“The Singer” sutures theatre, vocal music, craft and movement. The work ruminates on the trans body as sanctuary of feminine predicament and queer remembrance, which, through stitch and song, metamorphose into the performer’s radical transfeminine storytelling premise: the woman who sews her pain is the same woman who sings her freedom. As The Singer herself, Cadag intones the intergenerational trauma that weaves female truths together while also recounting genealogies of healing embodied in her repertoire of feminine art-making. Embracing two figures Cadag had previously created: Vera Maningning (verus-Latin: true; ningning-Tagalog: radiance), a woman clad in white lace singing in site-specific instances; and Munimuni (Tagalog: to introspect), miniature doll avatar of Vera herself. These two characters offer a layered reflection of transfeminine incarnations in a woman’s role, Cadag proposes a trans methodology of creation that vindicates, in the most human terms, feminine modes of survival.
Credits:
Choreographer & Dancer: Bunny Cadag
Creative Assistance: Micah Sofia Pinto & Rasa Alksnyte
Text: Jaya Jacobo
Sound Designer: Pablo Lilienfeld
Bunny Cadag
Bunny Cadag (b.1991, she/they) is a Filipino transfeminine multi-disciplinary artist, whose works are in the intersections and transitions of theater, film, performance, and installation arts. Her research is focused on pre-colonial gender plurality, traditional singing rituals, healing practices, and gender equality. Her performances are often participatory and community-based, amplifying voices of marginalized groups within the wider community while thoughtfully navigating defamiliarized shapes and spaces with empathy and generosity.