Oriang

From the curator:

Oriang joins a long tradition of passing on narratives of resistance and heroism through music and song. Composing vivid songs about three contemporary revolutionaries in the Philippines, two of whom have been murdered by the state and one who still lives as a political prisoner, Tao invites us to consider who and what makes up our ideas of heroism. These three songs emerged from her desire to add to her daughter’s music library of heroes; they are words written from a mother to a daughter, from one generation to the next, in defiance of silence and state violence. As Tao sings, our only nightmare is that you grow up in fear; our only objective is to leave you with a cure.

From the storyteller:

Oriang, in its current iteration, is hopefully the start of a collective (or a collective-adjacent entity) of largely women and queer folks who are artist-activists. The intended shared goal is to build a library of resistance or a library of heroes/ human rights defenders for young people who are now entering into their own [ideas of] heroism and asking questions about what today’s young artist-activists are called upon to represent.

For this project, Oriang’s main output is three portrait songs, each acknowledging and honoring a Filipino activist hero—Kerima Tariman, a poet-revolutionary killed last year by state forces in Silay, Negros Occidental; Chad Booc, a math and science teacher to Lumad youth, killed early this year by state forces in New Bataan, Davao de Oro; and Amanda Echanis, a peasant woman organizer currently imprisoned on false charges in Tuguegarao, Cagayan.

These songs were written, arranged, recorded, mixed, and mastered within a span of 6 weeks by Tao, Calix, and Ymi. Band rehearsals commenced shortly after, in preparation for shooting live performance videos of these songs. 

The heroism that birthed Kerima’s life-long service in the farmers’ struggle, Chad’s life-long service for indigenous youth, and Amanda’s unshakeable service to the urban and rural poor — this lives on in young people who speak truth to power today and in the wisdom of older people who have survived and are keepers of these memories. Through these songs, we hope to add to the conversation about what heroism looks like in these instances: the struggles of indigenous youth for their education and ancestral lands, the struggles of agricultural workers for their livelihood and rights to the land they till.