My friends and I are no stranger to performance arts. As literature majors, we were asked now and then to see plays, visit museums, witness live art performances, and once in a while, involve ourselves directlly in these activities. Though I've always kept a fondess for theater and visual art, I've never actually witnessed a performance art show, which I've learned is a rarity here in the Philippines.
I have heard of Russ Ligtas as well. One of our teachers suggested we see his show "Buto" a couple of years back, but for some reason I missed it. Maybe I never really understood what performance art meant then. I've always thought of it as a subtle form of theater, akin to what I could only label as "interrpretative dancinng." But tonight, I was proved wrong.
I will not attempt to confine Russ Ligtas' performance by defining it because honestly, I can find no words to accomplish this. To say that it was haunting or beautiful or philosophically arousing is probably not enough---but isn't that the greatest attestation that his performance succeeded? In its rudimentary sense, isn't this what art is supposed to do anyway? To leave its audience speechless and awakened and more curious?
The performance was formatted as in an exercise, which was cleverly stylized in the information handout as "exor[o]cized," implying that there would be some sort of emotional purging during the show's progress. And in fact it's not in the progress at all. The whole show itself is the emotional purging. Russ Ligtas strips himself in front of us, magnified by the webcam connected to a projector, without the slightest hint of embarrassment and even actually showing hints of smugness. For me, that meant shedding off his worldliness, his agenda, his fears, the established perceptions society has clothed him with. He then produces this box where he takes out two skirts: one red and one white, a wig, a powder container, and a flower band. He proceeds put all these on him, morphing into his alter ego, B. Niyaan.
B. Niyaan sounds phonologically familiar because it is. It is a clever destylization of the Cebuano word biniyaan, which means abandoned. Taking two and two, Russ Ligtas puts Russ Ligtas aside to finally go back to the things and feelings he has abandoned. He becomes the personification of his secrets, his desires, his frustrations. He deconstructs gender by giving life to an entity that is either man or woman but at the same time is neither. We can literally see his pain, hear his anger, feel his catharsis. We remember his memories. We look at his soul and in the process of seeing it, see ours.
I felt like I held my breath during his entire show, and my skin crawled with his slightest movements. The venue, cozy and small as it was, felt like it was closing in on me even more until there was only me and him in the room. I could still hear the jeeps screeching outside, the utensils clanking downstairs, and the the air-conditioning harmlessly humming, but they were all rendered unfamiliar by the silence in the room---the silence I, and every else, unconsciously embraced. And it was that silence, only penetrated now and then by sharp notes of an unfamiliar opera, that allowed us to forget ourselves and identify with B. Niyaan who was in pain and bleeding.
For two hours, I had lost my soul. What was sitting there was the me that belonged to the world---physical and corporeal. When B.Niyaan personified pain, anger, and catharsis through physical movements, music, and lights, it wasn't just his. It was the same pain, same anger, same reconciliation of feeling that I keep to myself. After he made us affirm to his transformation by making us chant with him, he finally dressed back as Russ Ligtas and put B. Niyaan back inside the box. The final instruction of the exercise say, "repeat when necessary."
I know I'm not obliged to analyze his performance or any other form of art for that matter, but something about tonight tugged something hard inside me that I never even knew existed. As I walked home with the streets fresh from the rain, I found myself thinking of the things in my life that I have abandoned and when the right time is for me to face them again. And when that time comes, I can only hope to be as brave and as honest as Russ Ligtas.
