MANILA – The De La Salle – College of St. Benilde’s Department of Dance in the Arts and Culture Cluster of De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, with support from the National Commission for Culture and Arts, Philippines and the School of Design and Arts Dean’s Office recently presented an interactive dance performance entitled “Quartered”.
“QUARTERED” revolved around the different stories of artists as they discover their identities in the art scene. It took the audience through the journey of the creative person and invited them to walk hand in hand with their struggles, in continuous contention against expectations, labels, rejection, commercialism, and other forces compelling these artists to question whether the undulation between fulfillment and failure is worth it.
The audience was asked to help decide through an unusual interactive performance where they were at center stage and the artists surrounded them with their difficulties and triumphs, with their misgivings and joys.
Sunita S. Mukhi, its director, explains, “We want you to be up, close and personal with the artists, where there is great intimacy and vulnerability. The performance is designed so that it happens amidst the audience who is sitting on the floor of Benilde’s Black Box theater. Sometimes the dance happens to their left and then to right of them, in front and behind them requiring them to shift, to move. Sometimes they have to crane their necks, even look away because it is too much to see every drop of perspiration, every tear shed by the performer, every breath taken right next to you. Sometimes the performer is just too close, making the audience examine their own boundaries of intimacy. Perhaps, some of them were intimidated by the closeness to the live art, to the living breathing humanity that is being shared with them. Perhaps, it is too much, but perhaps it is about time to break the wall between the audience and the artist and see how, why we do what we do. In shirking theater’s fourth wall, the sacred space of performance is occupied by audience and artist. Audience members become artists or are at least suffused with artistry. It is a source of such joy. A revelation of the Creative Spirit made human.”
The performance ends with audience, performers, and staff being taught a yoga routine which slowly transforms into a jubilant dance that they participate in together.
The performers included Christine Crame, Christopher Chan, Mark Raymund Reyes, and students of Benilde’s Dance and Arts Management Departments. Choreography by Christine Crame and Denisa Reyes, direction was by Sunita S. Mukhi who also doubled as writer in partnership with Eric V. De La Cruz . The students of Benilde’s Music Production Program provided the music and lighting design was by Joaquin Jose Aranda
The show opened at the at the 6th Floor, Black Box of Benilde’s School of Design and Arts and had a number of well-attended and lauded performances in late November. There’s a recent clamor for a restage which “Quartered” instant fans wish will happen soon.
