Portrayal Analysis: Julie Tolentino And Luciana Achugar

A thin veil of feigned superiority shields the few from the deep expanse of chaos that surrounds them, but even the slightest tear can change everything. As ignorance and systematic immunity thickens the barriers of oppression, the NOT Festival and other similar movements serve as whetstones that sharpen the bodies of performers and enables them to cut through the cloth that has tossed them aside. Focusing on specific performances from the event, both Julie Tolentino and Luciana Achugar are exemplary models of this metaphysical weaponry. They both come from the Latin American / Hispanic community, so their stories echo the same painful sentiment, though their journeys are quite different. While Tolentino performs to convey the queer struggle
Despite the differences in their messages, they are interconnected because both works seek to empower the oppressed and offer them an escape from their bleak environments. In a broader global context, these performances promote a sense of agency and freedom while contending with the controversial topics of gender and sexuality. Although distinctly different at first, the intricacies of Tolentino’s and Achugar’s performance combine to form a single unified narrative around the marginalized and vulnerable female in modern society. Their movements exemplify the whole journey from beginning to end; from oppression and disenfranchisement to retaliation and empowerment.
In the latter half of her performance, Tolentino displayed her rendition of the female perspective. The room was pitch black, except for the spotlight that shone dimly above the dancers on the far end of the space. Atop a clustered pile of dark cloth and scattered balloons sat a woman whose clothing matched her
At first, she is oppressed, pressured, and insulted by those around her. The man and the hateful voice went too far, pushing her to her limits. The slow peeling away of her clothing and the cotton, her innocence, showed how vulnerable she was becoming. Trapped in her now psychologically damaged mind, she could not fight back, so she took the abuse and fell deeper and deeper into her personal abyss, which is embodied by the cloth cocoon. Eventually, however, she fought back with determination and escaped with outside help. No longer affected by those who harbored hate against her, she was able to return to the fur blanket, a pure state, and rebuild her identity. Though the viewer does not know for certain who is under the covering, one can rationally assume that it is Tolentino. Her movement in that scene, along with the bouquet of flowers, told the story of the phoenix. Assumed to be dead, whether literally or figuratively, someone left flowers next to the grave to honor her memory. However, she rose from the ashes and was born again. This is exemplified through her ambiguous rolling beneath the cover; she moved around like a baby in a womb. The animal-like cloth represented primitiveness, and in this context, it signals a return to nature, a state of purity uninhibited by human corruption. We were not shown what she had become, but there was no need to