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@maitaponce
It’s officially VLF season!
VLF XXI: Hubo’t Hubad
A celebration of adulthood, raw energy, and fearless storytelling. This is where the Filipino voice and spirit are laid bare to tell stories without restraint.
June 3 to 28, 2026
Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez
CCP Black Box Theater
**Photography & Poster Design by Jyllan Bitalac and Sherie Bolo
**Art Direction by Marco Viaña
#VLF21HubotHubad
#VLF2026
#culturalcenterph
#tanghalangpilipino
#writersbloc
A thousand thank yous, Manila Society of Theater Reviewers, for this honor.
I'm a non-binary, Soviet descent, Tilda-Tar, former secret service, ex-jinn, weird Barbie, Daphne Guiness, haute couture vulture scavenger, Dennis the Menace, nothing and everything kind of thing. My pronoun is id. I may seem angry but really deep inside, I'm lonely and full of shame.
Two rehearsals in and I'm in deep. I'm terrified.
Not because of doubt but more because of fear. Not because I don't know if I could but because I could and I know it's not pleasant and I don't know if I like that. Because it's always been there and I have always been controlling it. And because I have always been controlling it, I don't know how I would feel about putting it out there and letting people see id.
It's the fact that I am working hard and doing my best and that's what's embarrassing about it.
A good friend told me that anxiety have very similar physiological aspects as excitement and it's just a matter of perspective how we see things.
My favourite score in "Almost Famous" is this, the part when Penny Lane mouths the plane's safety reminders and then suddenly realising that she could have died and William saved her life. She looks back out the window and places her hand on the glass for William.
Folking hell... whatever.
I am the ghost of your tomorrow
All the life you had in you, your hopes and goals,
your planner, spreadsheets, your photos, connections, contact
numbers, the deals you make and the contracts you sign,
the muscles you take photos of after each workout routine--
All pulverised into heaps of dirt
You would never use 'dirt' to describe them.
The love that sustains you day by day,
The art, truth, the glory and name do not even reside in the same room as 'dirt'.
You know this.
You know what I am about to say.
There is nothing I know that you do not know.
In fact, you know it so well,
You treat it like fiction--
As if death is fiction
As if aging is fiction
We are all dying day by day.
We are all headed back to earth.
To live is to die.
And while some people dedicate their lives to art,
I cling on to art like a lifeboat.
I cling on to it with the hope that it will take me to heaven --
to follow you to heaven.
Now, it is used and worn.
It stays behind.
Possibly pulverised
into the same heap of dirt
blown by the wind
A follow-up on the China project.. here's a Chinese version of "My Baby Shot Me Down" Shoegaze/metal version. Thank you to William and Hazel for being awesome collaborators.
梦中人 (Mandarin version of “Dreams” originally by The Cranberries” Pardon my Chinese. I worked on this when I just started learning Chinese back in 2020. This was a personal project— I guess I was also preparing for my departure so early. It’s a shoegaze rearrangement I did with the help of my forever collaborator and idea sparring buddy @william.elvin.music. Thank you for providing the guitars and for capturing the mood that I wanted. Much credit also to the best mixer, drummer I have ever met Hazel Pascua. Cover art by @melaniealpach I love your art and I love how you executed my vision. ❤️ To my colleagues, friends, teachers here in China, this is for you.
(CDS's X Land of Fantasy 2019: Lael as Aria Counselor, me as Empress, Lin Jie as Hou)
Well, folks, I just finished my last Tapis Rouge this year and ever. Hopefully just for this show. It was quite emotional to prepare something to say to my colleagues. I spoke in English and Chinese. I also made sure to have copies in Russian and Spanish for my other expat colleagues.
On January 7, it will officially be six years since I arrived here in China. Back in 2019, the theatre was not yet finished. Even this whole area of Xintiandi was still under construction— muddy, dirty and noisy 24/7.
6 years...and all I could ask myself was, how was I able to survive that?
I don't know. All I know is that I love what I do. I love singing and acting. Singing for me can feel so exposing and vulnerable, but at the same time it is when I feel the strongest.
During shows when I am exhausted.. two shows everyday, 11 days straight... I get my strength from you. By watching you. I have been watching every act that I sing/sang for-- duo straps, tissue, cerceau, corde lisse, ballet on shoulders, figure skaters, icarians, hand balancers, water meteor, bungee, diavolo, hair hang, cyr wheel... I knew nothing about acrobatics, I never saw a Cirque du Soleil show before until I was in one.
