For Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), Australian-Filipina artist Bhenji Ra presents a single-channel video of a performative conversation with teacher and collaborator, Tausugelder Sitti Airia Sangkula Askalani Obeso. Obeso is a cultural bearer of the pre-Islamic dance form pangalay, which is indigenous to the Tausug and Bajau peoples from the Sulu Archipelago and Sabah in the Philippines. Ra explains, “in 2018 I went south to visit family. Pangalay is active through new waves of decolonial understanding and I’d always wanted to learn. I needed someone to teach me and my relatives said, ‘you don’t need a teacher, we have a family member…’ So, I met Sitti. I’d dreamt about pangalay—the gestures, already in my body, echoed how I intuitively move.” This is an allegory for Indigenous knowledges carried by the strength of past generations.
Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon is grounded in critical research through film archives that document traditional dance. Ra shot the work on a 16mm Bolex camera—an intentional choice, echoing the machines used to produce this archival footage. In these films women are cast as subjects through a colonial lens. The Bolex symbolises this history. In the work, Ra reclaims the camera as an anti-colonial tool, re-inserting her people into new narratives, as equal parts director and sovereign-subject.
As a trans artist, Ra’s queerness is central to the work. “Queerness, previously demonised in the Philippines, has been deeply othered and never archived as what it actually is—something sacred, necessary and connected to kinship,” Ra explains. The film shows Tausug women adorning Ra, and trans girls preparing Ra for baptism. Bridging these worlds together, Ra is creating “a future where these worlds are aligned”.
Bhenji Ra: Biraddali Dancing on the Horizon
Perth Institute of Contemporary Art
On now—30 March
This article was originally published in the March/April print edition of Art Guide Australia.
Suggested Reading
Taking flight with Sorawit Songsataya
Shaped by the movement between histories and cultures, the work of Thai-born, Aotearoa-raised artist Sorawit Songsataya draws on mystery and plurality as a means of knowing the world. The artist is now showing at Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and Monash University Museum of Art.
Amelia Winata
Consuelo Cavaniglio’s tricks of the light
Consuelo Cavaniglia’s sunny studio in an industrial area of Sydney’s inner west reflects the artist’s fascination with light. Her recent glass works, now showing at Chau Chak Wing Museum, play with apertures, shadows, reflections and transparencies.
Jane O'Sullivan
Gregory Hodge looks beyond the surface
The quietly evocative new paintings of Gregory Hodge, now showing at Sullivan+Strumpf Sydney, are a lesson in the places where abstraction and figuration intersect.
Sally Gearon
Marikit Santiago’s divine interventions
In her audacious new exhibition, the Filipina Australian artist Marikit Santiago skewers the myths of the western canon and give pleasure and power—as experienced by women of colour—an arresting new form.
Steve Dow
The revitalization of Bundjalung weaving
A touring exhibition based on a publication of the same title, Bulaan Buruugaa Ngali celebrates Bundjalung artists revitalising the practice of basket weaving, as well as the Bundjalung language—two forms of knowledge that are deeply connected. The exhibition is now showing at Tweed Regional Gallery & Margaret Olley Art Centre.
Josephine Mead
All that glitters with The Huxleys
Partners in life and art, Will and Garrett Huxley’s sequined wonderland pays homage to their queer artist forebears. Their first collective survey, now showing at Fremantle Arts Centre, unfurls a decade of photography, music recordings, costume, film and performance.