Artist Statement
“My voice is an expression of my duality as a Filipina immigrant and artist living in today's American society. As a child growing up in a remote seaside Philippine village, I have always been fascinated by colorful characters, faraway places and the adventure of a well-told story, myth or legend. Stirred about my make-believe world, what opens is the door to rich possibilities conjured by my fertile imagination. Today, I tell stories through dance. Some of my work is inspired by books. Some come from far way… like the oral tales of hermits living in remote mountaintop caves. Inspiration is drawn from my own personal reserves or memories of things, people and places dear to me. Using dance woven with multi-media images, film, photography, new music, documentary footage from research studies abroad and powerful storytelling, the rich, natural environment of my "soul home" is brought to life to an uninitiated American audience.
When I started training in American Modern Dance, I initially thought that folk dance traditions were to remain disparate from classical dance forms. As an impressionable dance student working on the completion of a Master of Fine Arts degree, I had the opportunity to visit the tribal villages of the Igorots responsible for the creation of the world famous rice terraces of the Cordillera Mountain Range, Northern Luzon. This tumultuous Philippine sojourn awakened a light in me; when I returned to my Los Angeles home, my aesthetic shifted. Connecting past with present, I began to create new contemporary dance dramas inspired by native folklore and weaving them with moving, personal stories. There was no longer a barrier but a connecting bridge bringing together the gap between my seemingly separate worlds. Today, I creatively thrive in both places.
Since this initial sojourn, I have returned home to the Motherland to immerse myself in my culture of origin, to experience the simple communal life of rural villagers, to investigate the meaning of my binary inheritance, and most importantly to fuel the fire that keeps my creative work ablaze. As I continue to explore my artistic and cultural identity, it is important for my work to become the channel of human truths unaffected by culture, gender, class, age and time. My work is for everyone and accessible to anyone. Striving for ethos and universality remain consistent in my artistry. Though subconsciously designed in a cultural frame, my original dance dramas consciously aim to connect to timeless, universal themes celebrating the condition of the human spirit: despair and displacement, struggle and hope, joy and sorrow, love and betrayal, isolation and identity, transformation and empowerment, as well as death and renewal. My work is shared through the power of story, the drama of theatre and the physical eloquence of dance. Today, I continue to develop choreography which strives to create important, meaningful dialogue with today's audiences."
Background Image Photographer: Roko Kawai.
Foreground Image (Singkil Stories with Tomas Tamayo) Photographer: Shatto Light
Copyright © 2008 Dulce Capadocia. All rights reserved.