When I sing and support your acts, I see you. I see your progress, your struggles, your new tricks and I am with you when you successfully do something. I am also with you when something does not go well. I feel the fear, the nerves, the excitement, the glory (sometimes I cannot help but scream and cheer for you ) and sometimes, shame..
All I can say is THANK YOU. For letting me be part of it. For letting me witness what you do best.
It is so inspiring to be around people who do different things and skills so well. And sometimes I forget that I am also doing what I do best, especially in times when I doubt my own worth.
While most of the people I came here with are not here anymore, I learned that survival isn't just for myself. I need others to survive. I need you to survive.
I needed to learn how to work with whatever and whoever, or else, I will also fail because I cannot separate myself from the show.
I learned that safety starts with myself-- by being responsible for my own health, fitness and well-being. If I could be responsible for myself, I know that I am doing a big help to my colleagues.
I learned that if I could be strong enough to stand up for myself and make my values clear, I am also helping others make their own values clear for themselves.
I learned that we don't have to like one another.. but it is essential to respect one another. We don’t have to like everything that we have to do onstage. But it is our responsibility to deliver.
Most of all, I learned the importance of kindness. Be kind, especially when we don’t understand what is going on. Be kind. It is the same in every culture.
While many of you know me as empress and singer onstage, I am also a mother. I joined the show when my baby girl was still 3. She is 8 years old now.
While I have been a mother to 8 Awis and a partner to 8 Kings, I have an 8 year old daughter waiting for me to return to be her mama.
To more shows ahead, more new people joining the team, I wish everyone good shows and may you make each moment striking.
Good show! 加油! Удачи! ¡Vamos! At maraming salamat po.
——————————————————————————————————
1月7日，我来到中国已经满六年了。 回到2019年，剧院还没有完工。 即使是整个新天地地区也还在建设中——泥泞、肮脏、24小时吵闹不休。 六年……我唯一能问自己的就是，我是怎么活下来的？
我不知道。 我只知道我热爱我的工作。 我喜欢唱歌和表演。 对我来说，唱歌有时会让我感到非常暴露和脆弱，但同时也是我感到最强大的时刻。
在演出期间，当我精疲力竭时……每天两场，连续11天…… 我从你身上获得力量。 通过观看你。 我一直在观看我为之演唱的每一个节目—— duo straps, tissue, cerceau, corde lisse, ballet on shoulders, figure skaters, icarians, hand balancers, water meteor, bungee, diavolo, hair hang, cyr wheel...
我对杂技一无所知，直到我参与其中之前，我从未看过一场太阳马戏团的表演。
当我唱歌并支持你的表演时，我看到了你。 我看到你的进步、你的挣扎、你的新把戏，当你成功时我与你同在，当事情不顺利时我也与你同在。 我感受到恐惧、紧张、兴奋、荣耀（有时我忍不住为你欢呼尖叫），有时还有羞愧...尴尬…… 我能说的只有谢谢。 让我成为其中一部分。 让我见证你最擅长的事情。
和那些在不同领域和技能上都做得如此出色的人在一起，真是太鼓舞人心了。 有时候我会忘记我也在做我最擅长的事情，尤其是在我怀疑自己价值的时候
虽然我和一起来的人大多数都不在这里了，但我明白了生存不仅仅是为了自己。 我需要别人来生存。 我需要你活下去。
我需要学会如何与任何人和任何事物合作，否则我也会失败，因为我无法将自己与这个节目分开
我明白了安全从我自己开始，通过对自己的健康和福祉负责。 如果我能对自己负责，我知道这对我的同事们是一个很大的帮助。
我明白了，如果我能有足够的勇气为自己站出来并明确自己的价值观，我也在帮助他人明确他们自己的价值观。
我明白了，我们不需要互相喜欢……但互相尊重至关重要。我们不必喜欢舞台上所做的一切。但这是我们的责任。
最重要的是，我学会了善良的重要性。 要善良，尤其是在我们不明白发生了什么的时候。 要善良。 在每种文化中都是一样的。
虽然你们很多人都知道我是舞台上的女皇和歌手，但我也是一位母亲。 我加入这个节目时，我的女儿还只有三岁。 她现在已经8岁了。 虽然我已经是8个阿维的母亲和8个国王的伴侣，但我还有一个8岁的女儿在等着我回去做她的妈妈。
祝愿未来有更多的演出，更多的新成员加入团队，祝大家演出顺利，希望你们每一刻都能闪耀。加油！Удачи! ¡Vamos! At maraming salamat po.
