Bindlestiff: Becoming an Ally in The Play Space
Dan Weil
Student: California Institute of Integral Studies
Abstract
When some people are privileged that means that others are oppressed. This imbalance takes a toll on everyone, but especially those of the oppressed groups. As a white male living in the Bay Area, my entire life has been saturated with the arts of people with different cultural backgrounds than my own. This paper will focus on my immersion into Bindlestiff Studio, a Filipino-American performing arts space. I will look at how the theatre relates to Nieto’s (2010) developmental stages in Agent(privileged) and Target(oppressed) groups. I will also investigate my reactions and growth as a white male. This paper will explore how Bindlestiff, as a Filipino-American theatre, created a safe play space1 which allowed the Filipino artists a deeper exploration of cultural issues than would be possible in a theatre run by whites
History of Bindlestiff, The Philippines, and Filipino Americans
Bindlestiff Studio opened in 1989 in San Francisco’s South of Market. I joined in 1995 at the age of 16. By 1997 the group running the theatre was burned-out and ready to move on. This was about time that a fellow actor put on a show about the history of the Filipino Woman. The play was called Babae:Woman(Babae is woman in Tagalog). In the audience were members of a new Filipino theatre company who were hungry to do more art. The group was comprised of 2nd and 3rd generation Filipino-Americans and Filipinos who had immigrated. They took over the space soon after, and the little black box theatre became the only Filipino-American performing arts space in the country. Over the years Bindlestiff produced dozens of shows including theatre, poetry, and music, all exploring the identity of being Filipino and Filipino-American.
The Philippines is an archipelago of over 3,000 islands. In the 16th century Spain colonized the islands, spread Catholicism, and established a Spanish ruling class. A variety of uprising by Filipinos over the next 400 years weren’t successful until the Spanish-American war. Promised freedom by the United States, the Filipinos fought and helped defeat Spain. When the war was over America took control of the country, leading to guerilla warfare. Unable to fight America’s modern weaponry, the Philippines became a colony of the United States. It wasn’t 1946 that the Philippines became an independent country. The government has been marred by corruption, especially the 1960’s through 1980’s, when President Marcos ruled with martial law. These are the conditions from which many Filipinos immigrated to the United States (Dela Cruz, et. al 2003).
Most Filipinos who immigrated to the United States came to the west coast or Hawaii. As with immigrants and non-whites, they were often feared, discriminated against, and blamed for society’s ills. During World War II Filipinos were recruited to be cooks and stewards in the army, and after the 1965 Immigration act they began to arrive in America in waves. (Philippine History 2011; Chico University 1998). Though they comprise the largest group of Pacific Islanders in America and the largest group of Asians in California, their customs are virtually unknown to mainstream America, and even many “Americanized” Filipinos. For this reason they have been referred to as the “invisible minority.”(Arain 2011)
Babae
In 1997 Lorna Aquino Chui performed a one-woman show called Babae: Woman, which encapsulated the history of the Philippines into a half dozen short scenes reflecting the major themes of the country and its’ emigrants. These themes were large and very common in the lives of Filipino-Americans. Even those who knew very little about the history of the Philippines could recognize certain words, references, or mannerisms from their family.
The play began with a Filipino creation myth. A bird breaks open a piece of bamboo, revealing man and woman. Throughout the play Lorna played this woman with a clown nose. This is not to mock the character, but to connect her to the sacred clown, the un-changeable core of us, what Landy(2009)would call the guide but Johnson(1996) more accurately calls the true self, stripped of the layers of our roles. In this way, Chui’s clown represented the core of the Filipino people. She then sent this clown through many of the formative struggles of her people.
One of the most memorable and masterfully simple scenes involved only Chui and a prerecorded voice of a Spanish sailor. Chui’s clown, playing a Filipino native, greeted the sailor by telling him the names of things around her. Tubig for water, Lupa for earth, Langit for Sky. He answered with Aqua, terra, cielo, respectively. They then went back and forth, one word at a time. “Tubig-Aqua, lupa-terra, langit-cielo.” The next go-round she only got one syllable out. “Tu-Aqua, lu-terra, lang-cielo.” Next she could only purse her lips to make the Tagalog words before the Spanish words interrupted and replaced them. This showed not just the loss of native language to the colonizer, but the loss of culture and tradition. Because Chui faced the audience in this scene, and there was no actual actor playing the Spaniard, it was easy for me to imagine that we, the audience, were the colonizers. Without even speaking I, as a man of European descent, was taking away the culture of a brown person. The aesthetics (Emunah 1994; Landy 1994) of this piece brought about something not specifically stated; that the privilege and oppression from this cultural theft, and thefts like it, are still continuing today(McIntosh 1990).
