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November 18, 2009 (WABI-SABI)

November brings an accumulation of work to complete or completed. October passed without writing anything here: uncompelled to express anything in writing due to lack of time. As November creeps to an end, I want to make up blogging for both months.

Planning can be sublime yet so orderly to attain progress as I struggle each month to meet my friendly deadlines.

As October and mid-November pass, I share my list with you:

- PARADIS was reprised for a half-hour version for 2009 Dance in Vancouver;

- Met Ion Zoo again in an hour of fabulous musicscape as my right shoulder still hurts from dancing the void of improvisation;

- Writing graaaants? (the grind of justifying my artistic pursuit and how to survive!); and - Re-visited Shadow Machine: dancing with rope, shovel and a new invention of sounds, visuals and more to come. Stay tuned, am sure to talk more on this in the months ahead.

-Gender, Yin and Yang, MAN and WOMAN, archetype? A daily studio work for Alison Denham and Billy Marchenski in the work ADAMEVE/Man-Woman. Consider intriguing and imposing questions on male or female movements. When do we recognize it, bodily relation and reaction? Can movements alone liberate the body from gender?

-Back in October on a grey Sunday afternoon stumbling together with Paraskevas was a lecture at Vancity Cinema by Arlene Goldbard brightly reminding her attendees that ART IS A SECRET OF SURVIVAL.

-Levy was born, a new nephew from my youngest brother.

Mid-November's heavy winds blowing in the air, Heavy rain falls fearlessly, Leaves on trees disappear and trees are naked again. Less light and more candles at home. I drink more hot teas and eat more soupy meals. My furnace is on and wool socks on my feet.

I encounter and contemplate on WABI-SABI, Meandering in the essence of transience, Imperfect, Impermanence and Incomplete. BEAUTY.

September 2, 2009 (Death and Uncertainty)

"Art for art's sake? I should think so, and more so than ever at the present time. It is the one orderly product which our middling race has produced. It is the cry of a thousand sentinels, the echo from a thousand labyrinths; it is the lighthouse which cannot be hidden. It is the best evidence we can have of our dignity." E. M. Forster

Death and passing of great dance artists such as Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham and, yes, even pop star Michael Jackson in the last months brought an emotional impact, an honouring and resounding jubilee of their creativity, contribution, essence, presence and importance to our lives.

BUT When death comes to artistic works and artists through funding cuts, then I believe it is the killing of an unborn dream, possibilities and some magic in our lives.

As I write this blog, the BC arts community suffers a brutal rate of funding cuts from the government that will leave artists unemployed and organizations closed. It is ill and grave when freedom of expression cannot breath and dies.

Society suffers greatly from this [budget cut] ( impassioned act of irreverence) that prevents the potential benefits that could enrich the cultural sector for generations in BC.

For over 2 decades as a dedicated art practitioner, I witness the rise and growth and potential of Canada?s West Coast artistic field. Beyond expectations, an array of golden arts and artists have flourished in BC and proclaimed our little map of Canada's West Coast on international stages. When I share my work with a global audience, I share a piece of BC where I have been nurtured and provided the essentials to dream, make dance and to live.

Cut the arts in our lives and we are doomed!

What happens next? The doubt, fear, isolation and confusion in this troubled time.

Can artists resurrect and dive into a bigger void, a black hole of uncertainty? Will this troubled time have a next page, how far and deep can it cost us or take us beyond our means?

To my fellow artists in BC: in your dreams may courage and strength always live.

July 30, 2009 (8 down and 2 more to go!)

Writing from The Avignon Off Festival in the heart of Provence, France with 10 shows of PARADIS with 1 day off after the sixth.

Avignon is a messy, hot, creative burst of energy!

Tonight I would have performed the 9th show (but cancelled due to electricity failure 15 minutes before the show, power came back 40 minutes after) 1 more show to go tomorrow. I would have performed the full-length 55-minute PARADIS solo 14 times to the public since the Dancing on The Edge Festival at the Roundhouse's outdoor roundtable starting with my tech last July 9. The rigorous work and keeping my body in tune and fresh are challenges as I revitalize every repetitive movement into something new, deeper and meaningful. Each show forced me to value to be fully present beyond bodily pain and emotional stress.

Performing in Vancouver outdoors was rewarding: giving dance another chance in the public space away from the privacy of a private theatre.

The Avignon Off Festival offered 1000 shows daily mainly in theatre and 10% dance. I competed for audiences and marketing but participating and engaging the work at the festival would be a focal point of the experience.

In the last month I struggled to be a singular force. I feel the weight to get things rolling and aligned. I had to stay focus. People have their own agendas, values and issues and indeed they sometime assist or contradict to my own.

Listening and trusting, how to carry the progress and vision without fear?

I sigh with relief when a project is completed with little trouble. I am at awe that another production is conceived. At the end of each performance, perhaps a person is touched, moved, disturbed. Can that person leave with a question about the existence of creative expression? And if so, This I think is continuation, communication, a step, a hopeful progress.

