
ABOUT MARK VALINO
As a multimedia artist, director, producer, editor, and cinematographer, Mark Valino is the full production package in one. He has over ten years experience in the television/broadcast industry, including eight years at CTV/Much Music. He documents and creates a story, while providing a platform to showcase his community’s artists. Most recently, Valino’s work with Spek Won put him in the long list for the 2015 Prism Prize for his music video “Black Body”. He has documented Toronto’s rich and vibrant hip hop and dance scene for approximately twenty years through video and photos including his work with Manifesto Community Projects. Today he can be found running his own production company doing what he does best. Driven by his love for music, dance, and art, Mark’s visual style is dynamic and intuitive and continues to evolve.
MY NIGHT WITH LEA BY GABBI CAMPOMANES
OCTOBER 20, 8:30 PM | PINEAPPLE LAB
P300
An unauthorized, entirely fictional account of a debauched evening with the foremost figure in Philippine musical theatre, My Night With Lea revels in and examines one young lady’s love and obsession with Lea and the magic of BROADWAY!
ABOUT GABBI CAMPOMANES
Gabbi Campomanes is a production manager, playwright, and all-around theatre practitioner. Having previously written for Real Life Fairytales and the blueREP 25th Anniversary Concert, she has also worked as the production manager for both re-runs of Sa Wakas, A Pinoy Rock Musical. She currently works as a Programs Manager for the annual Fringe Manila Festival. When she is not busy managing productions or transcribing scripts, she can be found perpetually waiting to play a royal Siamese child in The King and I.
ABOUT KAZUO OHNO – RELIVING THE BUTOH DIVA’S MASTERPIECES BY TAKAO KAWAGUCHI
OCTOBER 23, 8:00 PM | POWER MAC CENTER SPOTLIGHT
FREE
In this performance entitled “About Kazuo Ohno – Reliving The Butoh Diva’s Masterpieces” which has caused a controversy within Tokyo’s dance establishment, Takao Kawaguchi set for himself the task of literally “copying” the dance of the butoh master from video recordings of the premiere performances of Ohno’s early masterpieces including “Admiring La Argentina” (1977), “My Mother” (1981), and “Dead Sea, Ghost, Wienerwaltz” (1985). The viewer layers the reminiscence of Kazuo Ohno onto Takao’s body, and for those who don’t know Ohno’s dance, their imagination of it. The multiple images of Ohno and Kawaguchi merge, surface and recede in turn. “About Kazuo Ohno – Reliving The Butoh Diva’s Masterpieces” is, in a sense, a duet Takao dances with the illusory image of Kazuo Ohno.
ABOUT TAKAO KAWAGUCHI
While joining the Japanese multimedia performance company Dumb Type from 1996 to 2008, Kawaguchi independently did a number of collaboration projects, with sound/visual artists combining the elements of light and sound, and video such as: DiQueNoVes (Say You Don’t See) (2003), D.D.D.- How Many Times Will My Heart Beat Before It Stops? (2004), Good Luck (2008) and TABLEMIND (2011). Since 2008 Kawaguchi has been working on his solo, site-specific performance series called a perfect life until today. The most recent one “From Okinawa to Tokyo” was presented in February 2013 at the Ebisu Moving Image Festival at Tokyo Metropolitan Photography Museum. In recent years he has created Butoh-related works such as: The Ailing Dance Mistress’ based on the texts of Tatsumi Hijikata (2012), and About Kazuo Ohno – Reliving the Butoh Diva’s Masterpieces (2013).
DANCE UNTIL YOU SHATTER YOURSELF BY GREEN GLASS DOOR FEAT. DANIEL DARWIN
OCTOBER 24, 8:00 PM | POWER MAC CENTER SPOTLIGHT
P300
Dance Until You Shatter Yourself is a one-man endurance piece that explores the fragile nature of identity through a series of poems, songs, immersive projections, and a practice called sustained spinning inspired by the whirling dervishes of Sufism. One body, in a circular playing space, commits to a continuous spin that shifts in pace, color, expression, and intensity throughout a schematic breakdown of four aspects of the human experience: the emotional [water], the creative [fire], the spiritual [air], and the material [earth]. Through an activated sound and visual landscape, the dancer’s body is put into dialogue with these four elements, and his dance brings him to new heights of exhaustion, fervor, climax, and release as he spins continuously on. Dance Until You Shatter Yourself is a collaboration between Daniel Darwin, Perky Parong, Aimee V. Reyes & GA Fallarme. Production history: Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Batute Theater (Fringe MNL) Feb 2015 ; Pineapple Lab (Manila Pride) June 2016.