Time speeds forward and The Clown is now on an empty stage and a clothes rack walks in with three pieces of clothing; an American soldier's jacket, a long white dress, and a leopard print robe. These are three stereotypical roles often attributed to Filipinos. Chui said “this reflects the dichotomy between virgin and whore, Catholicism and capitalism, both combining in women having to sell their bodies in order to make a living.”
She chooses the dress and becomes a mail order bride. In the next scene she wears a mask on the top of her head and leans forward to play an old man. In this way she is able to go back and forth effortlessly between the Filipina immigrant and a lecherous old man simply by leaning forward and looking down, or standing up straight and facing forward. This technique proves terribly effective when the old man rapes her. She is on all fours, alternating between looking down so the mask is shown while she plunges downward, with looking out at the audience and crying out in agony. Both characters seem to be looking toward the audience as if making them complicit in this act. If the scene were played out with two actors, I may have been taken out of the power of it by thinking about how the actors felt touching each other in such a way. The scene would have to be played out somewhat symbolically. By Chui playing both parts, one at a time but always implying the other character, the audience’s attention is taken up by what they see and what they imagine. We become partners in the scene by imagining the other character violating and being violated. In this way we truly become complicit in the act, and once again must look at how this scene still plays out in our culture.
The play ends with The Clown rocking a bassinet, and passing down to the baby girl a Filipino amulet called an anting anting for protection. Inside of the bassinet is the bamboo woman, symbolizing the rebirth and continuation of the Filipina, and thus the Filipino people as a whole, even after all their struggles. The culture continues today, amazingly intact, with 175 native languages presently spoken there(Lewis 2009).
Though Babae:Woman was a play and not a workshop of people from different cultures, many of the themes made me think of Volkas’ (2009) drama therapy technique Healing the Wounds of History. The collective trauma of colonization was passed down through the generations. Because the play was produced in the United States, that made the audience Americans, mostly of European and Filipino descent. I found myself thinking about American’s complicity in the continued colonization of the Philippines, the exoticising of the Asian Woman, and my county’s treatment of non-white immigrants. Because this was a show and not a workshop, these feelings could have ended there. I could have had ideas stirred in my head, but forgotten them soon after, just as Boal noted when inspired to create Theatre For The Oppressed (Sajnani 2009). The audience members of Filipino descent had a different experience. While I focused on the aesthetics of the theatre and what I was learning, the Filipino audience was drawn into a story created by one of them, for them. McIntosh (1990) notes in her list of things a privileged group takes for granted, “I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.” Before Bindlestiff became a Filipino performing arts space, Babae acted as a beacon and an inspiration to other local Filipino and Filipino-American artists. If it wasn’t for this show, Bindlestiff may have never gone through the cultural metamorphosis that made it the unique space it is today.
Bomba
My first show after Bindlestiff became a Filipino theatre was called Bomba, which means naked in Tagalog. The play comically explored the effects of colonization by America. The first piece began in a nightclub during World War II. Filipinas in short skirts served drinks to American GI’s who made lewd comments. I played one of these soldiers. Because I was friends with the cast, I felt somewhat comfortable when told to bean exaggerated version of a racist white man. The cast seemed to enjoy the rehearsals when I was especially offensive. After a few minutes one of the wronged waitresses makes a wish and suddenly everything is switched. Now the Filipinas are dressed as soldiers and sitting at the tables, and the white GI’s are dressed in very short shorts, vests with no shirts, and sailor hats, all sewn from American flags. Though the scene was played for laughs there was something else in the way the women sneered at us, slapped our rears and joked about our appearance. They were able to symbolically make fools of us, emasculate us, strip away our power and force us into the role of sex object or clown, whichever they preferred. These women could enact the cause of some of their historical shame upon us, to be cruel and violent, without truly being cruel and violent. Just as Landers (2002) explored how dramatic violence in the play space can curb violent impulses in real life, ancestral catharsis can be had by acting out vengeance. Though the Filipinos and whites in the show were all friends and would never be so mean to each other in real life, this doesn’t mean that there weren’t unconscious resentments that could be triggered from any perceived slight or rude action. In this way personal effects of the history of oppression could be explored, along with feelings toward those of the privileged group. After rehearsals and performances there was a loose, light feeling among the cast, as if we had aired our dirty laundry.