June 7, 2009 (Heels for Ali and a gun for Billy)

Heels for Ali and a gun for Billy. The rest of you just have to wait and see as ADAM-EVE comes to life as it unveils in December 2009. I'm back in the studio with Alison Denham and Billy Marchenski after months of clearing and figuring out our schedule as we return to the research process of this full-length duet.

Creative process and research without any pressure is honouring! Process is liberating, a time with endless possibilities, but also an edge to the curious unknown.

In our spring process I wanted to explore DUST and if there is an object, what would represent a woman and man?

This month of June also, I enter into reconstruction of PARADIS/Paradise, a 55-minute full-length solo. Alone in the studio before the noise composer Emmanuel St Aubin arrives from France. I feel the life and death of an entity when reconstructing an existing work. I viewed the work on video. I am shocked how I got to that physical dance and place. I fear how to come back to it again. It's like a journey, so far, yet so close, familiar and unfamiliar. In the studio, I ponder, doubt and question: why this dance, that movement; where is the source, why that choice?

I am reading and contemplating an essay or manuscript written by Butoh dance artist Natsu Nakajima entitled "Ankoku Butoh". I had the privilege of watching her small performance work and listening to her dialogue in the recent Vancouver International Dance Festival last March. Seeing Natsu was probably the highlight of seeing dance for me so far this year. (I hope to talk more about this experience shortly). She shared her writings with the audience and in keeping it I knew there was something important about it. I finally read and absorbed it this week.

In her words and writing, the simplest yet prevailing knowledge and mystery of the body is ever present, to express and find dance one can "return to the original body" be invisible, become nothing, not anything ... become empty but ... filled emptiness ..."

I think of my body as my most loyal companion, at times divided, at times together, at times eager, at times frightened. Our body is an impeccable palace of divine essence and expression, it can be empty and be very full.

May 22, 2009 (2 sleeps before the Tinikling show)

As the month of May is close to the end, I am like a little fish in the pond of dance.

Researching my new work Adam-Eve to unveil in December. Dancing two of my solos Pinoy Meets ion Zoo (with ion Zoo music ensemble) and Meeting Umbuh. Prepping to reconstruct Paradis/Paradise for a short film with broken mirror and for July's Dancing on the Edge Festival. Lastly, the 15-minute version of Tinikling (Bamboo Dance) for explorASIAN festival.

I balance and titter within my analytical and intuitive world and juggle to strive to do my best to be present for each work. Early this year, I promised myself that despite economical downfall, I should stay with my vision, be at the place I am most happy, DANCE, make the art work and engage with people who hunger to have art in their life.

I find such pleasure in the studio when watching my own body and dancers create a landscape of familiar, unknown, nostalgic, fearless, confusing, solitude, comedic, spiritual and abundance of breath to know that I am still alive!

April 28, 2009 (While here, disappearance of gestures)

22 young dancers = 22 gestures. Add exchanging and learning from one another and the sum is a fabric of a 10-minute work entitled While here, disappearance of gestures.

My whole 1st week in Salerno, Italy concentrated on a choreographic workshop held at Scuola di danza for 22 dance students from different towns of the Campania region. Through exploration of rhythm, space, energy and texture, each dancer provided a singular motion that led them to choreographic works fragmented into solos, duet, trio, quartet, quintet and the whole ensemble.

What a treat to work with 22 dancers and move them in space!

Disappearance of gestures stemmed from my observation of communal gathering. As Italians flock, their bodies in motion hover every corner of the historic centre and fill the streets each night. Witness a buzzing, curious, observing, celebratory and intimate but often leisurely living for that moment: "La dolce vita."

I ponder the difference that we North Americans lack such tradition. For the Italians, being out and about and manouvering oneself and another's business are but rituals that enrich and fill the void of isolation.

My 2nd week was spent teaching master classes for advanced and intermediates for 44 dance students in the town of Batipaglia.

Italy, as always, represents an age of ultimate beauty, intoxicating and admirable! (Beginning with oranges and lemon trees in the month of April if it's in the southern region.)

And damn, my palate is refreshed with that special brew tea of licorice, mint and rosemary from the Garden of Minerva. How to handle the right amount of gelati, al dente pasta and good pizza! Or a sweet savouring of rum pictache baba napoli.

Back in Vancouver, I write in the sunny, pinkish height of SAKURA, cherry blossoms. Ah, finally! Close to a week since my return, I barely recover from the 9-hour time difference- jet lag.

Ready to fly away again to Ottawa for BC Scene.

March 24, 2009 ( So much dance! Where's the cherry B?)

It's late March and spring should really be here in Vancouver, but the air has been crisp and cold! At times, even snowy! I missed the early cherry blossoms that appear in our west coast rainforest of BC. I stayed in Vancouver for most of February and March and postponed my project/trip to Asia. My longing connectivity for the EAST will wait until late December 09 when I can re-kindle with everyone. My time with Co.ERASGA moves forward with administration, planning, meetings and rehearsals of new and old works, Super busy!

