Healing Separations in the Philippines
LISTENING, SINGING, REMEMBERING
It is said that much of life is an experience of forgetting. I will map out some of my own pathways to remembering, citing selected anthropological, decolonial, and performance literatures, as well as oral songs and histories.
Grace Nono is a music performing artist, ethnomusicologist, and scholar of Philippine shamanism, particularly of the babaylan, the predominantly-female Philippine shaman who led resistances during the centuries of colonization and continues to serve her people despite forces of repression and persecution. Dr. Nono has served as faculty in the Arts Studies Department at the University of the Philippines-Diliman; as head of two non-profit organizations: the Tao Foundation for Culture and Arts and the Artists Welfare project, Inc.; and as a singer specializing in the contemporary performance of Philippine oral traditional chants with indigenous sacred themes.