Palangga bARTer Healing Art Play Fest: Mindful as One, Breathing as One, Healing as One - Kalinga ng Sining Grantee by the Cultural Center of the Philippines

Ilonggos are known for the endearing tone and caring gesture as a character magnified in the “City of Love” in time of the present health crisis.   When people cannot physically touch, the human tendency is to transcend the level of connection not only on virtual platforms. The expression of concern has started inspiring movement such as barter community as a way of providing the essential needs of others and uplifting the community spirit.  For artists multi-level and various platforms has been deliberately  utilized to bring out the best in through fund raising and performances.  In Iloilo  we spread a potent virus “Palangga” as the notion of emphatic love and concern intrinsic in the fabric of “Breathing as One, Healing as One.  Artists in live events have been greatly affected due to the lockdown and quarantine measure.  However, even in the worst of times, many artists came for forward to raise funds, big or small by donating a portion of their income through art exhibits and performances.  Despite the lack of impact of loss of income, artists are the first to creatively respond to crisis situation.  The pandemic has caused depression, instability, uncertainty,  stress and anxiety to name a few which has disturbed the social fabric of productivity and well-being.  It is important to build infrastructure and quarantine facilities, but what is more important is the “inner-healing”.

 

The uncertainty in this pandemic brought so much anxiety.  The pandemic is the time to  pause, stop, think and recreate.  The Corona virus calls for a new way of seeing and ways of living.  In the understanding of what is the most essential in the life and death situation, teaches compassion and resilience.  Artists has the most creative coping mechanism who could help empower other people through the most expressive, healing and fun way of recovery back to the new normal.

The artists are not therapists, however, with the right process and understanding, the best can come out of the Ilonggos in times of crisis.  It is important to understand the  basic psychological needs of a human being according to Dr. Honey Carandang especially in this times of pandemic  which includes the need to have a wide scope of self expression (through the arts) and the need for transcendence and beauty (to have faith and not to loose hope).   

This is important process of breaking through the darkness, anxiety and depression through transcendence and beauty.  The value of expressive arts transcends pain into beauty as the most healing expression of the self and the collective  is the main focus of this Palangga bARTer Healing Art PlayFest.

In response to the COVID19 pandemic, Cultural Center of the Philippines Kalinga ng Sining launched cultural caregiving as a direct response to the needs of the artists.  Some of the most vulnerable artists such as women artists behind bars or persons deprived of liberty (PDL) seemingly invisible, voiceless, powerless, and marginalized became the focal group in this project, as they serves as inspiration and creative source of artistic material for the barter and exchange of stories, skills and talents.  Local Iloilo artists were given the opportunities to have a barter and support each other through psycho-social care-giving through arts.  

The Palangga bARTer Healing Art Play Fest operates on various themes such as:

• The Quarantine Mental Survival Kit through psychosocial support and cultural care-giving
• Double Lockdown Showdown through workshops 
• Healing Art in time of Corona through artmaking

In February  2020 the Prison Poetry Prize launched the 25 winning pieces out of 69 entries.  Some of the winning poems were featured in the Prison Theater of Compassion together with narratives of PDL as output of the Double Lockdown Showdown workshops.  Women artists PDL poetry was the focal inspirational material of the barter healing art exchange in collaboration with local Iloilo artists who transformed the materials into films while relating it to their own experience of quarantine and lockdown due to the COVID19 pandemic which came out as a rich dialogue and conversation in the multi-dimensional visual narrative of music, photos, theater, animation juxtaposed in film format for the purpose of online screening.

Sixty five women artists PDL  were involved with Twenty USALT and FAMO artists as core group in collaboration with around Sixty Five women artists behind bars or PDL in partnership with film makers, choreographers, movers, theater and visual artists and production designers to facilitate a talent bARTer through interactive platforms among interdisciplinary artists.  The creative team produced four films based on the poetic narrative of women artists PDL based on the framework based on their lockdown stories and experiences.  The limitation of home quarantine and social distancing did not top the filmmakers in staging a production in the confines of their own homes or in outdoor sites without compromising their own health.  As a result of tight four weeks film shoot and editing in between work and studies; four beautiful films were featured during the Double Lockdown showdown launch adhering to the four phases of Dagyaw framework:

1. Ginhawa by USALT (excerpt of restaging Shokt) for “Ginhawa”
2. Ilili sang Paglaum by Ron Matthews Espinosa for “Paghigugma”
3. Tunog ng Buhay by Quezzy Claire Pedrergosa for “Paglaum”
4. Rehas kag Pader by Je-ann Palmaira for “Panghimanwa”

The Palangga bARTer Healing Art Play Fest operates on Dagyaw framework; in the context of mental health and resilience;  which is an overarching process in facing the challenges at hand; which involves the decision “to live/to survive” (pangabuhi)  or to “thrive” (kabuhi),  that which embraces the four stages or process from surviving to thriving; to breathe, to love, to dream or aspire and to build community as one.  The play fest employs the four phases as the framework in film making; the first phase focused on how young people managed to survive from their own anxiety and fear during lock-down being minors and were not allowed to leave their houses through the metaphor of breathing (ginhawa). The second phase explored how to show love and care (paghigugma or pagpalangga) for others and with empathy and sympathy in the time of pandemic.   The third phase invites the conversation on the how to hope,  to dream and to aspire (paglaum) to overcome the challenges; and the fourth phase brings everyone together in community building and strengthening the social capital (panghimanwa).

The double lockdown showdown scaffolded hundreds of hours in around 25 multi-disciplinary workshops with around 20 international resource persons from USA, Canada, South Korea and Indonesia based on empathy and compassion for psychosocial caregiving for women helping other incarcerated women.   The outout of the workshops culminated with a devised prison theater of compassion performed live via zoom by 20 PDL that was launched in October 30, 2020 with special guests from the USA and Canada.  The interaction was a moving experience where women PDL saw their poetic narratives come alive and transformed into films, music and theater.  The whole program embraces a collaborative process of healing arts in the new normal by bringing together artists of different discipline which brought tears of joy and healing.  The final live stream through Facebook earned around 1400 views, with hundreds of comments and more than 100 PDL watching the live streaming inside the jail.