Troubling the Training: A Reflexive Dialogue on Decolonizing Performance Pedagogies in the Philippines and Malaysia

Bryan Levina Viray; Shanny Rann

doi:10.33303/gpsv5n1-2a113

Authors

Bryan Levina Viray University of the Philippines Diliman
Shanny Rann Simon Fraser University

Abstract

Where should we begin a dialogue about decolonizing and reimagining performance pedagogies in the Southeast Asian context? We first met when we were completing the Choreomundus International MA in Dance Knowledge, Practice, and Heritage in Europe and we are now pursuing our PhD degrees in Australia and Canada. Our dialogue opens by offering a contextualization of land grabbing and the exploitation of resources in the Philippines before delving into the relationship between land and body through careful reflection on our own bodily training. We are convinced that violence against land and body can be undone only through Indigenous sovereignty, by mobilizing the intergenerational knowledge that resides in Indigenous bodies. Decolonizing pedagogies enable an unlearning of the ways in which colonialism has been written on bodies. Integration as a decolonial method is not only about integrating performance elements, but is also about shifting towards a pedagogy of performance that empowers the Indigenous, minorities, and the marginalized, and integrates their clamor for land, social justice, and equity in the process of recreating cultural performances. By situating our personal journeys within the social and political contexts of our home countries and of the countries in which we have been educated, we hope that this dialogue offers an intimate consideration of what non-Indigenous and postcolonial scholars can contribute to the conversation around decolonizing performance pedagogies.

Author Biographies

Bryan Levina Viray, University of the Philippines Diliman

Bryan Levina Viray is an Assistant Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of the Philippines Diliman's Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts. He is currently a PhD Candidate (Interdisciplinary and Cross-Cultural Research) at the Australian National University's Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies. Key to his PhD research question is the understanding of commemoration as a form of intangible heritage and the implications of this for collective memory.

Shanny Rann, Simon Fraser University

Shanny Rann is a PhD candidate in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University. Her research focuses on movement practices in diaspora from a gendered perspective. She has a Master of Arts in Dance Studies from York University and is an Erasmus Mundus scholar in Dance Knowledge, Practice, and Heritage (Choreomundus). Shanny is also the editor of Dance Central and a Taijiquan practitioner. She resides at the unceded territories of Coast Salish peoples in Vancouver, Canada.

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