Celebrate
womanhood! Celebrate Asian women's artistry! Watch the performances, see
the art exhibit and now be part of this first big gathering of women
artists from the Asia-Pacific region.
Come to "Changing SHE-Images:
Women Re-imag[in]ing the World" - the
first
(Bayview Park
Hotel and Intramuros,
Happening
daily are:
- workshops and conferences
- "Who Owns Women's Bodies," an
art exhibit featuring works
by women visual artists from the
- Asian street
SCHEDULE OF PERFORMANCES
March 4
– Dreamweavers
Dulaang Rajah Soliman,
Philippine
Educational Theater Association (PETA) (
Playwright: Rodolfo C. Vera
Director: Maribel Legarda, Phil Noble
"Dreamweavers"
is about the dreams and frustrations of three friends separated by poverty. Their stories unfold in tapestries
- separate diaries of women's images - that are sewn together in the end. The stories
- magnificent embroideries flashed on an onstage screen, interspersed with
black-and-white photography in multi-media projection - are seen through the
eyes of a young Dutch student visiting the Philippines, and through those of
the women's daughters, who themselves have a story to tell.
"Dreamweavers"
had performances in the
March
5 -- Marionette Show
17:00-18:00,
60 minutes
Flag Pole Area, Fort Santiago, Intramuros
Mandalay Marionettes Theater, Inc.
(Myanmar)
The world-famous Mandalay Marionettes
Theater will gift the audience with its best marionette dances. See the
marionette stage conquered by female puppeteers and musicians led by Daw Ma Ma Naing,
daughter of one of
March 5 -- Chinese Take Away
NCCA Auditorium
Playwright/Performer:
Anna Yen (
Stage Director/Performer:
Therese Collie
Film Director: Mitzi Goldman
Stage play director Therese Collie and
Performer/Writer Anna Yen will perform key moments from Anna Yen's one woman
physical theatre play Chinese Take Away to introduce a screening of the film
Chinese Take Away. By placing elements
of the stage play alongside the film, Therese and Anna open up a discussion of
the process of adapting this theatre work to the screen, which places women at
the heart of this true story of a Chinese family in
Chinese
Take Away is a cinematic adaptation of an acclaimed Australian physical theater
show. In a unique blend of storytelling, performance, archival footage and
poetic cinematography, Chinese Take Away reveals the story of three
generations: performer/writer Anna Yen's grandmother, mother and herself.
March 5 -- Putali
Ko Ghar (A Doll's House)
17:00 -18:00,
60 minutes
Kaisa Heritage Center, Bahay Tsinoy, Intramuros
Aarohan Theatre Group (Nepal)
Playwright: Henrik
Ibsen
Director: Sunil Pokharel
Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House is transported into
Nepalese culture and the gender discourse that this
world classic piece opens itself to.
A performing artists' organization
established in
March
5 -- "Srimpi Ketawang
Lima Ganep (Odd Srimpi Ketawang)"
[ former title: Javanese Dance (
Sahita (
Wahyu Widayati, an actress and
dancer in
March
5 -- MISSING WOMAN
19:30-20:30, 60 minutes
Baluartillo de San Francisco, Intramuros,
Manila
A Collaborative Production of Women
Artists from Ho Chi Minh City
(Vietnam)
Playwright/Director: Nguyen Thi Minh Ngoc
A man
meets many images of women in search for his missing wife, and through this
journey a story of Vietnamese women unfolds. The man realizes how his beloved's
absence makes him recognize her true value, and how even famous women in
literature, history, and legend
cannot give him answers. Such is the gist of this play brought from
March
5 -- Night of Traditional Dances from the Mekong Region
19:30-21:30,120 minutes
Dulaang Rajah Soliman
Fort Santiago, Intramuros
(Lao PDR, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand)
A. Fragments from the Continuum-Beyond
the Killing Fields (Cambodia)
An excerpt from the original piece
produced byTheatreworks Singapore and directed by Ong Keng Sen,
Continuum focuses on Em
Theay, master dancer of royal classical dance, as she talks about her fellow
dancers and the horrifying story behind Pol Pot's
dreadful regime.
