My Panalangin of (Un)Belonging: Encountering Still Gestures of Prayer, Improvising Still Movements through Depression

Abstract

Through this article, this dance, I attempt to describe my encounters with an object from my past: a rosary. I return to the rosary as the inspiration for my dance, a dance that maps out the making of my bodymind through narratives of race, queerness, disability, and madness. Through irrational jumps between time and space, but always from the rosary, I release the stories of my (un)belonging within the Philippine diaspora as a Filipino-Canadian settler on Turtle Island. And as I repeatedly encounter this object and meditate on my prayer—my panalangin—I find myself continuously (re)interpreting the gestures of stillness through which I begin to embrace my movements through depression.

Keywords

• dance improvisation
• depression
• prayer
• gestures of stillness
• philippine diaspora
• queer performance