Laura Huggins, "Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Artists" (review), Our Own Voice, February 2008

http://www.ourownvoice.com/essays/essay2008a-9.shtml

Any student of theatre can tell you about the great emphasis placed on the actor's relationship with the "other," in the scheme of scene production. The important performance aspect of this relationship conceives the framework of any story ever told in theatre-and usually is told from the protagonist's point-of-view. The protagonist who often represents the hegemony is not obligated to objectively tell the story. More so, the protagonist relates events, as he or she perceives them. How often have history books told the story of another's culture, as a construct and not necessarily the way it actually happened? When the opportunity presents for members of non-dominant culture to speak to dominant society about their actual experiences-the others' point-of-view prompts dialogue that can enrich the lives of both. Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Artists provides that opportunity for the benefit of authentic and enriching cultural experiences for everyone.

An anthology of dialogues with various Filipinos, who have become American artists following their own unique paths, Stage Presence's chapters are personal documentaries delivering in-depth conversations, recounting significant chapters of their life stories. For this reader's part, their conversations riveted me to the pages and struck a resonant chord for ethnic artists everywhere. Although the average mainstream reader may be challenged to understand textual references written in Tagalog or Pilipino, Ricardo Trimillos' foreword is essential reading for gaining an understanding of the Filipino American's struggle with duality and belonging, within the American melting pot. There are always accommodations to be made and acclimation taking place, but strong connections to community is their key to survival.

The Los Angeles-based recording executives at Columbia Records were hard pressed to find a marketing niche for Eleanor Academia's Unimpressed style within one genre of music. Consider her own admission that traditional kulintang rhythms with "loud crunchy guitars, pounding drums, and wicked bass lines - [were] very much HEAVY METAL ROCK." This prompted some quick Internet research. I went in search of Academia's Black Swan website to see what all the commotion was about. One hour and three mp3 samples later, I clearly understood the freshness of the Hawaiian-born Southern Californian's appeal. It came from a conglomeration of musical influences she heard on the radio during her youth that fused with the music Academia plays. She is the American Idol that I would like to see on my MTV.

Actor and stand-up comedian Allan Manalo does a hysterically funny send up of his theater director experiences, as a play sketch for his comedy troupe, known as "Tongue in A Mood." Set during their nineties heyday at Bindlestiff Studio in San Francisco, their lampoon of holiday fare, Merry Tsismis had me laughing and crying (from laughing). Performances ultimately drew rave critical reviews for 'ethnic theater' from San Francisco Weekly, in 1997.

For her part, Alleluia Panis was less personal and more expository in relating anecdotes about numerous shows performed by the San Francisco Kulintang Ensemble and Kaililang Kulintang Ensemble, as touring artist presenters of traditional music and dance artistry of the Philippines.

Ralph Peña's recollections of his work with the Bodabil theater group at the University of the Philippines, in 1980, are particularly poignant. They reminded me of performances practiced by Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, whose socially galvanizing style provoked passive spectators into action. Bodabil took news headlines of the day to perform "lightning rallies"--street activism aimed at protesting the actions of the Marcos Regime. Ultimately, these activities led to a dangerous brush with the militarist authorities at that time and subsequent immigration to the U.S. Peña found his transition to living in the states somewhat ironic, knowing the part American Imperialism played during Marcos' reign. Surviving to be a founder of the Ma-Yi theater in New York, he has persevered to see it become the authentic and "best Filipino American theater company in the world."

From the list of Filipino theater companies Peña lists that are in his league, one name distinctly stood out for me—that of QBD Ink, whose founder and artistic director are friends of this performing artist. When Remé Grefalda mounted Krip Yuson's play, Luto, Linis, Laba in 2003-our successful run at the Bethesda Writer's Center featured Filipina maids on a mission, a lively soundtrack by Rod Garcia, and me as Tagalog-singing stage manager. Working with Remé as director, I never imagined the profound ways in which her work would affect the Filipino community and many others like myself. Reading the experience of her name, having wrongly appeared on the first expatriate "Black List" for being a contributor to a "Filipino literary/ arts magazine," conjured images in my mind of the 1950's McCarthy era in Washington, D.C. Fast-forward into the 21st Century, and she has "infiltrated" the Library of Congress, as Librarian of the new Asian Pacific American Collection. That is what I would call progress.

