Category: Performer

Anything about theatre and performance

3-in-1 Body Problem – PSi BRAZIL

I will be performing at the Performance Studies International PSi#30 XXX – CRUZO, CRUISING, CROSSROADS, Fortaleza, Brazil!

3-in-1 Body Problem: El Traje dela Cuerpo Conquistada (for synopses of the trilogy) a.k.a. Olive as the Embodied Junction of Belongingness and Shifting Practices is a performance-installation tracing a performer’s navigation of theatre’s rupture during the pandemic. Panchang appears first in a series of improvised tableaux—unfinished costumes, found objects, and an anywhere-stage revealing the scramble for new forms. Maria Clara follows, fragmented and reclaimed inside a digital frame that exposes the seams of her colonial construction. Finally, Olive becomes the MonoVlogger-Madam Tseter, confronting the ephemerality of digital performance as platforms erase their own archives. Across these shifting bodies and screens, the trilogy argues for theatrical transformation, creative labor, and embodied survival in crisis.

a.k.a.

Just a Homeless MonoVlogger performing “live” livestreaming in Instituto de Cultura e Arte. Muita merda (“lots of shit,” Portuguese break a leg hahaha)!

Performance flow (15 minutes running time):

My performer’s body’s journey since the 2020 pandemic: theatre is “dead” > MonoVlog via Facebook Live > MonoVlog via Zoom > MonoVlog via Kumu Livestreaming app > MonoVlog via podcast > MonoVlog in PSi Hunger 2022 online > Trilogy of digital performances and MonoVlog under the University of the Philippines ECWRG grant > theatre is “back” (to what) > MonoVlog in PSi#30 XXX – CRUZO, CRUISING, CROSSROADS, Fortaleza, Brazil.

  1. MonoVlog – Read the synopses of the trilogy of digital performances here.
  2. Video with in-person performance – Self-reflexive account of my creative process as performer-dramaturg-and-all-the-roles-in-theatre by focusing on the aesthetics of flaw in El Cuerpo, and the microscopic-fragmented bodies in Fantasma
  3. MonoVlog – now that theatre is “back” (to what?!), what happens to the performer’s body? Is in-person MonoVlogging the way to go?

3-in-1 Body Problem in Variations

The Magdalena Project Feature: The Performer’s Body Since the Pandemic

The International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) 2024 Manila performance-lecture:

Learn more about the MonoVlog

MonoVlog portfolio

Serquiña, Oscar T. 2023. “Emotional Weather Reports: Online Performance as Affective Practice in the MonoVlogs of Layeta Bucoy and Olivia Kristine Nieto.” Performance Research 28 (5): 14–22. doi:10.1080/13528165.2023.2321056.

Book Launch and Reading: Layeta P. Bucoy’s Science Drama

Performed excerpts from Dr. Layeta P. Bucoy’s Science plays “The Ultimate War on Mosquitoes” and “The Adopted Healthy Baby” for the launch of her book “SCIENCE DRAMA: Five Plays with Emphasis on Biotechnology and Nanotechnology.”

Big feelings performing a hybrid character–vertically half human and half mosquito in the presence of National Scientist Dolores Ramirez.

PS To order: email Rodolfo Vera at rodyvera@gmail.com, or Viber message 09175408441

Price: P550

*shipping and/or delivery fee not included

The Collaborative Actors Prepare

In this 2-part episode, Zheg Arban and Janna Cortes share their collaborative preparations as student actors for performances before and during the pandemic. We delve deeper into how collaboration in acting activates a safe space to make your co-actors and alternates an enabling presence to your growth on the stage and in life. They provide tips on how to make your acting journals your best friend.

“The Collaborative Actors Prepare Part 1: Collaborative Acting in UP Playwrights’ Theatre’s Nana Rosa” includes a glimpse of my training for student actors as “emotional athletes” through embodied dramaturgy.

In “The Collaborative Actors Prepare Part 2: Actors as Collaborators,” Zheg and Janna reveal how they bring the collaborative acting process into their respective Dulaang Laboratoryo thesis productions and creative works.

Part 1: https://spoti.fi/3MtSLz2

Part 2: https://spoti.fi/42YHXOL

Centering

TAWID SA HARBOUR IS BACK! Season 2 is here!

Season 2 is about CENTERING. I am collecting my scattered energies by rooting myself with the people who have been doing great work. I am highlighting my former thesis advisees’ and students’ theses and creative works. I have also invited my closest friends to talk about their recent creative works and research on healing, visual arts, pageants, spoken word, etc.

Part 1: Rain Matienzo

Gian Viatka

Pat Berin

Ela Figura

Janna Cortes

Zheg Arban

ABANGAN!

Patikim muna… Here’s the link to the intro of TAWID SA HARBOUR Season 2: https://spoti.fi/3zTVIBx

Moana ng Hinirang

Likha ni Mark Daniel Dalacat ang disenyo ng set pieces. So proud of you! Happy thesis!

Likha ng Diyos ang ganda ko (See gesture sa 2nd photo).

PS Dito ko na lang ipost kasi kaka-join ko lang sa artistic team at ginawa ko lang ito kagabi. Inggitera much.

PPS Sana sa 3rd installment ng ROSA TRILOGY ni Vera-Estrella ay makasamang muli para bingo na. Papi Rodolfo Vera, yung usapan nating pangalanan na OLIVE NIETO na ang name ng isang character diyan. 😂

📷Henriette

Dulaang UP’s TAGAPAGSANAY SA PAGGANAP or ACTING COACH

TAGAPAGSANAY SA PAGGANAP or ACTING COACH became my official title in Dulaang UP’s Rosang Taba a week before their opening performance. SURPRISE! 😂 I was supposed to assist my thesis advisee in the production but I talked to Issa, one of the directors, if I could assist my current students in my acting class too. When I arrived at the rehearsal venue, I realized that some student-actors took my acting class via Zoom 2 years ago and this was their first time to step on a physical stage. I included them in my training too to build the discipline, confidence and endurance to perform an in-person performance. I realized that it was imperative to bridge the learning gap caused by the pandemic. While troubleshooting and experimenting on acting choices, I was also relearning and unlearning habits, and was discovering new ways of training actors and new approaches to acting.

I joined the DUP artistic team with the expectation to teach one student-actor only. “Lumagkit na ang performance” was the only thing I uttered after a gruelling week of early morning and late night rehearsals squeezed in between shows. With everybody’s hard work and commitment, we finally created a student ensemble. *pwera usog*

A decade ago, I could have chosen a lucrative career as a tv actor or an HR practitioner but instead I chose to teach in a university. This semester reminded me of the joy of teaching and my mad love for acting.