'In Honor of the Ancestors: Indigenous Living Traditions from the Philippines in Diaspora' Exhibition to Open at La MaMa Galleria

La MaMa Experimental Theater Club and Kinding Sindaw will present a new exhibition, In Honor of the Ancestors: Indigenous Living Traditions from the Philippines in Diaspora, running Thursday, January 11 - Sunday, January 26, 2024 from 1pm - 7pm, at La MaMa Galleria, 47 Great Jones Street, NYC, 10012. Attendance is available with a suggested donation of $5-$20, with tickets available here. For more information, please visit https://www.lamama.org/shows/kinding-sindaw-in-honor-of-the-ancestors-2024.

Through multiple constellations of photography and video, scenography and sacred heirlooms, the exhibition tells the story of Kinding Sindaw by celebrating the lives of its hereditary and creative forebears from both Mindanao and downtown New York. Artists whose work appears in the exhibition: the late Bai Labi Hadji Amina, Sultan Mamintal Dirampaten, Corky Lee, June Maeda, Sultan Mohammad Giwan Mastura, and Ellen Stewart.

Drawing on techniques from Theater of the Oppressed, visitors will be invited to take off their shoes and participate as 'spect-actors' within an immersive installation conceived as a community space for live performance and ceremony, lectures, discussions, and workshops: including beginners' classes led by master kulintang gong musicians, introductory exercises to pangalay movement healing, and betel-nut rituals, offering immersive transformational wellness and healing experiences.

Back home, oral traditions passed down from the ancestors weave inseparably through everyday life as kinding (dance), sindaw ( to spark a light), silat (martial arts), bayok (chanting) and panaroon (extemporaneous poetry). To preserve this aliveness, Kinding Sindaw will unleash its archives through the lens of salsilah, which to the Muslims of Mindanao can refer both to a clan's 'genealogy' as well as the recited litany of its names. From the Arabic for 'chain' or 'connection', salsilah expands understandings of archival practice by encompassing the oral, performative, and ritual dimensions of provenance and collective memory.

About Kinding Sindaw

A non-profit dance theater and resident of La MaMa Experimental Theater Club, Kinding Sindaw reclaims and revitalizes the living traditions and oral histories native to the island of Mindanao in the Southern Philippines, and advocates for the self-determination of 63 Indigenous nations, including the Bukidnon, Maguindanao, Maranao, Tausug, and T'boli. Kinding Sindaw exists to assert, preserve, reclaim, and re-create the traditions of dance, music, martial arts, storytelling, and orature of the indigenous peoples of Mindanao, Southern Philippines.

Founded by a Meranao Bai Labi, Tradition and Culture Bearer, Potri Ranka Manis, Kinding Sindaw recreates the oral traditions of ancestral art forms from Mindanao and is a resident company of La MaMa Experimental Theater Company. Our mission is to educate and enlighten communities about the history and cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines. Through the use of indigenous music, dance and cultural art forms, we serve as an important educational and cultural resource in New York City. We aim to promote the advocacy for indigenous peoples, as well as increase awareness of universal themes that are part of the human experience. The range of our programs also integrates the health benefits of the ancestral movements that we show and teach to our audiences. Through these cultural art forms, we advocate for the preservation of natural resources that are the livelihood of the indigenous peoples. Wellness and healing rituals are also embodied in the repertoire of Kinding Sindaw to increase health and healing awareness of participants and audiences.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KindingSindaw/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kindingsindaw

Website: https://www.kindingsindaw.org

About La Mama Experimental Theatre Club

Founded in 1961 by Ellen Stewart, La MaMa is a home for artists of all identities, races, ages, and cultures. At La MaMa, artists are provided the space, support, and creative freedom to explore new forms of expression and to make new work.

La MaMa builds audiences that are integral to the creative process. Our local and global community members who gather in our physical, digital, and hybrid spaces to see new work, are often the first audience for that work. The audience response helps to shape the evolution of the piece for the artist, and is an essential part of the creative ecosystem that La MaMa nurtures.

La MaMa believes art is a force for change. Violence, discrimination, and systemic racism will not stop without a unified resistance. La MaMa is committed to battling bigotry and intolerance in all its forms, and to providing inclusive spaces for our local, national, and global community.

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