SIPA International is an artist-organized performance project in the Philippines with cultural exchanges that aims promote peace and solidarity through performance art. SIPA aims to celebrate cultural engagement and interaction through performance and heighten social sensitivities and amplify the call for change.   SIPA was organized in 2016.  It is led by cultural workers, performance artists, teachers, professionals, and advocates through its volunteer secretariat. 

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For many years, Filipino artists at the SIPA festival have raised two general concerns in their performances.  First, the value and meaning peace (which is closely linked to human rights and justice); and second, inner peace (personal desires for peace, often connected to the first concern).  Meanwhile, international artist draw solidarity through their performances.  All creations are for creating a community and for change.

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For the 10th SIPA, participants are encouraged to create presentations that engage with the theme of time – to emphasize, dialogue, discourse, and expand the concept of time in performance art.  In the Subong Ang Tiun, time is now or now is the time.

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Time is an important element of performance art. Time is a relational element. It is connected to context, subject, object and space.  Time can have a physical image in performance. The body's experience of time is related to livelihood, work, health, age, culture, and the environment in which it is lived. Time changes, flows, and transitions. Time has a limit, a beginning, and continuity. It also includes the time in between and the after. Time winds, repeats, but does not return to the previous. Time always occupies space.  Time speaks of the history of the past, the present, and the future. 

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This year’s concept may revolve around the notion and relationships between presence and absence, old and new, tradition and modernity, and the use of both natural and high-tech materials, including AI. It may reflect on the idea of “Filipino time”, the power dynamics in the concepts of overtime and/or tiempos muertos, and the contrast between time-bound and timeless art.

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Performance art is inherently about time. It emerged from the cultural fervent of the 1960s-70s, within the discourse of modernism and experimentation in art and self-expression, amidst the decolonization movements that challenged dominant Western ideologies.

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In the Philippines, the month of September carries a distinct discourse and resonance. The government now observes it as Peace Month, yet it also marks the declaration of Martial Law under Ferdinand Marcos Sr. In this same month, Filipinos succeeded in expelling the U.S. military bases. In the United States, September 11 (9/11) commemorates a tragedy that later became a pretext for pre-emptive wars and the “war on terror”.  We live in an era of globalization, crisis, and war – but also in a time of diverse forms of resistance and solidarity.

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The value of time is vivid in performance art, and performance lives through time!