The Power of the Space
As I was exploring my feelings about race as a white man, the Filipino-Americans at Bindlestiff were affected in a different way. While I can never presume to know how other people feel, I spent many years involved with Bindlestiff, and have talked extensively with the artists over the years. Many people told me that the theatre felt like home. When I asked them if they meant like the home where they grew up, they invariably answered with a yes and no. Being surrounded by other, Filipinos, hearing Tagalog, and sharing stories of common customs and rituals felt familiar. They said it was a place they could come and be themselves, which is only partially true of their own homes. Some felt a great divide between themselves and their Filipino-born parents. This could be simply because of the generation gap, or of differences in culture and beliefs toward the role of women or homosexuality. Bindlestiff may have reminded people of home, but home on a deeper level. Not only could they explore their feelings about racism and oppression within the context of being Filipino in America, but also their feelings about their own homes, their own shame and accomplishments.
According to Marcia’s identity statuses, exploring ones own identity is typical of Americans when they are in their teens or early twenties(Rathus 2006). His 4 stages include Identity Diffusion, when we don’t really realize our identity; Foreclosure, when we explore other ways of identifying without making any commitments; Moratorium, when we commit to something without questioning it; and Identity Achievement, when after some exploring and questioning, we considerably developing our identity(Rathus 2006). Theatre and the arts are a perfect place to explore oneself outside of the familial identity, because as art forms they are all about self-expression. Being different is applauded, rather than criticized. What differentiates oppressed groups is that they must find themselves not just in response to their family and cultural structure, but within a country that subtly gives them the message of disapproval (McIntosh 1990; Tatum 1997).
If we enfold Marcia’s view of identity with a Nieto’s (2010) Developmental Stages we begin to see the subtle effects of being in an oppressed group. The 5 stages for the Oppressed, or as Nieto calls them, the Target group, are Survival, Confusion, Empowerment, Strategizing, and Re-centering. The Survival stage is someone simply doing what needs to be done to survive. The next stage, Confusion, involves becoming more aware of injustices and differences between themselves and those of the privileged group, but not knowing how to reconcile or understand this. Empowerment sees the Target engaging in group-centric activities, and taking rigid views of their own culture and the privileged group. Neito’s fourth developmental stage, Strategizing, has an individual who chooses their battles and thinks more strategically about how to help their people as well as work with people in the Privileged, or as Nieto calls them, Agent group. The fifth and final stage is called Re-centering. The target group sees themselves as more than just a member of their target group, but as someone within the entire system, and has a more inclusive philosophy while pursuing social justice with other target members and Agent allies. One can easily see how someone in Nieto’s Survival stage could also be in Marcia’s Identity Diffusion stage, or the connection between Identity Achievement with Strategizing and Re-centering.
Because Bindlestiff fulfilled so many needs for Filipinos in various places on Nieto’s and Marcia’s spectrums, it was able to be a safe space to delve even deeper into issues of identity. Bindlestiff as a cultural center was many things, including but not limited to a place to see others that look like yourself, talk like yourself, have similar customs, rituals, problems with/connections to the parents and ancestors, and experiences of racism. It was also a place to meet other people who are exploring their identity in the same development stage as or in a more developed stage, a place to escape the difficulties of home or childhood, and to find acceptance. It was a place of family and community, a place to create art and be inspired by other artists, learn the technical skills of theatre and the business of running a theatre, and to improve the skill or working with others. Most importantly it was a place to invite those close to you so as to share what you have gained, a place to not only create art, but create art collaboratively with others, and a place to express to other members of your target group, as well as those of the agent group, who you are. Because Bindlestiff acted as a refuge from injustice and oppression, as well as family differences, it aided those in Marcia’s more white, western-centric stages, as well as those in Nieto’s multicultural stages. The artists were more able to feel safe and accepted, and thus open up and explore their issues, whatever the source. This may be why, 14 years after Bindlestiff became a Filipino American performing arts venue, I am still connected to and support the theatre. Many of the above mentioned benefits of the space helped teach me about race and my role in the privileged power structure. Many of the other benefits had nothing to do with race, but of being productive, expressive, and connected with others. Since a key component to effective drama therapy is creating a safe space (Emunah 1994) (Landy1994), the existence of Bindlestiff helped cultivate not just shows like Babae and Bomba, but every meeting, rehearsal, and performance that occurred within its black walls. The catharsis of Babae or Bomba could not have occurred in the same way if explored in a white production, in a white theatre for a white-only audience. Being in the space itself was empowering, as was the fact that each of the white actors were willing to be in a show that wasn’t on their usual, privileged terms.
