Ma-Yi Theater Company will convene artists, scholars, activists and community members for a two-day public forum on Philippine Martial Law history, theater and the role of creative work in times of political repression.
“Stages of Resistance: Theater, Memory, and the Politics of Truth” will take place Oct. 1 and 2, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Open Jar Studios, 1601 Broadway, 11th Floor, in Manhattan. Admission is free, but registration is required and seating is limited.
Organizers describe the event as more than a historical discussion. They say the forums will connect the history of Philippine resistance theater to current pressures faced by artists and cultural workers, including censorship, detention, deportation, canceled grants and institutional pressure to retreat from politically engaged work.
The program will feature keynote speakers Nicanor Tiongson, a scholar of Philippine theater, film and popular performance, and Bonifacio Ilagan, a playwright, filmmaker, journalist and activist whose work has addressed the Martial Law era.
Other scheduled participants include playwright and cultural leader Chris Millado; scholar, director and translator Jerry Respeto; playwright, poet and lawyer Nicolas Pichay; and film and cultural critic Roland Tolentino.
Novelist and essayist Gina Apostol will moderate the first-day forum. Neferti Tadiar, a scholar of Philippine studies, transnational feminism, labor and political economy, will moderate the second-day program.
The event will also include Manila-based reactors Judy Taguiwalo, Sarah Raymundo and Teddy Casiño. Poet, playwright, translator and scholar Joi Barrios will serve as convenor.
Ma-Yi said the discussions will bring together people with experience in theater-making, scholarship, public service, activism and organizing. The program is intended for theater makers, cultural workers, educators, students, scholars, organizers and community members interested in the relationship between art, public memory and political action.
The central question, organizers say, is not only how artists preserved truth and creativity under authoritarian rule, but how cultural workers can respond to contemporary pressures without abandoning difficult stories or collective memory.
The Ma-Yi Theater Company received a 2012 TOFA-NY Heritage Award at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Novelist Gina Apostol was named a 2020 TOFA100 awardee by The Outstanding Filipino Americans in New York.
