Ta-ga-logue: A coming-together in conversation

Tagalogue: creative storytelling as conceptualized by Leslie Ferrer Espinosa, Kilusan Bautista and Precious Sipin

By Precious Sipin

Filipinos are naturally creative. We are storytellers, dancers, singers (thanks Magic Mic!), writers. You name it and we know how to do it — with style. We can’t help it. It’s in our blood. With different races mixed in one, I see Filipinos as beautiful masterpieces meant to create, be innovative, and resourceful no matter the field or profession.

I didn’t always believe that, but that’s another part of my narrative. And I much prefer this chapter of my life. It has been over a year since I graduated from college with a BA in Acting at Fordham, and I’m currently experiencing “the real world.”

“Tagalogue” was one of the first projects I took on after graduation, in hopes that I would learn more about my community and myself as a young Filipino artist living in the Theater Capital of the World. I wanted to see if there were other performers like me, with the same stories of struggle, confusion about identity, curiosity of the past, and a strong belief that art can be the forefront for change.

The author: Hoping to learn about herself, her community

Since the beginning of this project in June 2012, I learned that there is a growing community of Filipinos in New York City with the desire to tell their stories and a need to be heard. There is a desire to start conversations and find the connections we have with one another, not just as Filipinos but as human beings. With our presence growing, we are learning what it means to be Filipino. Are we defined by the ‘pancit’ and ‘lumpia’ we eat? The ‘tsismis’ we hear? The way we supposedly run on Filipino Time? Or is it the respect we have for each other, that is deeply embedded in our vocabulary with words like ‘Ate,’ ‘Kuya,’ ‘Tito,’ ‘Tita,’ etc.

Tagalogue is the platform for those conversations. The word “Tagalogue” is not just a stylized pronunciation of Tagalog, it is a dialogue that is needed in community with our own individual stories. Stories that show that we, as a group of people –both Filipinos and FilAms — are in charge of creating our identity and defining who we are.

This year’s theme of Honoring Our Ancestors is a part of that identity living in all of us. No matter how we feel about being Filipino, we cannot deny that those who have come before us have had rich “his(her)stories” that affect our own narratives. With or without knowing, we carry them. And they still live on in our ways.

“Tagalogue Vol. 3.0 – Within Us: A Tribute to Our Ancestors” welcomes your ways of honoring your ancestors and your own interpretations of finding your identity through those who have come before us. It is my hope as a performer and producer that people learn what I have learned during this growing project: I am an instrument of my culture. ‘Isang bagsak,’ we fall together…we rise together.

Precious Sipin is the producer and assistant director of “Tagalogue Vol. 3.0 – Within Us: A Tribute to Our Ancestors,” a production to be staged Oct. 18, 19 and 25. Andre Ignacio Dimapilis directs. To RSVP, click here.

For more details and program information, visit the GMA International website www.gmanetwork.com/international.