Bayanihan is a tagalog word used to describe the physical representation of the spirit of community. Bayanihan: A Collection of Physical Tales is created as a structure that explores the stories of each member in a community. The work is a physical interpretation of the ways we, as intersectional dance artists from the PNW, have learned to support one another in our journey of realizing our true selves in order to survive. We will use storytelling as a way for us to heal and take ownership over the world that we want to live in, a world that we create where all parts can move, evolve, and exist together.

The audience will be taken on a journey through five different worlds. Each section is no longer than four minutes, allowing the audience to experience five different environments with six different storytellers. The work resembles a physical chapter book. We are inspired by popular music and music with rhythmic patterns, validating all styles of movement, high fashion, the freedom to show emotion or not, audience/ crowd participation, self care, feeling beautiful, the communities we come from, and the power to speak our truths to an audience that wants to hear them. It is important that we are intentional about not filtering or changing our cultural identities as young artists of color in a predominately euro-centric art form.

BIO

Eli will ask the audience for a volunteer to come on stage to play a game of “War.” They will explain that we are going to play with a special deck, “a deck dedicated to teach boys to be men.” Eli will describe the rules of the game: each player will start with half the deck; every round each player will flip over one card and read what is written on it out loud; then the volunteer will decide which card wins; this will be repeated until one player has all the cards and wins the war. The point of this game is to explore how we understand the interaction of different aspects of male socialization and the underlying structures that create and reinforce our personal experiences, while also examining how white-supremacy and racism are integrally intertwined with dominant notions of maleness. How has the audience experienced and perpetuated male-socialization (either as people taught to be men and/or people subjected to male dominance), and how do racism and sexism feed each other?

Planet Pink takes the audience on a real and personal journey of self-love and transness. Bouton, often perceived as a black man but identifying as a non-binary femme, challenges beauty standards by trying things that are typically only acceptable from cis women (think: flowy night gowns, bras & wigs, etc.).

Bouton says, “As a black queer person, sometimes making my unpopular thoughts public or a part of my art, not only empowers me personally, but it also challenges those who need it most and encourages others like me.”

In the White Frame is inspired by Sharon H. Chang’s book Raising Mixed Race. Using her book as a resource, Moonyeka and dancers will explore mixed race folks’ experience in a post racial world, while also specifically looking at Joe R. Feagin’s theory of white racial framing. White racial framing is when people ask mixed folks, or even non-mixed folks, “What are you? Where are you from? No really, where are you from?” This is people trying to figure out where someone lands on the black or white binary of race. In the White Frame also seeks to complicate the ugly/pretty, superhuman, mutt, “mixed people will end racism!,” 1-drop rule narratives of mixed race people. It will include black, indigenous, young, queer, and femme voices since this work would not be authentic or accurate without honoring their voices. Moonyeka and dancers dare ask the question, “is the racial discourse inclusive of our experiences? is it erasing us? are we (as mixed people) allowed to reject the racial framework being used today?”

Featuring dancers El Nyberg, Michael O’Neal Jr., Alyza DelPan-Monley, Bria Calhougn-Anderson, and Estrella Gonzalez. Ravella Riffenburg: Light Design + Nic Masangkay: Sound Design.