My Feelings and Reactions as a White Man
Some of my deepest connections to others have been through theatre techniques. Though many of these explorations did not deal with cultural issues, I got to know other Filipino-American’s in ways I couldn’t have if it were not in the play space. If I had simply seen the plays, and explored my own feelings about them through art, or with other whites, I would have become more aware of my own feelings, but still seen them from my own point of view, much as Coseo (1997) does in her paper on working with black youth. I did my own writing and processing, but I did much more exploring with other artists in the play space.
My most memorable experiences in the play space occurred during the rehearsals and performance for the play Coconut Masquerade by Melinda Corazon Foley. Because Foley, of mixed Filipino and Irish descent, based the play on her own life, there was a charged atmosphere to the rehearsals. Besides the dichotomy of race, the show also explored the generation gap with her parents, the experience of Vietnam Veterans, and power of the past. Behind the scenes we had a combination of spoken word poets and actors, as well as changes in the management of the theatre. All of these aspects of the show made every rehearsal feel charged with an energy that could make or break us. When our director got chicken pox it seemed the show would implode. Our new director couldn’t begin for another week, so I filled the interim time with different theatre warm-ups I had learned as well as some I developed on the spot. The techniques usually involved the embodiment of our characters and playing out times that weren’t depicted in the play. I took Foley’s character back in time to when she was a child, and we had a family dinner, exploring the impetus of many of the family’s problems. Foley basically played herself in the show, but over the months of rehearsal we began to identify with our characters more and more. Since I played a veteran, sometimes I came to the theatre early to prepare. I put on some chaotic music, grabbed a prop rifle, and stalked around for hours in the dark. After a few minutes alone in the dark I entered an altered state of hyper-vigilance. In the play there is a particularly intense scene with my character and his wife, in which she pours her heart out and he, burned out from PTSD, simply watches television. On the closing night of our run, my wife became so frustrated that she grabbed the remote control and flung it against the wall. I remember my actions as if I weren’t myself. I began to laugh quietly, mirthlessly, then louder, at what we had become. It was the most non-myself I’ve ever felt. Ever since I have felt a particular affinity for the struggle of veterans returning to society. At the end of the run, Foley said I was like a shaman. Snow (2009) sheds some light on this as he points toward the connection between ritual, theatre and therapy. These types of exercises helped me bond with my fellow actors, many of whom were Filipino-Americans. Whether the scenes explored racism or not, they explored who we were on a deep level. Because of this I became a true ally, in the sense that their struggles for identity and social justice were as real, as valid, as tangible as my own. Thus, my subsequent work with the theatre was not because I had romanticized their culture, or wanted to live vicariously through them, but because they, as people, were real.
Conclusion
Bindlestiff’s metamorphosis into a Filipino-American performing arts space made it a safe play space and an ideal breeding ground for Filipino-Americans to cultivate risky, meaningful, cathartic art. The infectious excitement pulled me even deeper into the theatre, where I set aside my privileged status and created theatre with and for Filipinos. I became an ally (Nieto 2010), supporting the Filipino artists’ artistic and social goals for their own community. I was so immersed in another culture that I was forced to accept, deep down, not just their different views and feelings, but see the validity in them. Beyond the time spent together, I was able to explore issues of race, cultures, and relationships within the play space(Johnson 1996). This helped me feel connected to the other artists on a deep level. I always knew that I was supposed to feel this way, but my explorations in the play space helped me truly feel this. This is something that has stayed with me, something I try to remember whenever I come into contact with a culture I don’t understand.
1. It should be noted that while David Read Johnson(1996) uses the term playspace specifically to denote the “process of removal or transformation” happening between the therapist and the client based around the stripped down encounter between the two, I am using play space to mean a place of shared imagination between two or more people, more similar to Susana Pendzick’s(2006) dramatic realty, “a tangible entrance into an imaginary realm.”
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