AHA Project

What drew you to the theatre in the first place? How does it relate to peace and justice for you?

“For the most part, as a child, I lived in the shadows of my own tiny world. I let the physical debilitation of asthma and a rheumatic heart disease constrict my life possibilities. This victim power, a potent narrative that intersected with my diminished motivation in going to school, was, in many ways, my first unconscious act of role-playing. I could easily provoke an asthma attack on mornings when the prospect of going to school was not too enticing. All of that quickly dissolved after the first day of a teen theatre workshop I attended at age thirteen. The workshop, facilitated by the Philippine Educational Theater Association, combined a process of creative release with self-discovery. We focused, among other things, on collaboration with our peers, improvisation, and on explorating  the role theatre plays in society. Each day, I resolved never to get sick again so that I could complete the programme. It was a spirit-led pivot that happened almost overnight. I always refer to those six weeks as my rebirth – a time when my life was catapulted into a new awakened sense of who I was and what I could be to others. 

There are many layers to peace work. For my generation, coming through military rule in the 70s and the 80s, there was a lot of regimentation and silencing. There was a culture of fear, passivity, and submissiveness. I think, for me, theatre can do so much in terms of flipping the script by allowing us to reflect on reality.  Theatre is both a performance and a platform for artists and communities to ask themselves what they want out of their lives. For me, it’s a very potent tool in building community because peacebuilding and conflict transformation, by their very nature, need to create a new ethos, new ways of seeing and doing things, and new ways to relate to one another.”

How did you end up connecting with IMPACT? Why IMPACT; why arts, culture, and conflict transformation?

“I originally met with Kyoko Okumoto, one of the other IMPACT board members. We formed a team facilitating a course on the arts and peacebuilding at the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute together with storyteller Babu Ayindo. With IMPACT’s launch as an international NGO, they brought in several people from Asia to the Board. It was a natural fit given my passion for the arts and for their transformative power. Being on the Board has allowed me to expand my perspectives, meet inspiring people, and capture the intersection of our efforts and advocacies. John Paul Lederach outlines a really good framework for looking at reconciliation which includes four elements intersecting yet not always in consonance with each other. The four elements are mercy, truth, justice, and peace. Mercy may bring in the voice of forgiveness and grace while justice may insist on recognising the deep and systemic injustices that have impacted oppressed communities and demand reparation. Truth will bring out people’s narratives, and peace will find non-violent ways forward when some sectors might feel deeply frustrated with the system. For those who are serious about really creating a path toward reconciliation, we have to collectively build on this ecosystem. However, it will take so much effort for communities and leaders to value each of these elements. This is where the arts come in as they help shift paradigms and open people’s hearts and minds.”

Can you share any specific examples from within your own context in the Philippines?

“Recently, our youth theatre group was bothered by the low turnout during the recent elections. It was quite troubling and mind-blowing when the son, Bongbong Marcos, of an earlier-deposed dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, won. So, the young artists created a play that was a conversation between their generation and their elders who were significantly impacted by military rule in the 70s and the 80s. They brought back the stories of the martyrs of the martial law regime as part of their desire to contribute to truth-telling and to counter historical revisionism. For many of them, it was about drawing a line that separates the values that they hold dear (such as decency, kindness, truth, service, and love) with corruption, abuse of power, impunity, greed, and ruthlessness. They asserted their stubborn humanity and declared that we, as a society, can be better than that.”

Could you describe the most emotionally impactful creative project you’ve worked on to date?

“I distinctly remember the very first protest rally that I attended. I was in high school, and the issue was an education act that would have totally privatised and commercialised the education system for profit. We were assembled in front of the Ministry of Education. As an activist, you just want to be there, to be heard, and to be counted. And then, suddenly, a phalanx of truncheon-wielding police surrounded us. They started pushing and beating up people. We all ran to different places. At some point, we found ourselves inside one of the hallways of the building. It was raining heavily, and we were in shock with all of the senseless brutality. We were also fearful and unsure of what would happen next. But then, despite this bleak scenario, someone started to sing a famous love song for the country. It was an iconic ballad of freedom fighters in the 1980s. Everyone then held their heads up and started to sing with all of these complex feelings. We recognised this collective spirit lifted each other up. It was really powerful. That’s the power of the arts. Despite all of this adversity, there’s a spirit that they cannot crush. Yes, we’ve been battered and trampled on, but we will rise again. Art is able to tap into that spirit of stubborn hope for the goodness and kindness of humanity.”

What is one piece of content that profoundly impacted the way you work in this field?

“This will really date me, haha. In the 70s and the 80s, I was profoundly influenced by some key thinkers such as Paulo Freire and Augusto Boal. Freire wrote the Pedagogy of the Oppressed which Boal then translated into the Theatre of the Oppressed. This book shook a lot of notions about theatre having a distinct separation between the artists and the spectators. It said that we could remove this division so that the audience could now become spect-actors who also had the power to change the script. In this way, theatre does not become just a finished product, but it becomes a process and a platform for conversation. Boal articulated the idea of theatre as a rehearsal for change. For me, that was a big AHA! Moment because it was a worldview that gave each of us creative agency which deeply resonated with me. Further influences on improvisation from authors such as Viola Spolin and Keith Johnstone were crucial for me. There is one rule in improvisation that says to always make your partner look good. There are many more, of course, but this one is so powerful if we can all learn to embody it. Can you imagine if we all lived our lives off of the premises of making others look good and lifting everyone else up? That ethos for me is so powerful!”