Manila Zoo by Eisa Jocson
7PM | Wednesday, December 4
Bellas Artes Outpost
The Alley at Karrivin, Makati

This event is free and open to the public.

In Disney’s empire of manufacturing “happiness,” animals and objects are anthropomorphized, formatted with US-American values and ways of being. Wherein lions are kings; monkey, cricket and fish are sidekicks to humans; teapot is a matriarchal surrogate; and zoos are utopias—all brightly constructed to keep humans self-centeredly entertained and within the empire’s global reach.

In Hong Kong Disneyland, Filipinos are the favorite entertainment labor force. They are employed as highly skilled, energetic, world-class happiness-machines and fabricated as experts in performing anything effectively entertaining.

The work is grounded in the study of animal behavior in zoos. Animals in the zoo have developed behavioral disorders not found in the wild, such as abnormal repetitive behavior and self-aggression. In confinement, animals suffer from isolation, stress, depression, anxiety, helplessness and boredom, and these symptoms strangely mirror conditions found in humans living in densely populated cities.

By performing as animals, the dancers will exit human logic and refuse to participate in servicing and entertaining as humans. However, as captives of the zoo they are constantly subjected to human voyeurism and exploitation.