For anyone in search of engaging real-life relationships, Stage Presence has more than a fair share from which to choose. Its appeal lies in taking the ordinary reader into the other's shoes, without leaving their own.

Eydie Detera, "Artist anthology pulses with Filipino American soul," International Examiner 35.5 (2008)

When I consider performance artists in the Filipino American community, I know artists out there doing interesting work, but there isn't a single book that provides an intimate look into their complex and enlivening worlds. Finally, along comes the recently released book "Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Performance Artists," edited by Theodore S. Gonzalves, an assistant professor of American studies at the University of Hawai'I at Manoa. "Stage Presence" is very much an intimate conversation with self-made artists and their personal experiences developing their visions. As I turned the pages, each artist immediately spoke as a personal mentor.

When I asked Gonzalves of his process for choosing the artists to include, he said, "Many of the artists featured in the book have been mentors of mine for many years. I wanted to feature those who were performers in their own right as well as those that have led ensembles, companies, troupes, or bands. Performers who take on the larger responsibilities of leading a group have to rely on a range of skills in addition to their artistic training. It could involve everything from marketing, making business plans, media management, accounting, working with city planners, and chasing down grants to figuring out how to make a group work well together night after night. Add to that a tour schedule and you're really taxing multiple skill sets."

As I read this collection, I found myself deeply moved by their individual voices and personalities, their love and sweat for their art, and their pride in their Filipinoness. Gonzalves said that "all of the artists featured in the book not only reference their Filipino identities (not uniformly, for example as Filipinos, Filipino Americans or members of a global Philippine diaspora), they also have been at the cutting edges of giving us new ways to think about what it could mean to be Filipino in the world today."

The featured artists of "Stage Presence" have made a living doing their art. They're disciplined, committed to their visions, and their art has only become more sacred and inspiring. Gonzalves said, "I can name a few things that inspire me about their work. I'll just make a brief reference here to the two most senior contributors—Danongan Kalanduyan and Gabe Baltazar, Jr. What is abundantly clear from listening to them play (and they do play out of divergent traditions—the former a kulintang ensemble leader, the latter a master alto saxophonist and clarinetist of the bop school) is the tremendous amount of discipline and soul that you hear in their playing. Both continue to play at such a high level of musicianship that it's difficult to imagine how anyone else can articulate anything of any musical substance without having put in the time that either of these two have. Of course, that's an exaggeration. There are no shortages of young virtuosos out there. But I'm always floored when I hear Danny or Gabe play. When they put it down, it's so good you don't want to pick it up."

As I read on, I found myself absorbed by many of the artists' philosophies on their work. Choreographer and community-based artist Pearl Ubungen's view of the dancer's body, for example, and its potential for cultural resistance and warriorship is very enlightening. She writes, "Dance is praxis -- a practice and learning process for life that centers complex embodiment. The deeper level or inner dance training points to a process that is transgressive, particularly if you contextualize the dancing body in terms of ancestry/lineages/memory. For me this extends beyond formal dance training and into the creative process." The words of soul rocker Eleanor Academia as she discusses her journey of being a recording artist true to her work are similarly inspiring and revolutionary. She hashes out the problematics of getting branded by major record producers for her mixed heritage and fused music style, which led to her starting her own independent record label, Black Swan Records.

For refreshing and honest takes on Filipino American life, the sketches of Allan Manalo, co-founder of the San Francisco comedy troupe "tongue in A mood," center the voices of old-timers and military veterans, and Filipino American Studies professors in hilarious and irreverent ways. Within his skits, he intersperses personal history and the evolution of "tongue in A mood" and the "PiNoisePop Music Festival."

I emerged from "Stage Presence" simply awestruck by the drive, range and depth of these artists' creative processes. As they remain true to themselves and their visions, theses artists naturally subvert categorization, challenging our views of what Filipino American creativity means. Just as a powerful, original performance can change a life, the candid conversations in "Stage Presence" pull the reader into the vivid personalities, ruminations and creative processes of these highly accomplished artists, and I emerged from "Stage Presence" inspired, transformed and comforted by their very presence among us.