B. Myanmar Traditional Dance
Composed of four traditional dance
segments, it highlights the
use of different hand and leg movements, facial expressions and musical
instruments of
C. Lao Traditional Dance
Showcasing the different lowland Lao
dances, it will introduce the festive performances of the unique traditional culture of Lao.
D.
March
5 -- Venus' Party
Baluartillo de
A Collaborative Production of Crescent
Moon Theater, B-Floor, and International WOW Company-
Director: Sineenadh
Keitprapai
"Venus' Party" is a joint
production of three groups: Crescent
Moon Theater, B-Floor, and International WOW Company -
March 5 -- Improvisation Night
Brick Ruins, Espasyo
Libre,
Philippine Playhouse (
One hour of improvised sketches, songs,
and
games based on scenarios evoked from the audience.
March
6 -- Mizushobai
17:00-18:00, 60 minutes
Kaisa Heritage Center, Bahay Tsinoy, Intramuros
Teatro BATIS (
Playwright: Rodolfo C. Vera
Director: Mae
Quesada-Medina
Mizushobai literally means "water business,"
referring to the
fast-flowing, unstable business of entertaining men, vaguely hinting at prostitution. It is about
three Filipino women who
decide to go to
March
6 -- Kabbule
18:00-19:00, 60 minutes
Kaisa Heritage Center, Bahay Tsinoy, Intramuros
Teatro Kabbule (Philippines)
"Kabbule"
weaves together three true stories of family violence in the Cordillera region. The Kabbule character
is used as an image and metaphor to mirror the acts of the perpetrators of violence. Kabbule is an indigenous term for ghost or monster.
Using chant as guiding thread, Teatro Kabbule puts a face to the
monster: that of the grandfather abusing his granddaughter, the drunken father
burning his child in a fit of fury, and the enraged husband banging his wife's
head on the house post.
Teatro Kabbule is a
community-based theater group and a product of PETA-Women's Theater Program's
partnership program in the Cordillera region.
March
6 – Deep Blue
19:30-20:00, 30 minutes
Baluartillo de San Francisco, Intramuros,
Manila
Deep Blue (This is Electra) (Japan)
Text: Heiner
Müller
Choreography: Keiko Takeya
The final scene of Heiner
Müller's Hamlet Machine is a long monologue of Ophelia starting with the line
'This is Electra," in
response to the dying Hamlet's "The rest is silence." It may be
one of Heiner Müller's
answers to his fundamental inquiry: is it possible to present Hamlet under the
current severe conditions of the world? Ophelia in this scene is a spokesperson
for all the people flicked out from the original "Hamlet-ish" world. Using her lament, this performance piece
combines language with music and dance improvisation. The choreographer hopes it can contribute to the
festival, not necessarily from a logical point of view, but as an opportunity
to
discover women's intrinsic energy.
March
6 -- Panaw
20:00-21:00, 60 minutes
Baluartillo de San Francisco, Intramuros,
Manila
Mebuyan Peace Project (Philippines)
Concept, Dramaturgy
Music, & Videography: Geejay Arriola
Libretto: Malou
Tiangco & Geejay Arriola
Choreography: Agnes Locsin
Panaw is a concert theater performance by the all-women
Mebuyan Peace Project of Mindanao, Philippines. It
is a musical exploration and a re-inventive search into ancient indigenous
mythical consciousness by contemporary
women. It attempts to re-build tradition utilizing contemporary forms
merged with modern thought.
