Water Dances – with Kinding Sindaw

sat, apr 5 • 12-2 pm
la mama studios, studio 4
(47 Great Jones St, New York, NY 10012)
open-level • all ages

FREE, suggested donation

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in·corpus is delighted to welcome back Kinding Sindaw to Pasifika Series!

Winter/Spring 2025 concludes with Water Dances, celebrating the aquatic ecosystems of Mindanao.

This workshop will share dances for the waters of Mindanao (southern Philippines) and introduce participants to the work of Kinding Sindaw. The company will offer a short performance illustrating their style of dance-storytelling, followed by group instruction and hands-on practice with props. Live kulintang music will underscore the workshop, which will end with a Q&A.

Dress for movement, malong (sarong) welcome. Open level, all ages.

ABOUT

Visualize the Philippine archipelago, the islands and water: see the movement of the ocean as the tide ebbs and flows, the stillness of the lake, and the rushing of the river through the plains. This aquatic natural world is embodied in dance, which emulates and records ecosystems that are imperative to remember.

Kinding Sindaw will immerse workshop participants in this experience: through footwork and the nuances of hand, arm, torso, and head movements, the dance will share rituals of the indigenous Meranao, Maguindanao, Taosug, and Tboli peoples, and will offer insight into their current conditions in the southern Philippines. Join us and be transported through time and space.

ARTIST

KINDING SINDAW is a non-profit dance theater troupe and community of artists, educators, and indigenous Filipino tradition-bearers. Led by artistic director and founder Potri Ranka Manis, Bai Labi a Gaus of Borocot (Maguing, Lanao del Sur, Mindanao), Kinding Sindaw has served as a unique cultural and educational resource for New York City since 1992, providing workshops focusing on the dance, kulintang music, bayok traditional chants, silat martial arts, and epic legends and myths of the indigenous people of the Southern Philippines. Workshop participants internalize the indigenous experience through ancient music and dance movements taught by tradition-bearers. These teachings are supplemented by lectures on the narrative context and historical significance of the art forms, as well as on the struggles indigenous people face in the modern world.

As a resident company of La MaMa E.T.C., Kinding Sindaw has produced over ten dance dramas, most recently Pannadem (Remembering), Mindanao: The Legend of Tabunaway, and a film, Salsilah (Genealogy). With these productions, the organization aims to reveal the universality of the human experience by asserting, preserving, and reclaiming the rich, sacred cultures of indigenous Mindanao bangsa (nations), which are in danger of extinction. Through members’ personal connections to this region of the world, Kinding Sindaw advocates for the dignity of all indigenous peoples.

www.kindingsindaw.org
IG @KindingSindaw