Fifth Wall Maps Out Control and Release in Gigil

For its seventh year, the event presents an array of performance artists combining dance, art, and film in a four-day festival

Tension is well verbalized in the Filipino language. Of all the words, the term gigil, distinctly local, has universally resonated. For its seventh year, Fifth Wall traces the burgeoning energy of experiencing gigil at the new NBS Park in Mandaluyong. 

Using place as a form of storytelling, Fifth Wall curates a site where feeling, culture, and audience intersect to shape the environment. Unlike previous festivals, many performances will take place in the parking lot and other parts of the venue. Part of this is a vision alignment between Fifth Wall and NBS Parks to create a third space where culture and community meet. 

Adrian Ramos, president and CEO of National Bookstore, shares that his ultimate vision for the venue is to be a hub where the public can enjoy the arts. “Fifth Wall brings a new dimension to NBS Park, which is to gather the performing arts and to connect to its emotions,” he explains.

Across the four-day festival, seven artists are slated to give their own interpretation of gigil. Curated by director, founder, and classically trained ballerina Madge Reyes, Fifth Wall continues to place performance and dance art at the forefront, which Reyes hopes also resonate with the attendees.

Perhaps the most emblematic of this year’s theme and vision is internet sensation and talent Tohru Dance, otherwise known as Toru Utsumi, a 60-year-old Japanese salaryman who works in management consulting. Going viral for dancing on the streets of Japan, Utsumi defies the stringent hustle culture of Japan by using his body to move freely to music. Paralleling the intense, high-pressure environment embedded in Manila’s workforce, Utsumi’s goal to defy rigid forms of expression is brought over to the Filipino arts scene. To be featured at the festival’s two-part program Club Gigil on Day 3 (October 24), Utsumi will share his artistic perspective, to be followed by a community jam led by DJ Meek.

Opening the festival on Day 1 (October 22) and performed again on Day 3 (October 24) is a live performance by James Clar, titled Manila After Dark. Inspired by Ishmael Bernal’s Manila By Night (1980), Clar’s work combines film and live performance choreographed by Reyes. 

Taking on other elements of music and storytelling is Bunny Cadag’s The Singer for her Philippine premiere of the performance to be held on Days 2 and 3 (October 23-34). Set to embody the titular character, The Singer, she ruminates on the trans body as a source of pain and freedom. Specializing in research on precolonial gender and traditional singing rituals, Cadag’s performance concept portrays tension through the lens of confronting and healing intergenerational trauma among women. 

Meanwhile, Ea Torrado, a Filipino choreographer and dancer, displays femininity through two distinct archetypes in Brown Madonna: Apparition on Day 4 (October 25). Portraying the pageantry of Filipino festivals, Torrado creates a localized version of pop star Madonna and Mama Mary to explore the country’s idea of motherhood and beauty through the framework of classism in her workshop-performance. 

Fifth Wall will also include two installments, Tarzeer Pictures’ Spectral Spectator and Timothy Axibal’s 0001, that will be on view on all event days. The former exhibit discusses encounters with the afterlife through a series of vignettes revolving around four ghosts and how they interact with the material world, while the latter continues filmmaker Axibal’s journey of documentation by repurposing footage of last year’s festival. 

Stepping through the proverbial fifth wall, a boundary between an individual’s everyday lives and a different cultural experience, Fifth Wall cultivates a place where celebration and dance can thrive through multidisciplinary expression. Here, Gigil seeks to create a site of unconventional release that normal society can struggle to accommodate.