Category: Motion

This Sunday February 22 , 2015

EPFC’s February/March LA AIR artist Anna Luisa Petrisko and co-curator Marybelle MB present a night of magical and thought-provoking films. In Lagitan & The Ifugao, we get to know a Healer and take a closer look at the process of building an Ifugao healing hut. Bontoc Eulogy is a story of displacement and remembrance spanning four generations of Filipinos.

Filmmaker Nicanor Evangelista Jr. and initiator of The Ifugao Hut Healing Project Mamerto Lagitan Tindongan in attendance!

Lagitan & The Ifugao Hut
(11 minutes)

There was a Healer who have vivid dreams, visions about healing ancestral traumas and reviving geometric structures. One of the dreams is to build an Ifugao healing hut. In this video we had a chance to get to know the Healer and take a closer look of the process of building the hut.

The Ifugao Hut Healing Project was initiated by Mamerto LagitanTindongan, an Ifugao descendant and Mumbaki (shaman) who has a knowledge of the indigenous healing traditions of Northern Philippines. He is a Pilipin@-American immigrant based in Ohio, who practices a combination of both Eastern and Western healing traditions. He believes that performing a ritual at the former site of the St. Louis World’s Fair will help address the deep psychic wounds of his people and the colonial relations between Pilipin@s and the United States.
To know more about the ifugao healing hut visit http://www.babaylan.net/events/ifugao-hut-healing-project/

Bontoc Eulogy
(56 minutes)

In a story of displacement and remembrance spanning four generations of Filipinos, Bontoc Eulogy uses the experiences of the largest group displayed at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair to examine its continuing relevance as a defining moment in Philippine-American relations and Filipino American history. Told within a fictional framework, the story is told from the perspective of a first generation Filipino American who tries to trace what happened to his grandfather, a Bontoc Ifugao warrior, who was brought from the Philippines to be displayed at the St. Louis fair and who never returned to his village.

RSVP @ Facebook  https://www.facebook.com/events/318103281733014/?ref=22&pnref=story

Ifugao hut healing project from Kultura Film on Vimeo.

THE IFUGAO HUT HEALING PROJECT for the Indiegogo Fundraising Campaign
https://www.indiegogo.com/project/the-ifugao-hut-healing-project/embedded
INTRODUCTION

In April until December 1904, the St. Louis World’s Fair in Missouri was held to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, and was billed by the Western press as an international and historical exposition that showcased the march of progress and modernism under the United States empire. To provide a stark contrast to this modernity, a number of indigenous tribes and colonial subjects were brought in and made to live in reconstructed villages, showing the differences of their lifestyles from those living in America. One of these tribes was the Igorot from Northern Philippines, described in press advertisements as “savages” who were “headhunters” and “dog-eaters.” As a result of being sensationalized in the newspapers, the Igorot Village – with its huts and 110 members composed of men, women and children – became the most popular exhibit at the fair, earning the highest admission returns of $200, 387.18 during the opening. Subsequently, for the next eight months, the Igorots were placed on display, “studied, inspected, stared at, peered at, denigrated, pitied, and despised,” by thousands of fairgoers who reveled in their daily eating practice of killing dogs for their meals. It was said that the Fair administration required the natives such daily dog feast to ensure “visitorship to the World’s Fair” and continue with the profit making enterprise of putting “human beings in a human zoo.” At present, descendants of the Igorots in America, together with a large number of Filipinos, cite the lingering sense of shame, guilt and depression related to the abuse and defilement of their ancestors at the Igorot Village during the 1904 St. Louis Word Fair in Missouri.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

The Ifugao Hut Healing Project was initiated by Mamerto Tindongan, an Igorot shaman steeped in the indigenous healing tradition of his Philippine tribe. He is also an Ohio-based immigrant who had been formally initiated as a priest and healer by his Native American mentors. Mamerto carries both Eastern and Western healing practices and believes that performing a ritual at the former site of the St. Louis Fair will help address the deep psychic wounds of his people and the continuing gap between the East and West. The ritual will request the participation of the Igorot and other Filipino American communities, and the American community members themselves. The coming together of communities to acknowledge, understand, and honor the past is an essential step to healing historical trauma and redirecting energies of discord and disharmony towards positive resolution.

And for more information about the artist visit http://www.tindonganwoodsculptures.com

A Project of the Center for Babaylan Studies
For Information:
http://www.babaylan.net
contact: Mila Anguluan-Coger, Project Coordinator
mila@babaylan.net