to do as the tikling bird does
To do as the tikling bird does is a collaboration with personal narratives and oral histories, it stands in for the blurred line between history and the present moment, between myself and those that came before me, between trauma and reconciliation. Performers will activate space using bamboo sticks to perform the steps of the tikling bird that have been passed down through cultural tradition and oral history.
Performances: 7pm, 9pm and 11pm
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to do as the tikling bird does (Agir comme le fait l’oiseau) est un mélange de récits personnels
et d’histoires orales, il représente la frontière floue entre l’histoire et le moment
présent, entre le moi et ceux qui m’ont précédé, entre le traumatisme et la réconciliation.
Les interprètes marqueront l’espace à l’aide de bâtons de bambou pour effectuer
les pas de l’oiseau qui a traversé la tradition culturelle et l’histoire orale.
Tinikling is a dance rooted in oral histories, generational memories, cultural narratives and traumas. It was a dance born from colonization, suppression, and mistreatment. It has been passed down through the generations as an act of story telling, learning, and adapting.
Tinikling, meaning to do as the tikling bird does, is to dance between two clapping bamboo sticks, to skillfully move in a rhythmic pace between the hard and hollow poles, to avoid the pain one would endure if caught. The origin of the dance is folklore, passed down through oral histories. Born from the loss of a culture when the Philippines was colonized and lost control of their lands and forced to work on plantations. It is said that if they didn’t work hard enough or fast enough they were to stand between two poles cut from the grove and their ankles beaten as punishment. To do as the tikling bird does is to gracefully and intelligently maneuver through the rhythm of the beating sticks, learning as they imitate the movements of the tikling birds as they skillfully dodge bamboo traps set by rice farmers.
To do as the tikling bird does is a collaboration with personal narratives and oral histories. It is equally in the past as it is in the present. It engages the space it occupies and is evocative by nature. It illuminates stories left behind by others. It is a collaboration with site, with place, with the land I inhabit and the waters my ancestors travelled along. To do as the tikling bird does stands in for the blurred line between history and the present moment, between myself and those that came before me, between trauma and reconciliation.
The performance will be along the Halifax Seaport, with wood beneath our feet and a body of water behind us. Large bamboo poles laid to rest in grids will occupy the space, standing static, a representation of a suppressed history. Performers will activate the space, using the bamboo sticks to perform the steps of the tikling bird that have been passed down through cultural tradition and oral history.
To do as the tikling bird does activates the cultural tradition of story telling. The rhythmic sound of wood against wood becomes a call to action, a sound that demands one’s attention. Filipino history remains largely undocumented and unwritten, the stories of the filipino peoples and their land lives in the oral histories that link across generations and is largely embedded in food, dance, and cultural practice. Using the steps of the tinikling dance, we are carving out space in the conversation, a conversation that has been historically one-sided, to reflect on our own cultural histories, the personal narratives that brought us to the land we stand on and the lasting impacts of colonization. It is a performance meant to regain control of our own narratives and to leave a trace of our own stories on intergenerational and cultural memory.
