“One might subsume the eliminated element in the term “aura” and go on to say: that which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art.”
– Walter Benjamin, The Art of Mechanical Reproduction
“Pangunahin ang kultura ng Pilipinas bilang puwersang tumitiyak sa dating ng isang akda.”
(Philippine culture is the first defining power that secures the aesthetic value of an art.)[1]
-Bienvenido Lumbera, “Dating”: Panimulang Muni sa Estika ng Panitikang Filipino
If dating is to literary texts, awra is to queer decolonial performances. From the works of B. Lumbera (Philippine National Artist for Literture) and W. Benjamin (German philosopher and cultural critic), I would like to discuss the queering of the term aura and how it operates in local performances and discourses, through beki[2] language, as awra. In this workshop, I hope to share my study about how the sign “awra” is resuscitated from the imperial lexis and queered by the local imagination in the Philippine media. I will use two media texts to expound these claims, the first one is Awra Briguela’s song “Clap, Clap, Clap, Awra” and second is through the game segment of Showtime, a Philippine noontime entertainment show, “Beklaban” a portmanteau of Beki (gay) and laban (fight). With these examples, I will highlight the moments from these performances that deploy and perform the term “awra” that function as a slippery, dynamic, and exuberant queer performance. Further, through these discussions, I aim to theorize a queer decolonial performance after the local queer tongue of Philippine LGBT community highjacks this word from the Western epistemology and uses it in queer local performances. That aura becomes awra and it is not just appropriation nor reviving of the word and its sense rather it is a reincarnation born into new contexts and politics.
[1] My translation
[2] Gay lingo or swardspeak
John Paolo Sarce is a lecturer at Ateneo de Manila University and Polytechnic University of the Philippines. He teaches courses on Education and Literature. He is also a current graduate student in Ateneo de Manila University, his works are commonly focused on understanding postcolonialism, gender and queer theory, medical humanities, and critical pedagogy.
Day 2 (May 28, Fri HK/SG time / British Summer Time (BST) / Central European Summer Time (CEST))
Panel 4: Criticisms of Anatomy
3-5pm HK/SG / 8-10am BST / 10am-12pm CEST / 3-5am EDT / 12pm-2am PDT