March
6 -- IT'S
UP TO YOU (
20:00
- 21:00, 60
minutes
Dulaang Rajah Soliman, Fort
Santiago, Intramuros
A
new version of Best Day, it is about the thoughts of artists living in a place called farthest in
Asia. It conveys the
feeling of being foreign as Asians, nevertheless, the
intension is not to generalize Japanese women, but to express how it is to be a
woman pursuing theater arts
in
March
6 -- PARAMPARAA
(
Brick Ruins, Espasyo
Libre,
An eclectic mixture of dances, selected
with utmost artistic
sincerity from
March
6 -- Talento
Brick Ruins, Espasyo
Libre,
Teatro Kanto (
"Talento"
opens with a glimpse at the lives of four Filipina women who wish to work as entertainers in
March
7 -- Playback Theater
(
An improvisational theater and
interactive theater developed
by Jonathan Fox in 1975, tt aims to create a
ritual space where every voice and any
story might be heard and told. A place where each
person's uniqueness is honored while at the same time building and strengthening
our connections to each other as a community of people. It gives
attention to the social interactive
elements of the whole experience, bringing theater to the everyday reality of
the community, and enabling an enriching experience for the actors and the
audience.
March
7 -- Tango of Water Sleeves (Hong Kong)
19:30-20:00, 30 minutes
Baluartillo de San Francisco, Intramuros,
Manila
Choreographer & Performer: Wai-mei YEUNG
Video: Rita HUI
Costume Design: Ruby LI
Bai Liu-so, the female protagonist of Eileen Chang's
novel, Love in a Fallen City, was someone
who always walked with the beat of the vanished music. To trace the gloomy time
of her own, we can find clues from the Beijing Opera, mirror, water sleeves, mosquito scent, body parts and
images.
March 7 -- Blue is the Smoke of War
20:00-21:00, 60 minutes
Dulaang Rajah Soliman,
Fort Santiago, Intramuros
Grenland Friteater (Norway)
Actor: Geddy
Aniksdal
Director: Tor
Arne Ursin
Text: Georg Johannesen
Music: Guttorm Guttormsen
The work is largely drawn from materials
and characters of Good Times
from the Evil Ones, a previous ensemble production by Grenland
Friteater, inspired by the writings of Norwegian poet and scholar Georg Johannesen. It will
be presented in four movements, as in a musical piece.
March
7 -- Autumn Maze
20:00 - 20:30, 30 minutes
Baluartillo de San Francisco, Intramuros,
Manila
Cinematic Theatre (Hong Kong)
Director/Playwright: Ching-man Lo
Installation: Ching-wah
Chan
Soloist: Annie Ling
Producer: Sharon Tang
A monologue, "Autumn Maze" is a
light comedy that depicts the
journey of an average middle-aged Hong Kong woman who has gotten stuck in her own quick-change
room.
Considered
an all-round housewife by her husband, children, superiors, friends, parents,
parents-in-law, and so on, a
day doesn't go by without the character shuttling in and out of the roles of wife, mother, businesswoman, daughter, daughter-in-law, and so
on. In between these quickly
switching roles, what role has she given herself?
March
7 -- The Butterfly
21:30-22:00, 30 minutes
Brick Ruins, Espasyo
Libre, Fort
Santiago, Intramuros
Wandering Moon and Endless Journey
(Thailand)
Director: Monthatip Suksopha
Performers: Monthatip
Suksopha and Chanida Yasiri
A 15-minute performance by Monthatip Suksopha and
Chanida Yasiri of The Wandering
Moon and Endless Journey, a
shadow puppet theater group based in Chiangmai,
Thailand. Through storytelling and shadow movements, it uses the butterfly metaphor to
unravel the different
metamorphoses and journeys of a woman.
March
7 -- truth about beauty, truth about dance
Brick Ruins, Espasyo
Libre Fort Santiago, Intramuros
Dancing
Wounded (
Choreographers/Dancers: Jose Jay
B. Cruz, Martina Quesada,
Director: Jose Jay B. Cruz
"truth about beauty, truth about
dance" is a sampler of five
multi-media solo dance pieces that raise provocative questions and essay new declarations
about our concepts of beauty.
It is a manifesto of moving bodies. Since the body is humanity's one instrument
of physicality, maybe freedom and liberation can be found in the representation, appropriation, and function
of the body in Dance. Dancing Wounded, a reinvention of PETA's
Dance Theater Collective, advocates the empowerment of the human body in any
shape, size, color, and context.