VIRAY - Anthro 292.final Draft

Anthropology of Performance:
palabas; danas; kawangis; direktor; dating Bryan L. Viray 2005-70636
Anthropology of Performance: palabas, danas, kawangis, direktor, dating If I would be commissioned to contribute entries for compilation of Encyclopedia of 1 Anthropology, I would choose theories that are more associated in studying cultural performances, theatre, and popular entertainments. (1) Victor Turners communitas and liminality is the best way to explain the processes involved in acting for the stage, especially when one is studying the complexities of performing. What happens when actor enters into the stage, performs on stage, and exits from the stage? In the Philippines, is liminality related to the palabas a common notion of performance in laymans terminology? (2) Clifford Geertzs culture as text is a very functional foundation in studying dramaturgy or the management of a text and/or literature/s for the stage and/or performance. In here, Geertz argues that ethnography is a closed reading of human and cultural behavior, thus, a very important aspect in the creation/invention/formation of a performance concept or germ. How does the writer, a deviser, or a creator of a concept or script can utilize danas his/her own experience in the process of dramaturgy. (3) Another basis that is central to ethnography of experience is James Fernandezs play of tropes. As described in the book by Moore (2009), the trope is a bridge between metaphor and act, and this creates the opening for anthropological insight. What is important for Fernandez is the playing or asking what tropes can do rather than questioning what these tropes are. These performative metaphors by Fernandez I think could open a lot of creative inputs as far as the staging or directing for theatre is concerned. How can stage director transcends or plays the tropes in the text/script? This notion is linked to Filipino words like parang, mistula, katulad ng, kawangis. (4) In the realm of theatrical productions, how can we consider a director who is supposedly directing as also performing? Perhaps, Michel
Foucaults micro politics can explicate the notion that a stage director performs power as well in the process of rehearsal, and directing itself. (5) The notion of dating was raised in identifying 2 Philippine Theatre Aesthetics in the recent conference held last September at the CCP Silangan Hall sponsored by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. Last part of this essay would be a reflection of this conference using Antonio Gramscis hegemony. I am convinced that there is still a subtle hegemonic discourse despite of this attempt to form a Filipino sense of aesthetics. Hence, employing anthropological theories in studying concepts of palabas, danas, kawangis, direktor, and dating are attempts of theorizing Philippine theatre and performances. This would be significant in the development of discourse/s in Anthropology of Performance.
Palabas, Acting, Communitas and Liminality Richard Schechner (2006) in his book of Performance Studies: An Introduction, offers five kinds of acting according to congruence of daily life, the kind of actions presented, the state of mind of the performer, and the importance of performing objects. These are (1) realistic (2) Brechtian (3) codified (4) trance and (5) performing objects masks and puppets. Let me focus my discussion in realistic and trance for us to identify palabas as acting for the stage through communitas and liminality. In realistic acting, there is an assumption that the actors portraying the characters are like of those real people from the physical, mental, emotional aspect - in other words, the whole behavior is patterned after the everyday life. Likewise, in trance performance, the shamans the babaylan or katalonan in Filipino play role/s that can be spirits. This portraying
or playing of roles involves several stages and preparation for them to attain certain transformation. How one can perform for example the role of Hamlet truthfully and 3 realistically? How can a babaylan transform him self/her self before, during, and after the possession (of the spirits)? In analyzing the process/es involved in the transformation of the actor (and the babaylan), we have to consider that pre-performance, during-, and the post-performance using Turners concept of liminality. I shall contend that actors acting on stage and the babaylans are liminal entities that experience periods of transition the rite of passage; therefore, they are neither here nor there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial. As such, their ambiguous and indeterminate attributes are expressed by a rich variety of symbols in the many societies that ritualize social and cultural transitions. (Turner 1969:95)
If you were to portray Hamlet, you shall attend series of rehearsals with the director and co-actors to flesh out ideas and meanings of the lines assigned to you. A lot of uncovering and explorations happen during this pre-phase of performance with the help of creative designers, production staff, the co-performers, and director. You can also attend workshop on Shakespeares life and Elizabethan theatre conventions for you to identify resources, dig up inspirations, and break down your self through the help of a resource person or the workshop facilitator. Rehearsals and workshops are very tedious process because of constant repetition and revision. After a month of rehearsals, you as Hamlet should be ready to perform before an audience and let them see and feel that you are not longer you but you are already transformed as Hamlet. The stage is ready. Costumes are dressed in your body. Make-up is put
on your face. The lines are fully memorized. And the lighting is waiting for you to step into the stage. The moment you enter on stage, you have to leave the you, let Hamlet enters your 4 body and act. This is where I think the moment of liminality comes in. Through the help of rituals of rehearsals, workshops, costuming and make-up, the memorization of lines with the communitas around you as the actor the director, the staff, the workshop facilitator, the creative designers, the liminal point is achieved. You would be no longer you nor Hamlet, but you are in between being Hamlet and you. Your essence or personality is neither Hamlet nor you. This liminal point is also contributed by the communitas who helped you achieved this moment of uncertainty. The directors, co-actors, production staff, facilitators somehow share this anti-structure status since they themselves are transported to that different realm. In the case of the babaylans, the so called sacrifices are prepared. This can be food, wine, pigs, or any thing that can be offered to the spirit