The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote for The Aswang Project, Modern Interpretations of the Tungkung Langit and Alunsina Story, where I break down the theoretical framework of theater productions and my own adaptations of the story. It is taken from my research promoting Philippine mythology and storytelling through interactive art. If you are not familiar with the story, you may read it here.
Premiered at the Cross Channels Intercultural Performance Festival [December 2008 - Theater Nieuwe Doelenstraat, Amsterdam, Netherlands] The production is musically structured in the counterpoint and harmony of Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge. Devised, Designed and Directed by meLê yamomo Choreography: Helen Pokrovskaia Text & lyrics: Maya van den Heuvel - Arad Dramaturgy: Lonneke van Heugten Soundscape: Markus Hoogervorst Production Management: Johanna Timonen Technical Direction: Wouter Helmond
"The concept of the piece jumps off from the Panay myth saying that the genesis of the world coincides with the god Tungkung Langit's search for the missing wife Alunsina - that the world was created in search of love. In the production, {The Alunsina Network} is a virtual space - an online site in search for connection, for someone to talk to, for a date, for love. A Russian friend. A Dutch dinner date. A Polish sexdate. A Thai lover." - (Yamomo, 2008)
This Western adaptation of the Panay Visayan creation myth "Tungkung Langit and Alunsina" incorporates Martin Heidegger’s concept called the “world picture”, “a metaphysical ground of an age” (Heidegger, 1938), a spirit that appears in all ideologies regardless of their differences (Young, Haynes, 2002)- the world conceived and grasped as picture, rather than a picture of the world (Hong, 2003). Because this structured image is so universal, the whole world is reduced to a system, and that system is the whole world.
The play is set in today’s world, a time in which, quite fittingly, Heidegger talks about the modern phenomena of the loss or absence of gods (such as in Paganism) resulting in “a void that is filled by the historical and psychological investigation of myth” (Heidegger, 1938).
For so long, humans have grown accustomed to having gods. The loss of gods disorients them, leaves them lost, and turns their interest towards myths. Though they no longer read into these myths in the literal sense, in an odd way, myths have more power as world pictures, since they encompass ideological differences.
All that is required for the world to become a picture is when man bases his life as reference for that picture to be formed. Man no longer needs to be connected with a higher being as well as others to gain a world picture from them. Man assigns meaning to things, the result of which has become a cultural shift from community and religion to individualism.
Individualism has become the norm of the modern age that it may sometimes be hard for younger generations to imagine that individualism how previous generations did not see this as a badge of honor or rite of passage. Individualism was not easily understood, and therefore lead to isolation which was not what people needed in the survival of the fittest, because according to Ursula K. LeGuinn’s book, “The Dispossessed”, the fittest were the most social.
Man “can now remain within his sphere as his sphere has effectively appropriated the aesthetics of the interpretation of man, i.e. culture” (Young, Haynes, 2002). Culture, in this case, myth, has become a simulation of everything man needs to form a world picture.
The “spirit” or world picture that governs The Alunsina Network comes from the idea from “Tungkung Langit and Alunsina” that the world was created in search for love.
In the play, “The Alunsina Network” is the name of an online dating platform, which also serves as a quintessential metaphor of the attitude of the modern age: self-reliant, anxious to present an image of themselves to the world as a part of survival, dependent on state of the art technology for connection, distances made even shorter through globalization, and yet isolated now more than ever. The people who participate in the Alunsina Network do not leave their need to leave their “sphere” to pursue love. They no longer need to interact with people in person or learn what love is based on experience.
The Alunsina Network was created for people who are searching for love. Yet even then, because it is set in the age of the world picture, participating in the Alunsina Network is more than a pursuit of love. “Man fights for the position, which secures, organizes, and articulates itself as a world view, the decisive unfolding of the modern relationship to beings becomes a confrontation of world views” (Heidegger, 1938). He describes this as a “conquest of the world” (1938).
The world was created in search for love. Therefore, in order to continue existing, one must find true love.
(Yamomo, 2008).
It is as if by participating in The Alunsina Network, one validates his very existence as well as everything he believes in. The Alunsina Network turns the pursuit of love into a game - “a conquest of the world through pictures of prospective partners” (Yamomo, 2008). The participants need love in order to survive. The paradox in the play is if man finds perfect love, then it will be the end of the world” (2008).
In spite of this, I would infer that perhaps, depending on one’s interpretation, the end of the world in this play is not the literal end of the world, but an escape from the world picture, where one is under the illusion that he is connected. Perhaps the end of the world is the beginning of new life.
Theater Nieuwe Doelenstraat (2019). {The Alunsina Network}. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U87N6wWetg&t=4s [Accessed 21 May 2019].
Comments