20 June 2022
Rimbun Dahan is a private arts centre outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which focuses on developing traditional and contemporary art forms. We also aim to support Southeast Asian artists to strengthen their regional professional artistic networks. Since 1994, we have hosted over hundreds of artists in various disciplines, as well as community-building meetings, conferences and events. For more information about Rimbun Dahan, please see http://www.rimbundahan.org.
Filipina choreographer Donna Miranda was our first resident choreographer at Rimbun Dahan in 2007. At the time, we were delighted to have attracted such an intelligent, accomplished and brave artist, who jumped with both feet into this unknown challenge. During her time with us, Donna made incredible and lasting connections with the local arts community, including musicians and visual artists as well as other dancers. By far one of the most creative and hard working of our choreographic residents, she produced a full-length dance work Extended Period of Waiting, with 7 performers, as well as a performance work in connection with our fundraising exhibition Art for Nature, and also taught a workshop for dancers during her stay.
We retained our connection with Donna, and she subsequently visited Rimbun Dahan again with her partner, poet Angelo Suarez, in 2010 to take part in the one of our first editions of Dancing in Place, our regular program of site-specific dance works. She presented “Anything less is less than a reckless act” which asked the audience to choose whether to watch a video of a dancing duet in one room, or to listen to Donna talking about the dance work in another room. For us, it was a bracing introduction to Donna’s constant questioning of the capacity of art to engage its audience democratically – it both allowed audience participation as well as exposed its futility.
We invited Donna once again to Rimbun Dahan in 2012 to participate in Work It!, a project supported by Asia-Europe Foundation bringing together female performing artists from Asia and Europe whose work revolved around the gendered depiction of the body on stage. As one of only twelve participating artists, Donna was selected on the basis of her portfolio of work, keen intellectual engagement, and understanding of the artistic and socio-political relations between Asia and Europe. She was one of the most active and engaged participants in this project, fearless about calling out the more privileged and about exposing her own vulnerabilities as an artist, as a working mother, and as a citizen engaged with wider concerns of democracy and equity.
In the years that I have known Donna, she has shown the highest standards of integrity in the creation of own art and her engagement with communities in land justice and social empowerment. She is not a terrorist or a vigilante; she is a serious artist with an international presence who is deeply concerned about the future of her country. Rimbun Dahan stands by her and echoes the call to drop all charges against the Tinang 83.
Sincerely,
Bilqis Hijjas
Director
Rimbun Dahan
Background Information
In June 2022, 83 farmers, agrarian reform activists, journalists and artists were arrested at a cultivation exercise in Hacienda Tinang, Tarlac Province, Philippines. The land they were on had been awarded to the farmers in 1995 by the Department for Agrarian Reform. The previous occupier of the land, currently the local mayor, disputes the ownership. The 83 were released on bail, but now face charges of malicious mischief and illegal assembly, as well as disobedience, obstruction of justice, and usurpation of real rights. In addition, Donna Miranda and some others have been charged with child exploitation and trafficking, for bringing their children to participate in the activity.
More info:
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1614945/child-abuse-trafficking-raps-filed-vs-tinang-83-leaders