cultures and had the good fortune to travel the globe,
act as a global citizen, sharing the power of dance with
the widest-possible audience.

If my works evoke an aesthetic, | would like it to be a
fluid aesthetic defined yet undefined reflecting the
absorption, or inward impressions — a creative imagina-
tion and realization — of my own sense of self and time,
my history and my personal, social and cultural context.

In these dance works | was led to the opposites that life
has offered me so far: mystery and reality, simplicity and
complexity.

In 1999, | gathered smaller solo pieces that dated back to
1995 into SOLA, my first full-length evening creation.
This independent production was a turning point that
lead to a bigger creative journey. With this piece |
wanted to echo the becoming, being, passing and
remembrance referenced by the Asian concept Samsara
or continuous flow through birth, life and death. Toronto
Soprano Maria _ Piazza’s
improvisational voice and
classical arias accompa-
nied the live dance.

SOLA inspired indepen-
dent film maker and
producer Kevin Cottam,
who transformed the
piece into a 25-minute
video project that was
showcased at _ national
and international film festivals. Nominations and awards
for the video project included the Canadian Gemini
Awards, British Columbia’s Leo Awards and, in Paris,
UNESCO’s Video Grand Prix.

Should a rock or stone speak, what would it say? In
2000, | entered the new millennium with Bato/Stone, my
leap into a full-length ensemble work featuring six danc-
ers. Commissioned and co-produced by the The Firehall
Arts Centre in Vancouver, The completed group work
celebrated the official inauguration of Co.ERASGA as a
non-profit arts society.

Bato/Stone was an aggregation of studied solo works,
duets and trios that had been showcased since 1994 in
smaller presentations. My fascination with the presence,
formations and relationships of stones and rocks - in
both constructed and natural environments - opened an
epic route to movement ideas, inspiring me to explore
forms, stillness, rhythm and shapes through the body.

In 2001, | collaborated with Vancouver artist Miyuki
Shinkai, merging dance with her glass installation to
form the dance-visual project Minori: Fulfillment in Life.
This performance work was a remembrance of the
Japanese internment during World War Il in British
Columbia. Shinkai’s visual exhibit, comprising 600
hand-blown glass apples, was installed in the exhibition
space and | responded to it through movement and
performance.

The performance work was supported by the newly

established Centre A (Vancouver International Centre

The body and mind are inseparable.
Dancing and choreographing is a
lived experience, an inquiring and

revealing time that has to exist
in it’s righteous own.

for Contemporary Asian Art), under the invitation and
curatorial directorship of Hank Bull.

Private territory became public in VOLT, in which |
revealed the vulnerability and blindingly vital wit of
desire. Attraction and repulsion, longing and separation,
absence and presence directed me to express and dance
VOLT. A personal journey through love’s bittersweet
offerings, VOLT reflected how love made my body
strong and weak, happy and sad. Shouting out from
dynamically opposing physical states, | wanted to share
my truest emotions through the eloquence of perfor-
mance journey and space. Gaetan Margot was the other
half that shared the love, the gift, building and celebrat-
ing this dance creation.

In Field: Land Is the Belly of Man, | journeyed back home
to my native land, the Philippines, in 2003. After living in
the West for almost 20 years, | wanted to reconnect
with my cultural roots, reflecting and discovering what |
had missed during my absence. At the centre of this ode
to my Filipino heritage,
inciting its creation, were
the land and people of
the Philippines.

Initially, | created Field as
a group work for Ballet
Philippines. Then, out of
my need to understand
its depth and meaning
through my own body, |
transformed it into my
fourth full-length solo work. A video installation work by
Filipino video artist Tad Ermitano enveloped the design
scenography of Field using the imagery of rice. On
several occasions between 2003 and 2007, the work
was reconstructed and showcased across four conti-
nents.

Field was my attempt to consciously witness the
momentous changes brought about in_ traditional
societies by globalization. The work memorializes centu-
ries-old cultural traditions rooted in the central role of
rice in Philippine life — traditions in danger of dying out
due to mass urban migration and modernization. The
piece was also a remembrance of my grandfather,
Celestino Tolentino, through my childhood memories of
his commitment to his beloved rice land.

In 2004, my last living grandmother — we called her
Inang — passed away. This moved me to produce She
Said, an homage to women and their strength and
wisdom. A poetic offering, the dance was performed by
three women portraying the mothers, sisters and wives
who waited for their sons, brothers and husbands to
return from war. The female archetypes portrayed in the
dance resonate with states of vulnerability, complexity,
power, sex and matriarchy.

In 2005, Co.ERASGA had its first opportunity to bring
together an all-Asian-Canadian artists’ ensemble in
OrienTik/Portrait. Vancouver’s Nishihara-Kage duo
inspired me with their fresh, bold musical instrumenta-
tion of classical music, which they merged with
traditional and improvised taiko drumming to co-create