Imelda’s Dreaming: Applied Theatre in Mobilizing Political Discourse in Filipino Canadian Diasporic Communities

This essay charts the practice of applied theatre that traverses transnationality.It demonstrates methodological intervention in creating diasporicperformances by engaging open and emancipative dialogical encounters usingapplied theatre. The author deploys community- based theatre performanceto activate political discourse for/with/among diasporic community members.Using autoethnographic and affective inquiry, this article instigates theatreas a process of artistic improvisation that animates historical persona,found space, and other theatrical elements to provoke political discontent anddispleasure. The article raises several questions: How do we expand the performancepraxis of community theatre and performance making for FilipinoCanadian communities beyond exotic representation of culture of Philippineheritage? How can creativity and criticality be interwoven into performancemaking? How may applied theatre become a relevant performance praxis ofcommunity formation in a politically-divided diasporic community in Canada?By using autoethnography and performance ethnography, the essay scaffoldsa praxis of community-based performance creation through the techniques ofapplied theatre as configured for diasporic communities, themes, and politicalpredispositions. It constitutes the use of ethnography as self-reflexive modeof ethical intervention in performance re-roots itself from vernacular vocabularyof relational collaboration in community building to decolonize the praxisof applied theatre. Gesturing towards these Indigenous relational Philippineconcepts as frameworks in applying theatre for diasporic performance creation,the paper argues that Filipino diasporic performance has the power tocreate a space for political discourse for/with/among diasporic communitymembers.