sunod at Inter-Grant Festival

‘sunod’ — Tagalog for “next” — is a series of durational vocal-dance choreographies by Marie Lloyd Paspe and various artist collaborators, observing and practicing deep listening to the invisible, the un-seen, and the Sacred quiet places. Unique to each venue, ‘sunod’ is a practice of being present with change, transforming one’s self and found objects into cacophonies and murals of expression and metamorphosis. Found objects are from home, the venue, the land, and environments affected by climate change, honouring the resistant ecologies that persist throughout the world, especially islands and lands of the Global South most vulnerable to climate change, and the peoples who steward the lands.

The work is inspired by the Tagalog phrase “tabi tabi po” which translates to “excuse me” or “may I pass.” It’s typically said out of respect by a person who is seeking permission from the engkantos (“spirits”) to enter a natural environment such as the woods, or to touch nature like grass, leaves, or tree bark.

sunod is a malleable solo of layered and intersecting disciplines that make the un-seen and silenced visible and heard. The performer imagines them self as the engkanto who one must seek permission to touch, gaze at, and experience. Through incorporating gestures associated with care labour, home tending, and the eroticism that exists in the mundane — the piece unfurls a rabbit hole playing on the gaze of being seen/heard, invisible/silenced, allowed/limited. The performance captures interactions with the found objects through a single loop pedal, creating an accumulating sound-score which makes audible the differing visibilities of the objects in association with the performer’s body. This takes time, and as the layering sounds loop, the performer dances an accumulative gesture score, inspired by film negatives or stop-go motion, embodying the movement of stones or relics over timelapse of eons. The piling of sonic layers creates an audio feedback by the end, urging the body into a state of wild madness.

sunod at Inter-Grant Festival was performed on August 30, 2024. Marie Lloyd Paspe with found objects from Wappinger (Brewster, NY), Munsee Lenape (NYC), Western Apache (Sedona, AZ), Beloveds, Community. Humming “Sa Ugoy Ng Duyan” Filipinx lullaby from childhood, by Lucio San Pedro and Levi Celerio. Performed with Kyoko Takenaka, singing “Lullaby of Birdland” by Sarah Vaughn.