PROJECT NOTES
Ang Unang Aswang
Ang Unang Aswang, written by Rody Vera, is a play about a young girl who became the first aswang. The girl, raised in the forest by a dog, a cat, and a wild pig who stood as her mother, came across a man who will later take advantage of her body and innocence. From love and pain, we also learn about the sexualization and exploitation of the female body.
Dream Sequence
The prologue or the dream sequence is a devised piece based on the nightmares I encountered upon doing this project. As I had to face and re-acknowledge how it was growing up in a patriarchal culture, and scrutinize how women are perceived in Philippine society, I encountered violence, death, and women being confined in my nightmares.
Lecture
Through our research, we were able to collate statistical and historical data, and learned that during the pre-colonial Philippine society, men and women were looked at equally. This part of the journey is where I gain a deeper understanding as to why women experience violence and pondered how else can I help in fighting the system that continues to tolerate this?
Female vs Male Gaze
The male gaze is about what men see, usually objectifying the female and their body, whilst the female gaze is about what women see, feel, and experience. We incorporated these theories through the different perspectives - from babae/aswang, lalaki to my own.