or the anitos. Teodoro Agoncillo (1990) in his book, History of the Filipino People, describes the sacrificial ceremony as this, The priestesses [katalonan, babaylan] dressed very gaily with garlands on their heads, and are resplendent with gold. They bring to the place of the sacrifice some pitarrilas (a kind of earthen jars) full of rice wine, besides a live hog and a quantity of prepared food. Then the priestess chants her song and invokes the demon [spirit], who appears to her all glistening in gold. Then he enters her body and hurls her to the ground, foaming at the mouth as one possessed. In this state she declares whether a sick person is to recover or not. All this takes place to the sound of bells and kettledrums. Then she rises and, taking a spear, she pierces the heart of the hog. They (the people) dress it and prepare a dish for the demons. Upon an altar erected there, they place the dressed hog, rice, bananas, wine, and all other articles of food that they brought. All this is done in behalf of sick persons, or to redeem those who are confined in the infernal regions. (Tolentino 1990:45-46) (Emphasis is mine)
Perhaps, the same way as the actor experiences the fear or uncertainty of becoming Hamlet, the babaylan also feels that ambiguity. Before the transformation happened, several 5 ritualistic preparations are performed from the garland, gold, jars, the sacrifice, chanting. Before the ritual, the babaylan is just an ordinary individual but becomes a babaylan because of the communitas or the people around her. Communitas offers those in liminality recognition, support, and the skills necessary to transition into their new roles. (Turner in Cote-Arsenault 2009:74). How can we relate the concept of palabas in the discussion of acting in relation to communitas and liminality? If we observe some of the performances in the Philippines (especially in the provinces) like those of fiestas, concerts, singing contests, videoke concerts, high school dance and choir performances or all of these clichs performances, we can come up with an idea that the palabas is similar to what the actors are doing. In terms of the process/es - before the palabas, performers usually practice or rehearse their piece of song, their dance routine, prepare costumes, and all the necessary things important bago magpalabas, or bago lumabas. Furthermore, the palabas can be seen as part of liminal point. When one is in the moment of paglabas o palabas, one experiences also the moment of uncertainty. The role of the person while in the palabas is somehow transported in different realm with the individuals surrounding him/her. In amateur singing contest in the provinces, the contestant is not anymore the friend that you know, but, when he/she steps into the stage to sing Isang Linggong Pag-ibig of Imelda Papin, he/she perhaps transcends into an Imelda Papin-like realm. Within the palabas or that moment of liminality, various feelings are brought, heightened, and purged; as a result, the not-yet-there, an ambiguous emotion is felt. Then,
after the singing palabas or the anti-structure realm, the communitas (or the audience, the judges, the operators, the emcees) is moved. All claps. All are amazed. All are transported. 6 She/He is brought back to typical friend but now with different sense of person. That palabas perhaps boosts his/her pride and confidence after singing Imelda Papins Isang Linggong Pagibig.
Danas, Dramaturgy, Culture as Text Dramaturgy, a word that comes from the Greek dramaturgia means a composition of a play, and according to Eric Bentley (1991), it was G.E. Lessing who first established the modern understanding of dramatury as a theatrical concept and practice. (Bentley 1991:19) In addition, Norman Frisch articulates that dramaturgy is the process of finding appropriate presentational format for the subject under investigation, He added that is about joining form and content in a work. (In Bently 1991:25) In other words, dramaturgy does not only concerns with the conceptualization and/or construction of the text (for the stage), but also, the manner how this idea would be presented. Interestingly, Eugenio Barba has this description of dramaturgy as a synthesizing process, a weave or weaving together of elements (In Bently 1999:31) As Bently explicates Barbas dramaturgy, he consider this as a complex network of signifiers. (Bently 1999:31) Given this idea, we can now relate this to what Clifford Geertz is saying in his Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of culture. Culture for Geertz is web, and the analysis of it therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search on meaning. It is clear that for us to understand culture, one must pay attention to interpretation
or in his term explication *or+ construing social expressions on their surface enigmatical. This is very true with the symbolic perception of culture wherein, culture itself is important for 7 the observers understanding and creation of meanings. How one can interpret culture? Geertz argues that semiotics would be achieved through interaction or phenomenalistic observation. Consequently, Barbas notion of weaved signifiers correlates with Geertzs culture as text. How does the concept of danas would be implicated here? We translate the word experience a concept that is essential in the discourse of phenomenology and/or ethnography, as karanasan which comes from the root word ranas or danas. So, if we talk about culture as text read and interpreted through ethnography, we could adopt danas as a way of constructing signs and symbols. Now, I assert that in the process of dramaturgy in the Philippines, danas or culture as text should be considered. 621, 987 Taon ng Paglimot, a devise-play written and directed by Arlo de Guzman last September 2007, is one of the examples I could relate to this assertion. De Guzmans dramaturgy is a product of various experiences: first, his vacation in Ryoanji Temple wherein he experienced nothingness through merely looking at the Zen Rock Garden; second, his encounter with monks in India. Somehow, this experience is similar to Buddha leaving his temple to take his enlightenment with his belief that liberating one self is to be free from selfish desires (De Guzman 2007). Then, these inspirations gave birth to this dramaturgy: Three women with a broken umbrella brave a sandstorm on their way to realizing that it is us who give meaning to our lives. It is us who will put a rock on our lives to have weight; still, grounded against the current of water that pulls us into the all embracing ocean that we may find the end to be just in a vast nothingness; full of emptiness. (De Guzman 2007)
His dramaturgy is grounded on existential concept and staged in a very absurd manner.
