A future folkloric world of dance-theatre, diasporic club cultures, projections, sound design and elaborate craft.
Honouring their roots in Sydney’s underground queer and diasporic club scenes, Justin Talplacido Shoulder and the collective behind ANITO build on their shared histories of costume, puppetry, dance and experimental electronic music to reimagine myths and stories for the now.
For early Filipinos, like many still today, it is believed that a life force or soul inhabits all entities, both animate and inanimate. These spirits are called Anitos.
Co-Created by the multi-talented Justin Talplacido Shoulder (The Glitter Militia, Club Ate), ANITO combines collective craft, puppetry, dance and experimental electronic music to reimagine these myths and stories for the now. It’s a work rooted in Sydney’s underground queer and diasporic club scenes.
The collective behind ANITO create a “Queer Filipino Future Folkloric space of storytelling” that centres the importance of nature spirits, intuiting with them as guides towards imagining possible parallel futures.
The ensemble transform into animal-human-plant-machine hybrids. In this world of sheer terror and tremendous beauty, they interrogate colonial wrongdoings and queer ancestral mythologies.
Presented By:
Presented as part of Pride Connects — a partnership between Auckland Pride, Auckland Live, Q Theatre, and Satellites — this genre defying season at Q extends the Adhikaar Report’s call for Rainbow Organisations to support tauiwi. Centring Justin Talplacido Shoulder and Victoria Hunt, Pride Connects creates many generous touch points that grow sustainable practice and weave international artistry into Aotearoa’s creative ecology.
Ceeative Team:
Directed, Performed and Co-conceived by Justin Talplacido Shoulder
Performer and co-generator Eugene Choi
Performer, Mentor and Outside (Inside) Eye Victoria Hunt
Production Design by Matthew Stegh and J. Talplacido Shoulder
Costume Design M. Stegh, Anthony Aitch and J. Talplacido Shoulder
Sound Design and Live Score by Corin Ileto
Lighting / Vision Design by Fausto Brusamolino
Costume Design Technicians Brenda Lam, Luna Aquatica and A. Aitch
Produced by: Jason Cross and Insite Arts
Special thanks to Marrugeku and Talking Bodies
Venue Partner & Creative Development was supported by Carriageworks.
Sponsors:
Anito was made with the support of the Restart Investment to Sustain and Expand (RISE) Fund – an Australian Government initiative; Create NSW; the Australian Government’s Major Festivals Initiative, managed by Creative Australia, its arts funding and advisory body, in association with the Confederation of Australian International Arts Festivals Inc., commissioned by RISING, Sydney Festival and MONA FOMA. This tour is supported by Creative Australia.
Pride Connects was made possible thanks to the generous support of Auckland Live, Q Theatre, Satellites, and the Ministry of Ethnic Communities.