ABOUT DANIEL DARWIN
Daniel Darwin is a writer, performer, teacher, and healer whose works center around the exploration of liveness, ritual, the politics of identity, and myth. He runs a monthly impromptu music and art jam called the Pineapple Jam out of the Makati-based arts hub Pineapple Lab. He formed a non-profit arts and public programming organization named Viva Manila in 2013, through which he has produced dozens of free-to-the-public arts events in historic sites throughout Intramuros and Manila. He has taught advanced acting, directing, and stage production for Trumpets, Inc, MINT College, and The Manila Waldorf School, and continues to teach intimate intensive workshops out of his home. With his teammate in life, art, heart and spirit, Perky Parong, Daniel co-devises and produces theater, classes, ritual explorations, and healing modalities through their company and studio, Green Glass Door.
BROWN MADONNA BY EA TORRADO
OCTOBER 26, 8 PM | POWER MAC CENTER SPOTLIGHT
P300
Brown Madonna is a devised dance theatre piece that investigates the complexity and elusiveness of identity as it interweaves personal and cultural narratives. Set in a music concert, contemporary dance artist Ea Torrado attempts to make sense of her personal experiences and history through the songs of famous pop icon, Madonna. Building the performance up from the artist’s diaries, associated research and interviews, Brown Madonna explores creating an existential panorama on a personhood complicated by beauty standards, religion, ambition and growing up in a culture that equates a woman’s worthiness with being a wife and mother.
Concept, Direction and Performance: Ea Torrado
Choreography: Daloy Dance Company
Video Design: Russ Ligtas
Costumes: Jodinand Aguillon
Production Team: Daloy Dance Company
Music: Madonna
Music Editing: Aliana Jimenez-Veracruz
ABOUT EA TORRADO
Cited as one of the most exciting and sought-after contemporary dancer-choreographers in the Philippines today, Ea Torrado is the founder and artistic director of Manila-based dance theatre group, Daloy Dance Company. She is a contemporary Filipina artist whose creations manifest in site-specific work, film, installation, improvisational performance and dance theatre pieces. She was awarded the Alvin Erasga Tolentino Koreograpiya Award (2014), Remedios De Oteyza Award for Choreography (2016) and Asian Cultural Council Grant (2017)
ang dalagita’y ‘sang bagay na di-buo BY DULAANG UP FEAT. SKYZX LABASTILLA
OCTOBER 27, 8:00 PM | POWER MAC CENTER SPOTLIGHT
OCTOBER 28, 8:00 PM | POWER MAC CENTER SPOTLIGHT
P800
Based on Eimear Mcbride’s haunting novel and Annie Ryan’s stage adaptation, A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing tells, in fragmented, poetic, and partly ambiguous language, the tragic life of a Girl, who has been repeatedly abused by her uncle, who loses her beloved brother, grapples with the wicked religiosity of her mother, and increasingly finds herself in that corner of her life where no option is left. A harrowing piece that lays bare in no delicate terms, the appalling iniquity of sexual abuse and power.
Directed by JOSÉ ESTRELLA
Translated by RODY VERA
Starring SKYZX LABASTILLA
Photo by OSCAR ALVAREZ
ABOUT SKYZX LABASTILLA
Skyzx Labastilla is a BA Art Studies graduate (cum laude) from UP Diliman, and an Artistic Excellence Awardee of the Philippine High School for the Arts (majoring in theater arts). She has top-billed, both lead and supporting roles, in many successful plays. She was cited as Best Actress – Play of 2016, Philippine Daily Inquirer’s BAVO! Best of Theater 2016, for her performance as martial law victim in Rody Vera’s Indigo Child directed by Jose Estrella.
Aside from her full-time job as a cultural worker she is also a financial consultant. Skyzx used to glory in her achievements but now that she’s a Christian, she would rather boast that she came to know her Lord Jesus Christ.
RAISING GABE BY GABE MERCADO
OCTOBER 28, 7:00 PM | PINEAPPLE LAB
P300
What is dating like in middle age? What is being a solo parent of a teen like? What is going on inside the mind of a sungit tito? Raising Gabe is a coming-of-middle-age performance memoir – at times funny, often poignant and unflinchingly honest. Combining elements of improvisation, storytelling and music, this forty five minute autobiographical show details the struggles and triumphs of a single man raising a son on his own in the Philippines.
ABOUT GABE MERCADO
Gabe is an actor with over twenty five years of experience in theater, television and cinema. He has done pioneering work in improvisational theater in the Philippines as the founder and artistic director of SPIT and as the president of improv school Third World Improv and as the producer of the biannual Manila Improv Festival. He has performed professionally with Tanghalang Pilipino, PETA, Repertory Philippines and Atlantis. He has also performed at improv festivals in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. “Raising Gabe” is his first solo work.