The interpretation by De Guzmans dramaturgy of this infinitesimal culture in Ryoanji and India was very experiential, therefore, his own danas is explicated.
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Kawangis, Playing of Tropes, Staging/Directing Edgardo De La Cruz (2004) defines directing as, a process in which a directors creative intelligence engages and meshes with other creative intelligences at a variety of levels and intensities of commitmentcollaborators help achieve the directors goal and purpose. (De La Cruz 2004:5) He adds that attaining the goal or purpose is not merely an interpretation and the creation of meaning of the script to be staged but rather a transformational act, very similar to the way in which a seed becomes a tree that is admired and experienced. (De La Cruz 2004:5, emphasis is mine). This notion is very true to James Fernandezs playing of tropes since he emphasized the significance of the trope being the bridge between the metaphor and the act which directing is very involved into. That bridge is the transformation act that constructs the mis-en-scene of the production the one that provides the audience the multi-sensory experience when they watch theatrical productions. To attain such transcendental experience and for the audience to feel the cathartic feeling, kawangis or words like parang, mistulang, katulad ng, should be played along with the process of gestation. One example that I think made used of the playing of the tropes or kawangis is Dulaang UPs Asintadong Tinarantado, an adaptation of William Shakespeares Titus Andronicus. I will not focus on the process of Layeta Bucoys adaptation per se, but, on the how of the staging and interpreting of the director Tuqx Rutaquio. With plays milieu on Philippine election, the adaptation clearly captures the dirt of politics, selfish undertakings, and brutal and spiteful
incidents happening during election (e.g. murder, vote buying, etc.). What is fascinating I think is on how the director plays with the metaphors of pig (baboy) killed usually in slaughter house 9 and cooked as dinuguan. Here are the members of the audience thinking about election as moments of katayan/patayan, lutuan/dayaan, swapang and even tagging politicians as baboy. Politicians are pig. Ang mga politiko ay kawangis ng baboy. Philippine election is like slaughter house. Ang botohan sa Filipinas ay parang katayan. Voters are also pig. Ang mga botante ay mistulang baboy. Voters are cooked to become dinuguan. Ang mga botante ay nilulutong katulad ng dinuguan. Through this performative metaphor, or kawangis, the message and that transformational act of staging Shakespeares text in Philippine setting is a significant tool for directors in theatre and performances.