I usually wake up around 3am for some reason. So to put me back to sleep.. I make whatever.
“To listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear.”
– Mark Nepo
For my daughter Sinta...
..because she was never ever the first one to put down the phone even when she was 2. I love you with all my heart and my soul. You are my everything -- my pain, my joy, my comfort and all my reasons.
"My mother-in-law works at a dementia unit at a rest home in Australia. Today, we visited her at work and met some of the residence each with a vary in degree of this difficult, at times tragic condition. The visit gave me much to reflect between the challenges of getting old, and the final phases of life and mortality itself. But one tiny thing in particular stuck with me. At the dining room, each member has a seat at a table. They use the same one everyday, a routine crucial to a suffering memory. Still, they often forget which seat is theirs. To help them remember, each person's place at the table has a laminated page stuck to it. The page has their name and a set of pictures and photos that are meaningful to them .
For example, I met Particia who told me guided by the pictures that she'd been traveling around Australia. I could also see from the pictures that she loved scones with jam and cream, and had some recent grand children. Each person's laminated placeholder was the same, 10 to 15 photos that reminded them of who they were. It was beautiful and somehow deeply sad. The thought that someday your life, however long and prosperous, might be distilled down to 10 photos that will define you.
I can't help but notice the kinds of things these pictures were, too. Patricia had 90 something years to her name. Ninety years of stuff that might have been on that page, all the accomplishments and the memories, the people and places, friends who came and went, highs and lows, joys and sorrows, love and hate, and boredom and anticipation, anxiety and calm, fear and peace. And at the end of it all, there were scones with jam and cream. Ten percent of her photos were dedicated to that. Ten percent of who she is. It struck me that with the brevity of life, the constant coming and going of things, what remained in the end for these men and women was what they had loved. Sitting their past 90 years of age, suffering from dementia, most of what you ever thought was important is gone. The arguments and the hurts and the conversations and the judgments and the regrets, they are all faded or forgotten. Your friends might be gone, your bank account balance definitely isn't going to be on that page and eben the business that you built doesn't photograph well, and it probably isn't that interesting anyway.
And there is a view of what you loved and you don't score more points if that thing is world peace when Patricia's thing is scones. If there are any points, you only score more by the intensity of your love, not by the object of it. What do you love? What pictures will tell your story in the end?"
-from Noah Rasheta's Secular Buddhism episode that I listened to while on personal restreat in Yunnan back in 2021
A few months back, I did something unusual for myself one morning. I made it as an exercise to write down my favourite words -- words that excite me, words that feel good to me at the moment.
FAVOURITE WORDS
favourite, abundance, lijie (Chinese: 理解), chosen, sleep, xiang (Chinese:想), best, enough, xihuan (Chinese: 喜欢), good, found, xiuxi (Chinese: 休息), constant, peace, belong, consistent, easy, create, held, comfortable, music, embrace, free, balance, care, think of/about, inspire, resonance, connect, glad, elegant, SAFE, RELIEF!, fine, return, refined, reconcile, excited, forward, progress, synchronicity, Sinta, laugh, funny, hot, kilig (Tagalog), graceful, classy, take charge, responsible, clean, fragrant, good, professional, even, still, no matter, commit, depen, faith, turn on, rooting for, support, protect, honest, me, you, we, us, mine, my, our, ours, right, align, listen, here, always, now, care, join, accepted, qualify, exceed, excellent, win, won, winning, company, family, home, space, house, garden, park, beach, vacation, massage, eyelashes, nails, pretty, hobbies, replied, response, letter, message, email
I reread it and found two words I wrote twice: good and care.
There are songs that I wish I wrote and this is one of them. It's so simple but it hits the right spot. Come Into My Arms was originally by November Ultra. I had my first session of shamanic healing with a shaman from Greece two weeks ago and right after our session, I was reminded of this song and I immediately played it on the piano and sang it.
Sometimes I wonder how it is possible to feel excitement, relief, longing and grief all at the same time. Sometimes it's almost unbearable to give in to feeling it fully so I dance around it without really avoiding it nor touching it. And yet I cannot help wondering how long I'll be dancing around it.
Cavalleria Rusticana's Intermezzo captures this feeling.
