WALANG HIYA, MAY DATATING PA (2018)

JOY from William-Douglas R Ramonal on Vimeo.

Walang Hiya, May Datating pa (Without shame, There is home, there is more to come): A ritual for Joy and Decolonization
2018
​New York, New York

This project was developed and supported by Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative Public Performance and Action Fellowship in 2018. It was shown in New York, NY at the Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics as part of the community procession/festival entitled Homecoming which was the culminating event to an 8 month long fellowship designed by Ebony Noelle Golden.   

This multi-disciplinary performance ritual featured movement, sound, and installation directed and performed by Babay L. Angles. 

In this work, I am excavating the role of joy within the fragmented and maladaptive Pinay psyche in its process of decolonization. I am asking, where am I from, what/who am I fighting, and from where can I draw strength as a Pinay? My family is from Olongapo, Philippines. I grew up in San Diego, CA and Okinawa, Japan. I am creating ritual and movement to reflect on the ancestral memory of these heavily militarized spaces where the Pilipinx body was maimed, manipulated, policed and sexualized. I ask, how can we heal? What happens when the Christian rituals and spaces, capitalistic dreams, casinos, streaming television, dysfunctional familial patterns, and clutter are no longer enough? I ask where do we draw strength? Is there room for joy in the fight for decolonization. What boundaries must be drawn in order to cultivate joy? How can we draw upon intuitive ritual, indigenous Pilipinx movement, and Babaylan to liberate ourselves and community? I am fascinated with the ways, despite this Pilipinx intergenerational trauma, we resist through legend, myth, horror, joy and remix.