Director, Micro politics In theatre, events, and cultural performances, the director assumes as the head of the creative production. As a matter of fact De La Cruz describes the director as, organizer, labor leader, facilitator, and an orchestrator of the theatrical score. (De La Cruz 2004:7) In other words, the director is on top of everybody as far as the creative input for the production is concerned. I adopted De La Cruz detailed job description of a director in theatre production: (1) mediates with producers; (2) chooses a script; (3) absorbing the script; (4) conducts dramaturgical research; (5) performs structural analysis; (6) holds auditions and selects cast; (7) plans rehearsal schedule; (8) prepares and attends design meetings; (9) meets with other designers; (10) rehearses the actors; (11) participates in the paper tech; (12) attends technical and dress rehearsals; and (13) fine-tunes the performances. (De La Cruz 2004:6)
Let me concentrate my discussion on the director-actor relationship during rehearsals and performances. Rehearsal time is usually determined by the director, depending on his/her availability; thus; to call actors for the rehearsal is also determined by the director. Certain spaces are assigned for actors and directors. However, the directors space is usually at the center of the rehearsal venue considering that he/she could see the entire stage where actors are moving. He/she calls when to start the moment of rehearsal, or when to stop or to have a break. There are some directors who are very strict in their blocking (the movement of the actors on stage) and actors must follow every detail of his/her instructions regarding the execution of the line and the timing of emotions. Nevertheless, other director encourages free blocking and experimentation on the part of actors acting. Actors should have a very harmonious relationship with their directors. Some unspoken rules of conduct are followed in dealing with the directors. Director assigns characters or roles for the actors. Actors may audition or be pre-cast through invitation. Director decides who performs for certain dates of performances. Director gives notes or comments to actors; questions and suggestions are encouraged but arguments should not be practiced. Through these descriptions on how directors work in a theatre space, we can say that he/she exercises power or we can call it as power-knowledge mentioned by Foucault (1975) in his Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (In Counsel and Wolf 2001: 127). In the dynamics of rehearsal-performance between the director and actor, power relations is established in a sense that this power is performed as
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strategydispositions, manoeuvres, tactics, techniques, functionings. The director does not acquire that power and not even given a privilege to become dominant in that setup. However, nuances, gestures, and behavioral conducts plus this strategic position as a director entail to regard him/her as power-producing agency.
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Dating, Philippine Theatre Aesthetics, Hegemony This last part of my paper will present my reflection regarding the recent National Theatre Conference held last September 2011 at the CCP Silangan Hall sponsored by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. This conference aims to identify the Philippine Theatre Aesthetics. The conferences structure was categorized in four domains: The Luzon contingent, the Visayas Contingent, the Mindanao contingent, and the National Capital Region (NCR) contingent. Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera, the first resource speaker presented the concept of dating as the foundation of the conference theme. From there, NCCA commissioned theatre scholars and practitioners who come from each of the regions presented their papers about their experiences on conceptmaking, directing, designing, working with the community, and other related theatrical production matters which are relevant in the creation and identification of Filipino theatre aesthetics. All of the paper presenters really offered detailed descriptions of the kind of theatre they have in the regions. For example, Armand Sta. Ana shared through his paper the very basis of theatrical production that the Barasoain Kalinangan Foundation is mounting. Wherein he mentioned that their productions should reflect the cultural-social values of Bulakenyos in Barasoain. The National Capital Region, even,
utilizes the term kabisera to situate the writers and kind of theatre they have. The presentation was focused on the theatre companies under academic institutions that have been helping in promulgating the sense of theatre aesthetics each of the schools or universities have. And the question now is, is there really a Philippine Theatre Aesthetics? Is there a need to indentify Philippine Theatre aesthetics? Who dictates which theatre production has dating or aesthetics? The structure of the conference is a very clear manifestation that there is still hegemony is identifying this Philippine theatre aesthetics. What were the reasons behind categorizations like Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, and NCR? This categorization somehow suggests that someone or any form of dominance and control still exists. Will the Visayan theatre individuals be convinced that Mindanao or Luzon for example is the best representative of performance/s that has dating? And what is a Visayan sense of aesthetics anyway? Is dating related to beauty? Where is the concept of beauty come from? Is this Western beauty or aesthetics? Moreover, even Philippine Theatre alone is struggling now in terms of its identity and situated-ness. These are some of the considerations that I thought during the two-day conference. I have this impression that this attempt of identifying aesthetics through Filipinos idea of dating might resulted to misleading assumptions and generalizations. The very geographical location of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in the Metro somehow gives us the sense that the NCR or the kabisera region has the hegemony. Much might not in position to question artists and creative individuals who are already linked here, trained here, and now are established in this undertaking. As Dr. Priscelina
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Patajo-Legasto mentions, regions need not to fight; we have to end the notion of regionalization; and go beyond the construction and identification of canons. As a final point, palabas, danas, kawangis, direktor, and dating are some of the fundamental concepts in understanding Anthropological theories that concerns theatre and performances.
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References: Agoncillo, Teodoro A. 1990. History of the Filipino People, 8th Edition. Quezon City: Garotech Publishing. Counsell, Colin and Laurie Wolf, Editors. 2001. Performance Anaysis: An Introductory Coursebook. London and New York: Routledge. De Guzman, Arlo. 2007. 621, 987 Taon ng Paglimot Programme. UP Diliman, Quezon City: UP Dulaang Laboratoryo. De La Cruz, Bengson. 2004. Directing for Theater: A Personal Approach. Diliman, Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. Moore, Jerry D. 2009. Visions of Culture: An Introduction to Anthropological Theories and Theorists. United Kingdom: AltaMira Press. Schechner, Richard. 2006. Performance Studies: An Introduction, Second Edition. USA and Canada: Routledge.

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Anthropology of Performance:

palabas; danas; kawangis; direktor; dating Bryan L. Viray 2005-70636

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