Unleashing the Creative Rebellion

“Creativity takes courage.” – Henri Matisse

I have been dormant for too long to take part into any art action but everything changed on the 24th day of February. Arts month is about to end and artists nationwide still hunger for some art action. Ms. Crece Roldan was my mother figure in the field of arts way back in college, I call her “Inay”, a Filipino word for “Mother”. I’ve performed with her several times in school and in the Cultural Center of The Philippines, and this time in the town that we live in. We do performance art, some people may find it so weird or may even describe it as abnormal. The performance art is a collaborative work and the performance was composed of three artists including myself.

The Artists. Jelle Marasigan (left), Jan Sato (middle), and Ms. Crece Roldan (right)

Art is utilized to convey messages and to transmit feelings to the audience. In our masterpiece we send people our thoughts regarding Philippine politics and elections. This is not a protest but I like to call this as creative rebellion. We did not target an individual or a group of people in addressing the issues in politics. Art can be joyful, peaceful, full of rage, or can be messy and for me it is no mess, everything that you consider rubbish on the floor radiates artistry. This form of art is often misunderstood and for me it is successful when people came up with their own interpretations. It’s a bonus when the audience were able to hit the meaning congruent to the artists'.

In the beginning of the performance, Ms. Crecee started to drop salt as she walks to the stage of performance. Myself and Jelle followed her, along the way we started to pull off campaign ads. It is not the time for campaigning and there is a designated time to do election campaign. Basically, their election campaign is way too early. As we reached the town “plaza” or town park we caught the attention of the town officials. They caught us pulling off the campaign ads of the politicians. An angry voice echoed “Hoy! Bakit ninyo binabaklas iyang kay Mayor?! Hoy!” (Hey! Why are you removing the campaign poster of our Mayor? Hey!). Inay responded, “Kasali po ito sa aming performance. Karapatan rin ho namin ito” (This is part of our performance. We have the right to do this). The town official is in full rage but his emotion changed when he saw the ABS-CBN media behind us. It’s magic when cameras can make someone change himself to look desirable for others.

I did witchcraft near the church and I'm not going to divulge the message of my act. On the other hand, Jelle played as a politician reflecting his theater roots. Ms. Creece... Well I am not going to tap on that.

This is where the performance happened.

I considered our site as a remarkable place for our art execution, it is in the town park, near the Catholic Church, and near the municipal hall. Watch the video clip below from ABS-CBN Southern Tagalog to find out more.

The news is about us addressing Philippine politics and elections. We should not let these politicians pollute our minds by accepting things from them. Do not let politicians rewire our minds with flowery words. We should be smart when choosing a candidate. Moreover, according to Ms. Crece, art is what we need and art is associated to the real world. In addition to this, art is needed to wake and empower people. Art can be a catalyst of change.