Allen Gaborro, "Stage Presence," (review) Philippine News, May 23-29, 2008

It is always a privilege to be able to listen to performing artists as they expound upon the creative energies and efforts that make them what they are: gifted purveyors of a highly-dynamic art form. As a Filipino American, it is an even greater pleasure to read the comments and observations made by FilAm performing artists on the cultural, personal, and artistic aspects of their craft.

In "Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Performing Artists," ten performing artists are placed in the spotlight as they attest to the experiences and perspectives that underpin their lives as FilAm artists. University of Hawai'i Professor Ricardo D. Trimillos writes in the book's foreword that "Stage Presence" brings back memories of the "komedya" or "Moro-moro" folk theater. The theater's plays return again and again to a basic storyline in which a Christian prince travels to a mysterious land where he will meet a Muslim princess. In the end, the princess surrenders her heart to the prince, but only after he has overcome several obstacles.

Trimillos draws a parallel from the Moro-moro to the FilAm performing artists in "Stage Presence." He writes about how these artists, like their Moro-moro counterparts, have achieved some upsurge of accomplishment after persevering through foreign and adverse circumstances. Each artist, in articles that have been proficiently edited by University of Hawai'i at Manoa Assistant Professor Theodore S. Gonzalves, explains to us in what way they have engaged in this bi-cultural process.

Trimillos stresses that he is not comfortable with the term "Filipino American" and its reductive connotations. He writes that "the static nature and fixity of the term 'Filipino American' is no longer so reassuring as a marker for ourselves as Filipinos." In flouting one-dimensional designations that have been traditionally used to classify Filipino Americans as a whole, Trimillos renders four "nuanced" archetypes that more eruditely represent the FilAm artists featured in "Stage Presence": 1) Artists of Filipino descent born in the United States; 2) Filipino-born artists who grew up in the US; 3) Filipino American artists of "mixed ancestry" either American- or Filipino-born; and 4) the "established [Filipino] artist" immigrant to the US.

One of the book's esteemed subjects is Pearl Ubungen, an avant-garde dance choreographer and cultural activist. In combining historical research with her artistic endeavors, Ubungen wants to transform the arts into something that would avoid being elitist and be widely-available to anyone and everyone. Her social perspective is Foucaultian in that it is formulated in terms of power relations. As a teacher steeped in postcolonial theory, Ubungen called on her students to "look deeply into structural manifestations of inequity and forms of domination at play in our society." She incorporates this sensibility into her dance form and content which she puts forward as "a practice of cultural resistance."

There is also a chapter on Allan S. Manalo, a standup comedian, freelance writer, and, according to his bio, a "prostitute of mediocracy." Manalo is one of the founders of the FilAm comedy group, "tongue in A mood." He recalls being asked to compose some comedy skits for the Pilipino American Collegiate Endeavor's (PACE) annual "Pilipino Cultural Night." The skits were designed to be, as Manalo states, "a combination of scenes driven by the search, revelation, and celebration of our Filipino identity." Manalo confesses that the PCN occasion enabled him to discover something that "I didn't even know I was looking for--a validation of my own personal identity as a Filipino slash American."

Equally engrossing in "Stage Presence" are the chapters on Jessica Hagedorn, Reme A. Grefalda, and Alleluia Panis, all intrepid, industrious, and artistically-minded women in their own right. The book's sections on other notable FilAm performing artists only enhances the sense of commitment and passion that these gifted individuals feel in expressing the Filipino side of their self-identity. It is an identity that continues to grow ever more complex and articulate as it is shaped and honed through the filter of the American social landscape.

It is no easy thing for a FilAm artist, indeed for any FilAm at all, to preserve their "Filipinoness" in the whirlwinds of America's hypercapitalistic and technocultural society. But the artists in "Stage Presence" cling steadfastly to that identity in the face of all the external forces that would tear them away from it. Keeping faith with that elusive identity is a lifelong struggle that all FilAm artists act out through the language and symbolism of their art.

