A motley group of media people in a coaster van arrived on a rainy morning at the National Arts Center complex on top of Mount Makiling in Los Banos, Laguna.
We were immediately whisked away to the center's executive lounge. While we were waiting for the rain to stop, Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Vice President and Artistic Director Dennis Marasigan advised us that it’s better to visit the NAC hall or the Maria Makiling Theater and see what Danish artist Sophie Dupont was performing right there.
In a few minutes, we braved the drizzle with Dennis as we were driven back to the Center where Sophie, a visual artist who is part of the show “In Situ, Performance and Exhibition,” where she, according to the CCP Publicity Division, “examines pictorial questions concerning figure and ground, abstraction and figuration, fluidity and stagnation using her body as the primary research and existentialist tool. Her practice uses diverse media such as performance, photography, sculpture, and painting grounded in 20th century performance and avant-garde tradition.”
There Sophie was, in the middle of students of the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA), humming, scratching lines together on a copper plate with her bigger sheet, “creating an abstract score through the subtle, meditative art.”
The philosophy behind the concept of “Marking Breath,” the show that Dupont was doing is to achieve peace of mind and clarity of thought, among other things.
Didn’t you know that Sophie performed her share of contemplative art from sunrise to sunset?
Dupont admitted that she was up at 5:30 in the morning and right there in Mount Makiling, she sat on a table with her platter creating abstracts to pour all her thoughts and emotions on it for self-introspection and identification for the moment.
The PHSA students were enthusiastic to share their artistry and imagination for a peaceful self and placid world.
Even after we left the complex at two in the afternoon, Sophie was still on the ground.
By just sitting, humming, and scratching the copper sheet, Dupont was performing and “transforming the simple act of breathing into a spiritual reflection.”
“By natural breathing, Sophie can create an act, to perform a show,” said Glaiza Lee, CCP Head of Corporate Communications.
It is because “In Situ,” which means “in site,” can be done anywhere, anytime, anyhow.
It is not only because CCP is under renovation that doesn’t mean an artist, in general, or Dupont, in particular, cannot perform anywhere, even on the streets as she was able to prove when she displayed her deeper thoughts on breathing as a way of art, and life.
She also performed at the CCP ASEAN Park last week.
There were also diverse performances by Danish artists such as Molly Haslund who did a flash mob sort of act in Intramuros with her Flower Drop number where she just naturally acted in one corner with flowers at hand when she led the people in a formation of “infinity sign” by human bodies.
While walking along with people in the “infinity sign,” Molly would drop a flower and see what the people’s reactions would be.
“It’s like, either they pick up the flower or not and do whatever they want to, like bringing it back to me or owning it up,” said Haslund.
Meanwhile, Filip Vest and Kai Meke did an impromptu-like show called “Bunk” where their inner thoughts, feelings, and emotions were drawn out from them to tell a story with the participation of Filipino artists Kyle Confesor, Sasa Cabalquinto, and Jeremy Mayores.
The exchange between Filipino and Danish performing artists was indeed a plain presentation of what art is—as life, as daily quotidian.
Bravo!
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