Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon

Jul 13 — Aug 10, 2024
Field:

Exhibition

Description:

Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon (2024) was a new moving image commission and the first solo exhibition in Canada by Filipina-Australian artist Bhenji Ra.

Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon (2024) documents a process of ancestral, intergenerational learning. Its starting point is a ritual journey taken by Ra with her teacher and collaborator Sitti Airia Sangkula Askalani-Obeso. A Tausug elder, Obeso is a cultural bearer of the pangalay, a pre-Islamic dance of the Tausug people of the Sulu Archipelago and the eastern coast Bajau of Saba in the Philippines.

Falling into a dreamlike ancestral plane, Obeso and Ra develop and trouble the roles of student and teacher, mother and daughter. Whilst relaying the history of the pangalay, Ra and Obeso explore the cultures and structures of movement practices in the Sulu Archipelago and their relationship to precolonial understandings of gender and identity, in particular the bantot or bayot relating to a trans feminine person. A fabulation unfolds in which a celestial being that resembles a woman with wings and supernatural beauty, known across the Sulu as the Biraddali, reveals itself through dialogue and dreaming. Translated from Tausug or other Samal languages as “angel” or “skymaiden,” the Biraddali are believed to live in the sky and possess the power to change their form. As the imaginal passage unfolds, the dance of pangalay and the figure of the Biraddali become symbolically interrelated, with Ra interpreting the Biraddali as a trans, non-human figure and the originator of the dance.

Initially appearing documentarian in style, Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon unravels into its own mythology as the bond of mentorship becomes an offering that weaves bantot and Tausug genealogies together. The film foregrounds a pedagogy of decolonial choreography. It develops languages of movement that connect vocabularies of gender with past and present colonial realities in the Asia-Pacific region. This continues Ra’s ongoing work exploring methods of performance that decentre hegemonic Western dance conventions, and which engage critically with expressions of gender and sexual difference. 

The thirty-minute film features a new musical score composed by Tati au Miel. Ra's installation in the Grand Luxe Hall was accompanied by three photographic textile works displayed on the first and second floors of Western Front.

Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon was co-commissioned by Auto Italia, London and presented with support from the Government of Canada.

Curated by Susan Gibb and Kiel Torres.

Documents:

A blue screen with superimposed text reading Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon. A vast empty room is lined with chairs and ovular flat cushions placed carefully on the floor.
A projected image of two angelic figures. One is blurry, the other in focus. The subjects arms reach for each other atop a staticy gray background. Yellow text reads quote Tell me what message you bring us!
In a projected image, two people with their arms in a dancing motion escapade a lush green forest. Both people are wearing traditional Filipino clothing.
An image projected on a screen shows an infant being baptized. A person is having their hair cut by a ritual leader wearing traditional Filipino garments. There are many plants and singular lit candles surrounding the subjects.
A projected image shows a person perched in a tree reaching with both hands for a green coconut wedged in the tree's limbs. They wear traditional Filipino garments.
Fifteen people wearing traditional Filipino garments stand in a line in a coconut grove. They engage in an upright rhythmic movement, arms outstretched, following the movements of a Filipina elder at the centre of the composition.
Ten people crowd the back of a pickup truck wearing traditional Filipino garments. Eight figures have their hands up in rejoice while Bhenji Ra rests her head on her grandmother's shoulder. This is the focal point of the image.
In a projected image we see a person waist deep in a body of water. Their silhouetted body forms an uppercase L with one arm reaching for the sky and the other one reaching along the horizon. Long, wet, hair lays stiff behind them. The sun is not present but is reflecting off of ripples on the water.
A sepia toned photograph printed on sheer fabric hangs from a dowel attached to the ceiling with fishing wire. The image shows a group of people following a path in a coconut grove, with a ghostly lens flare suggesting the presence of a spirit.
Two sepia photographs printed on sheer textiles are on display on the second floor of Western Front. One is attached to the wall at the top of the stairs, while the other is suspended from a dowel in the Grand Luxe Hall vestibule.
A sepia photograph printed on a sheer textile hangs at the top of the stairwell at Western Front. The image shows two boats distanced from one another on a body of water that is lined with trees. A vintage radiator and several potted plants are positioned on the floor below the print.
A sepia photograph printed on a textile hangs on a wall between two wooden doors. The image shows a Filipina elder dancing in a coconut grove between two ghostly, iridescent figures.

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Western Front is a non-profit
artist-run centre in Vancouver.

We acknowledge the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations as traditional owners of the land upon which Western Front stands.