Benjamin Pimentel, "Doctor Boogie Nights," Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1/7/2008

Theo Gonzalves is an academic, writer, musician, composer, community organizer, theater artist and activist-- a Fil Am Renaissance man in other words.

Now don't take that to mean he's a square or a nerd. You'll never find a square or a nerd who goes by the name Doctor Boogienights. That's his stage name as part of the Filam band, Bobby Banduria. Actually, he began as "Captain Boogienights" then gave himself a promotion to "doctor" after, well, he became a doctor with a PhD from the University of California-Irvine. As you can see it's pretty obvious that Theo, the son of Pinoy immigrants, is your typical Pinoy: big on higher education, big on music and performing.

"My parents have always loved music," he recalled. "They encouraged me to learn to play the piano and clarinet as a youngster. I played all throughout my younger days on the Monterey Peninsula. My first regular stint as a pianist was playing for my local parish in Marina, California. Instead of becoming an altar server I joined the musicians."

He said he learned "to fill out the arrangements on the piano by adding chords with my right hand and playing bass lines with my left." And he even developed a unique gift, so to speak: Theo found a way to mix holy water with "Purple Rain."

"Around that same time I became a huge fan of Prince's music," Theo continued. "I disguised every tune I could learn of his into the Sunday mass. The older ladies in the parish complimented me on the mellow mood music I was playing during the offertory or after the communion service finished up. But my friends knew I was sneaking in smoothed out versions of 'Let's Pretend We're Married,' 'Darling Nikki,' and 'Computer Blue' into the service."

I first came across Theo while watching a show in San Francisco where he was a member of the famous FilAm comedy troupe, "Tongue In a Mood." (Hint: Say the name really fast.) Theo served as musical director of the group which he said specialized in "politically subversive theater." It pokes fun at our own taboos," he told me many years ago.

Tongue In a Mood became known for ribbing Filipino immigrants, Filams and Filipinos in the Philippines. One my favorite skits featured a decorations commonly found in Filipino homes and banished to the basement. Imagine what a girl dancing the Tinikling, a naked man in a barrel and Jesus Christ would talk about to pass the time?

Theo's interest in theater and performing extended to his career as an assistant professor of American studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He has just published a book, "Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Performing Artists" (Meritage Press, 2007). The book, which Theo edited, is a collection on essays and interviews with Filipino American performing artists who talk candidly about performing - how they go about mounting a play or a concert, what inspires them, what challenges they face as artists of Filipino descent in the United States.

The book features a pretty impressive lineup.

There's Danongan Kalundayan, the famous kulintang player and teacher, and Gabe Baltazar, Jr., the master alto saxophonist and clarinetist of the bop school. Then there's Tongue In a Mood founder Allan Manalo, the Bay Area comic who a few years ago moved to Manila where is now a well-known humorist and theater artist.

Theo said the idea for the collection came from his conversations with poet Eileen Tabios, the publisher of Mertiage Press, "about the different kinds of projects that combined artists from various performing arts disciplines."

"The intent of the books is ... to allow performers an opportunity to talk about their creative processes," he said. "Many of the artists featured in the book have been mentors of mine for many years. I wanted to feature those who were performers in their own right as well as those that have led ensembles, companies, troupes, or bands. Performers who take on the larger responsibilities of leading a group have to rely on a range of skills in addition to their artistic training. It could involve everything from marketing, making business plans, media management, accounting, working with city planners, and chasing down grants to figuring out how to make a group work well together night after night. Add to that a tour schedule and you're really taxing multiple skill sets."

He said the artists featured in the book all drew from their Filipinoness to do their work as artists, but not just that. "They also have been at the cutting edges of giving us new ways to think about what it could mean to be Filipino in the world today," Theo said. "They experiment with while extending traditions."

"They insist on looking and turning to Filipino histories not because it's a comfortable place to go back to but rather because they want to remind us that lessons from the past still have to learned - about the Philippine American war, migration from the country, and so much more," Theo added. "But their work is not just about playing histories out on stages. I've been enjoying their work because they produce outstanding, fun, heartbreaking and vital work. It's truly alive."