The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Choreographers Series continues to be the prime mover of contemporary dance in the Philippines with the return of Koryolab on August 19 and 20 at the Tanghalang Ignacio B. Gimenez (CCP Blackbox Theater).
Koryolab 2023: In the Round will feature three original contemporary dance works by Filipino choreographers Aaron Kaiser Garcia from Tacloban, Raflesia Bravo from Manila, and Tin Gamboa from Vancouver, Canada.
Under the mentorship of Filipino choreographers Denisa Reyes and Paul Ocampo, the three choreographer-performers seek to find new ways of choreographing and conceptualizing dance. Their works highlight Koryolab’s spirit of experimentation by eschewing the proscenium setting and opting instead for a circular sharing of energies and space between audience and performers “in the round”.
Gamboa’s dama aims to evoke the audience’s senses through real-time sounding and movement-making, and invites the audience to share the performance through deep listening, communal rhythm, and embodiment. Bravo’s Baba-I-lan is an ethno-tale in physical theater, with a narrative that fleshes out the interconnectedness of Baba (source), I (the self), and Lan (the land). Garcia’s E X P O [ S E] explores the manifestations of culture-making on the body as it examines how the Filipino body is exploited in reimagining/recreating “Filipino” culture through embodiment and performance.
Koryolab 2023: In the Round is directed by dancer and choreographer Christine Crame, with set design by Tuxqs Rutaquio. Institutional partners are Guang Ming College, Asian Institute of Maritime Studies, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, and Far Eastern University.
Koryolab 2023: In the Round will run on August 19, 2pm and 7pm, and August 20, 2pm at the Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez, CCP Complex. Tickets (Php 500) are available at Ticketworld https://premier.ticketworld.com.ph/shows/show.aspx?sh=KORYOLAB23.
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For more information, go to https://culturalcenter.gov.ph/event/koryolab-2023-in-the-round/
About Koryolab:
Koryolab is the second tier of the CCP Choreographers’ Series, and is a platform for mid-career artists to experiment on new ways of creating and experiencing dance. It was conceptualized by founders Denisa Reyes and Myra Beltran as an avenue for artists to grow in their choreographic practice guided by the mentorship of established choreographers.
About Koryolab 2023: In the Round:
An exchange of energies and space between audience and performer. A look into lived experiences, movement practices and how these all ripple into the post-pandemic world.
Welcome to In the Round. This 2023, Koryolab is highlighting the manifestations of movement unique to the Filipino experience. Greet this fresh start with us and join us as we mobilize collaborations between the artist and institution and facilitate cultural exchange through contemporary dance and performance.
Artists’ Bios:
Aaron Kaiser Garcia (he/him) is a performance-maker and an alumnus of the Intercultural Theatre Institute (Singapore) and the Dance Program (Folk Dance) at the Philippine High School for the Arts, with a background in folk, contemporary dance, and theater. He is trained in Philippine Folk Dance, Odissi, Chhau, and has immersed in different traditional forms like Kuttiyatam, Beijing Opera, Wayang Wong, and Noh Theatre.
Aaron’s work currently explores the potentiality of the body to process and reveal the layered landscapes of the Filipino socio-political psyche, or even actively counter political revisionism via choreography. Trained in the folk dance tradition, he now seeks to interrogate the term’s implication in state mechanisms of violence and erasure by invoking the true spirit of folk as a mutable and mutualistic practice.
Aaron participated at the Tokyo Festival Farm 2022: Asian Performing Arts Camp, Dance Nucleus [CP]3 Certificate Programme for Critical Practice in Contemporary Performance (Singapore), and one of the artist-in-residence of Art Philippines 2022 at Emerging Islands in San Juan, La Union. His works has been featured in CNN Philippines & Spot.Ph.
Raflesia Bravo has been a Theater Artist since 2012. A BA Performing Arts graduate in Centro Escolar University with 18 units in teaching. She has performed in various Philippine theater productions such as Rak of Aegis (PETA), Himala: Isang Musikal (Sandbox collective and 9 works Theatrical), Annie The Musical (Resorts World Manila), Hair: A Love Rock Musical (Repertory Philippines), Tanghalang Pilipino’s Lam-Ang: An Ethno-Epic Musical in CCP where she got the sub-lead role “Saridandan” and also part of the Australian Produced show All Out Of Love in Resorts World Manila, and the last World expo “”””Dubai Expo 2020″””” that moved to 2022 because of the pandemic are just a few. She has also been seen in TV, Films and Commercials.
Aside from being active in the theater scene and on screen, she is also a passionate Dance Artist. She is a former and pioneering member of Daloy Dance Company under Ea Torrado. Also performed the dance piece entitled “Coke” that was performed 2 years around Europe under Arco Renz of Kobalt Works (Goethe Institut). Scholar of Julie Borromeo’s Performing Arts Foundation and became its faculty. A Dance Theatre Teacher in her Alma Mater and in Homeschool Global Philippines. She has been Directing and Choreographing major productions in universities and events. In 2019, she debuted her first dance major production under the Fringe Manila Festival K-raze. A 1 hour, one-woman-show that discovers K[orean]-Pop phenomenon within Filipinos.
Tin Gamboa (MFA) is a Filipina dance artist who was born and raised in Manila, Philippines and is now based in the traditional homelands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations, in a place now commonly known as Vancouver, Canada. She works to facilitate with care and find a balance between “mundane” and “rigor” in order to elicit affective and thoughtful pieces.
Tin is cultivating a cross-cultural arts practice— In recent years, she received funding from the British Columbia Arts Council, Canada Council, and Vancouver Foundation to create works that involved collaborators in both Canada and the Philippines. In 2018, BC Arts Council funded her dance film, “Kariskis,” which Gamboa choreographed and edited with a team of 13 Manila artists. “Kariskis” was screened internationally and won “fan favorite” at the Festival of Recorded Movement (Vancouver) in 2019. In 2019-2020, the Canada Council supported Gamboa’s experiential research in daily interactions and gestures of both urban and indigenous communities in the North and South of the Philippines.
In addition, she has had the privilege of dancing for established Vancouver choreographers such as Antonio Somera, Jennifer Mascall (Mascall Dance), Ralph Escamillan (FakeKnot), Michelle Olson (Raven Spirit Dance), and Justine A. Chambers. Within this 4-month return to Manila, Tin will have taught her first term at De La Salle Benilde’s Dance Program.
About CCP Choreographer’s Series
Daring. Different. Defining. Deconstruct. Dance. The CCP Choreographers Series aims to become the prime mover of contemporary dance expressions in Philippine society.
CCP Choreographers Series starts with (1) WifiBody.ph, a competition for emerging choreographers; (2) Koryolab, a laboratory and showcase of experimental dance pieces by mid-career choreographers; and (3) NeoFilipino, a venue for established choreographers to create and stage major works in collaboration with artists of other art forms.
WifiBody.ph is a competition for the solo-duet form, believing that the intimacy and conciseness of these forms pushes choreographers to bare their choreographic vision. The second tier, Koryolab, is a laboratory and research platform for development and presentation of experimental dance pieces by mid-career choreographers in a black box space mentored intensively by the pioneers in contemporary dance. NeoFIlipino serves as a culminating third tier of the series and showcases the finest progressive and innovative works in contemporary dance choreography. It is a platform for Filipino choreographers to make dance the central force, the impetus, and the muscle in collaborating with the other art forms: music, visual arts, literature, theatre and film.
The series was launched by the CCP in 2015 in consultation with Nestor Jardin. It continues the efforts of NeoFilipino in breaking boundaries through contemporary dance since 1987, and the initiatives for independent dance by the Wifi Body Festival since 2006.