Deprived of time for myself, I tried best to catch up with old friends on some fine nights (even some classes with Jane Ellison's Boing: so good to be back there again!).

March was a burst of dance scene in Vancouver! Dances from around the globe grace Vancouver finally.

I budgeted strategically: what I can afford and whom I should see as a priority and fairness to my sanity. From one spectrum to the other, there were dances to see and admire. I ponder: what makes a dance show real, unique and tasteful. As an observer, viewer and listener, here are few of my thoughts

From the Dance Centre's Global Dance Series was Montreal's Lynda Gaudreau. Her latest dance offered brave minimalism of space and movement. Voila! Less is more!

Accumulated Layout by Japan's Hiroaki Umeda was about his super solo performance, and showed all he can do: lights, choreography, video, music and dance it, too. Holy! Talk about a smart economical production.

At Vancouver International Dance Festival 09 (VIDF) Celebrating 50 years of Butoh!

Jerome Bel and Pitchet Klunchun in their poignant, East meets West, simple, silly, serious, effective and very smart dance and discourse. Hey, I would never ask for my money back, that's for sure!

A class workshop of the Butoh master Yoshito Ohno provided us the glimpse and meaning of Butoh and a few revealing stories that makes this unique dance form 50 years in celebration. From the workshop, I took home, a bundle of silk, a yellow plastic rose, a Japanese washing cloth and tissue paper , the rest to be remembered, practised and re-created.

The dance landscape of Montreal's Louise Bedart in Enfin Vous Zestes is a never ending re-appearance of life in fragments and tales told in a movement language that is truly Bedartism.

I also attended works of Vancouverites Wen Wei Wang, Day Helisic, Jai Govinda and Jennifer Mascall.

Seeing Vancouver dancer Chengxin Wei dance in two works of Day and Jai, his dancing lingered long in my mind with images as beautiful as ever. He does not really move in space; the space moves him. That makes his dancing on the verge of awe!

In The Museum of Anthropology (MOA), In the great hall was the venue for 2nd edition of The We Yah Hani Nah Coastal First Nations Dance Festival. The opening gala included performances and celebrations of indigenous dancers of the northwest coast of BC. Dances included storytelling of the people and land, a culture of immense mystery and art, where dance is truly not spectacle, but a practice where daily life becomes ritual.

In March we lost one of our great dance artists, Lola MacLaughlin. Members of the Vancouver dance community attended her traditional Russian orthodox service. We said farewell to her for the last time. We will miss her. I danced my first dance gig in Vancouver in LoLa's Eternal Return. I remember cubism, being an old man and improvising in a studio filled with feathers.

As days of rainy March depart, April is soon to come , more light, a wish for warmer temperature and more sun. I look forward to my time teaching and being with Italian dancers in Salerno, Italy. I am haunted by Tinikling (bamboo dance), which I began to research with the Kababayang Pilipino dance troupe. I long for the offering of spring, cherry blossoms, the scent of fresh greens and times of renewal.

February 5, 2009 (Mask_Whales_Asia)

I have just returned from Calgary after performing with Big Sky Collective Multi-Media in the International Animated Objects Festival. Since the late fall of 2008, I have been busy remounting Spirit Whales and Matriarch of the Earth for them, dancing, choreographing and directing. Our last show is February 11 scheduled for the Talking Stick Festival 2009 in Vancouver at the Roundhouse. In this process and performance, I was again reminded of the beauty and work of storytelling and Northwest Coast masks by Big Sky directors Sharon Jinkerson Brass and Victor Reece, two outstanding BC aboriginal artists with their visions to re-connect and share the light, message of the First Nations people. Returning to this work, I reflected on the truth of the arts, my relation to it, the circle of people I work with and my responsibility to the audience. Grounding, staying in the present and finding transformation in performance. I shared the working process and dancing for the first time with Donald Taruc, Alisoun Payne and Starr Muranko.

On the horizon: Partnering with CADA BC classes Feb. 9, 11, 16 and 18. This represents a long overdue teaching initiative that I have been hoping to return to due to my hectic schedule. This partnership is part of Co.ERASGA's outreach for the cost of $5 to provide dancers professional classes. Not a bad deal!

Special master class with Kababayang Filipino dance troupe members (focusing on youth) is held February 15.

A mini research solo for Adam (Billy Marchenski) in my ongoing investigation of ADAM-EVE/Man-Woman full-length creation for 2009.

Then to Tokyo, Japan at Tokyo Performing Arts Market (TPAM) March 4-7 And finally to my homeland, the Philippines, where I give workshops, outreach and lecture as part of the University of the Philippines in Los Banos.

January 24, 2009, (It's coming!)

This is a test, My web designer and I are working to enhance this page for you. I will be posting more shortly. I have just finished performing Dancers for a small stage 20 last night in Vancouver.

Alvin Erasga Tolentino