Intimate Threads: performance making and gender plurality in the Philippines and the UK.
Starting 9am GMT, and 1600 in the Philippines.
Intimate Threads is a project emerging from the online residency between artists Bunny Cadag and
Niya B, through conversations and sharing of their performance research. The residency explored themes of gender variance, LGBTQ+ rights, pre-colonial cultural traditions and the relationship with nature.
Through exchanging ideas of their respective artistic practices and cultural contexts the artists built
upon the common threads that connect their practices and established the basis for performance
making that responds to current issues of ecological crisis and gender diversity.
On 11 June, Bunny Cadag and Niya B will share a performance video followed by a presentation of
their conversations and practices and a Q&A facilitated by Andrei Nikolai Pamintuan, Creative
Director of Fringe Manila festival and Pineapple Lab (Philippines) and Martha Margetson, Head of
Festival at Fringe! Queer Arts and Film Fest (UK).
The project is supported through the programme Connections Through Culture by the British Council.
Bios:
Bunny Cadag is a multi-disciplinary artist, whose practice spans theatre, television, singing and
contemporary performance. Her current performance research is focused on pre-colonial gender
plurality, traditional singing rituals, healing practices and gender equality. Her performances are often
participatory and community based, amplifying voices of marginalised groups within the wider
community.
Over the last decade, Cadag has shown work nationally and internationally, as a solo performance
maker (Karnabal Festival), as a collaborator-performer in The Filipino Superwoman Band (Sharjah;
Shanghai, China; Bern, Switzerland), as a theatre director, actor and playwright (The Scenius Pro,
Isang Upuan; PUP Sining-lahi Polyrepertory; Sipat Lawin Inc., Melbourne; The Virgin Labfest 2020,
Kapit). Cadag has experience in international collaborations through residencies and exchanges
(Antwerp, Belgium; ADAM Artist Lab, Taipei Performance Arts Center, Taiwan; Tokyo Performing Arts
Meeting, Yokohama, Japan).
Niya B is a transfeminist artist, working at the intersections of visual art and performance exploring
themes related to ecology, ritual, healing, queer myth-making and (trans)gender politics. Niya uses
video, soundscapes, installations, text and live acts to create a meditative space of vulnerability, affect
and interdependence.
Selected recent shows include:
From Tomorrow (Tate Britain, London); Cultural Institute (Leeds); Futureless (Somos Art, Berlin);
NEoN festival (Dundee); Unfix (CCA, Glasgow).
Niya was awarded with an a-n bursary and a Jerwood bursary in 2020 and has recently released the
moving image work ‘Ekdysis’(2021). Niya’s installation Ekdysis (2020) features in the publication
Future Now (Aesthetica 2021).