La MaMa to Present Kinding Sindaw's PAGBABALIK, 10/7

La MaMa ETC presents resident artist Kinding Sindaw's production of Pagbabalik, a piece that explores the migratory experience of displaced indigenous peoples of the Southern Philippines, on October 7, 2013 at 7 pm for a one night fundraising gala at La MaMa Club, 74 East 4th Street, between 2nd Avenue and Bowery. The performance runs 90 minutes and includes live music, dance, storytelling, and videography.

Pagbabalik, conceived by Kinding Sindaw founder and artistic director Potri Ranka Manis, is a response to the plight of the indigenous peoples of the Southern Philippines and the experiences of Filipinos in the diaspora. Indigenous communities are facing extinction due to the modern forces of displacement, deforestation, mining, and globalization. Pagbabalik depicts this struggle through the stories of migrating indigenous communities and how their oral traditions have in turn become fractured as their communities are dispersed worldwide. While these dislocated communities strive to reclaim their identity, Pagbabalik explores the question of whether one can ever really return home.

Kinding Sindaw is a dance theater ensemble that has been a resident of La Mama Experimental Theatre since 2000. It seeks to assert, preserve, reclaim, and recreate the traditions of the indigenous people of the Philippines that are facing extinction. Its founder, artistic director, and tradition bearer Potri Ranka Manis is the daughter of the late Sultan a Gaus of Borocot, Maguing, Lanao del Sur in the Southern Philippines. She seeks to examine the true story of the Moro people of Mindanao and the ancient Sultanates that have been overlooked in the written history of the Philippines, only having been transmitted through oral traditions from generation to generation. The indigenous music and dances of her childhood that Kinding Sindaw performs are therefore inextricably linked to themes of ancestral heritage, self-determination, and social justice.

La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club was founded by Ellen Stewart in 1961 on Manhattan's Lower East Side. She dedicated it to the playwright and all aspects of the theater. Today, La MaMa is a world-renowned cultural institution recognized as the seed bed of new work by artists of all nations and cultures.

Pagbabalik plays Monday, October 7, 2013 at 7 pm at La MaMa Club as part of Kinding Sindaw's gala fundraiser. Tickets are $15 for general admission, $10 for students. Tickets can be purchased at the La MaMa Box Office at 74A East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Ave.), by phone at 212-475-7710, or online at www.lamama.org.

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