Dance artist Chelsea Ainsworth from New York, baritone Anthony Brown from Pennsylvania, and spoken word poet Arianna Pozzuoli from Canada comprise the foreign guest artists who will be performing and teaching at the Performatura Festival 2015. The three-day festival, organized by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), will run on November 6, 7 and 8 at its various venues.
“The three international artists have all done work in the Philippines previously,” Vim Nadera, Performatura Festival, explained. “The participation of our foreign guest artists is in the spirit of intertextuality. We are promoting a global conversation and understanding between and among the text, the text makers (artists), and the audience that unite us as a people,” he added.
Ainsworth, a member of IntegratingArt, conducts educational outreach projects across the world including the Philippines through dance performances. A graduate dancer from The Juilliard School, the 27-year-old dance artist believes in the power and potential of the arts to teach life skills.
“By carrying out educational outreach through performance,” Ainsworth said, “I have discovered that individuals can learn basic skills and values through a collaborative arts curriculum,” she added. These values such as trust, respect, creativity, confidence and community likewise represent what art is to her.
She was in the country in 2012 and again in 2014, and started the Project Philippines fund-raising campaign to provide accessible arts education in the country through classes, workshops, and performances, and to produce a video documentary of the experience.
Ainsworth will teach and facilitate a creative performance for the Literaturo Workshop on November 6 from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. at the Bulwagang Pambansang Alagad ng Sining (MKP Hall). She will also perform during the formal opening rite which starts at 2:00 p.m. on the same day at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (Little Theater).
Brown, on the other hand, is a musician and peace advocate who founded the Peacing It Together Foundation. Through the organization, which aims to be a resource for peace and social justice for the global community, the artist uses music and the spoken word to unite people who have been divided by race, culture and religion.
Brown, a previous artist in residence of and sociology professor at the Hesston College in Kansas, has travelled extensively in pushing his peace agenda to transform and heal people of the world. He considerably toured the Philippines focusing on provincial areas with local church peace groups in 2014 as part of his outreach program. Apart from the Philippines, he has performed in Bosnia, Moldova, Northern Ireland, Uganda, Ethiopia, China, Japan, South Korea and Colombia.
For Performatura’s Feature Performances on November 8, Brown will present his tribute piece called I Go On Singing: Paul Robeson’s Life in His Words and Songs at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute (Experimental Theater) from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Brown will be accompanied by Filipino veteran actor Bodjie Pascua as the narrator. Robeson is an African-American civil rights activist, an athlete, scholar, champion orator, an international recording artist, performer on stage and on screen in the 1930’s and 1940’s.
I Go On Singing is a documentary concert experience that combines the historical documentary format through photo projection and the live concert component with Brown accompanied by Filipino pianist Rogie Reyes. I Go On Singing, penned by playwright Andrew Flack for Brown, uses the words of Robeson culled from his autobiographical account titled Here I Stand with commentaries from legendary peace activist and artist Pete Seeger.
Pozzuoli, the third international guest artist of Performatura Festival 2015, is also an educator in addition to being a spoken word performer and storyteller. She currently works at the Canadian International School of Singapore as a Drama teacher.
The artist’s literary journey started in December 2006 when she competed and won in her first Poetry Slam. She has then participated in various competitions such as the Individual World Poetry Championship (Vancouver, British Columbia), the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word (Halifax, Nova Scotia and Calgary, Alberta), the Women of the World Slam (Detroit, Michigan), and the American National Poetry Slam (Madison, Wisconsin).
Pozzuoli has been featured at various slams and festivals in North America, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Australia.
In the Performatura Festival, she will conduct a Poetry Slam Workshop for Educators on November 8 from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. under the Literaturo Workshop series at the Bulwagang Pambansang Alagad ng Sining (MKP Hall). She will then start off the Feature Performances at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute (Experimental Theater) at 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon on the same day.
To gain entrance to the pocket events, please register now at www.performatura.com, and remember to bring a book on that day for your day pass. Performatura updates are available on Facebook (CCP-Intertextual-Division-Programs), Tumblr (ccpintertextualdivision.tumblr.com), and Twitter (ccpintertextual).
For more information, contact the CCP Intertextual Division at (+632) 832-1125 locals 1706 and 1707.
