It Takes a Village to Bring Heroic Improvisation to a Native Village

My Filipino Heroic Improvisation partners are amazing.  Gabe Mercado is deep observer of human nature, organizer of innovation and funny.  He has attracted fellow Silly People’s Improv Theater members - Dingdong Roseles and Ariel Diccion -- to work as Heroic Improvisation facilitators in Tagalong and other regional Filipino languages.  They are experienced improvisors, great actors and have a heart for the work.  It is amazing to witness my ideas in a different language and see people make connections.  Although I haven’t studied Tagalong, I am learning to understand it.  It is a musical language spoken by expressive people, so I’m getting the gist and even some of the humor.  Amazing!

A friend and colleague of Gabe was able to create two opportunities for us to take Heroic Improvisation workshop in the Subic Bay area.  Americans might remember that Subic Bay, Philippines was an important American Naval Base during the Cold War.  In the early 1990s and in the wake of the volcano eruption of the Mount Pintabo, the Americans left the base and transferred ownership to the Philippines.  Since that time, the area is now known as Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, which is a national economic zone.

After leaving Manila at dawn on Monday 2/24, Gabe drove us (Dingdong, Ariel and me) to Subic Bay.  It was a fun ride to see the countryside.  The remains of the volcano destruction of the 1990s look like a barren moonscape -- gray and lifeless.  Still dramatic and humbling to see Mother Nature's destruction after all these decades.  

After lunch, we brought the Heroic Improvisation workshop to a small village of an indigenous Filipino tribe on the former Subic Bay property.  This area is a pristine rainforest.  We had 24 participants, from senior citizen women to teenage boys.  English comprehension was low, so I had only small speaking parts that were translated.  

It was so fun to see Ariel facilitate the workshop in Tagalong.  Ariel’s day job is a Filipino literature professor, so he can express the concepts simply and clearly.  Seeing the connection arise between Ariel and the participants validated my choice to use performers and improvisors to deliver the workshop.  When the connections are made, it is powerful.

Also, some older villigers shared their volcano erunption stories, which informed the vilage and the visitors about the viliage’s disaster history.  Many of our games are non-verbal, so I was able to participate with the villagers and they got a kick out of me playing the games also.

I teared up a little when I told them how happy I was to bring the workshop to them.  One came up to me and gave me a hug and said “Thank you Mama Mary.”  The villagers also played the games with a lot of commitment, which I was grateful for.  

We lost participation after the afternoon break.  We delivered the workshop in a shelter without windows, so the afternoon heat was a factor.  Plus participants had afternoon chores to do and some had long bus trips back home, so they were anxious about the time.  Therefore, we need to come up with strategies to amelierate the effect of afternoon heat on the activities and groups greater than sixteen.

However, the 16 hardy participants stayed to the very end.  I believe we planted some seeds that all citizens can be a leader, if we work together in a crisis.  There was a brief ceremony when we finished and I got an official Certificate of Appreciation from the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.  And no Filipino event can be complete before there are some pictures taken.  So fun and gratifying!

To celebrate, our team and our Subic Bay host and his wife had a meal together during sundown on the West Philippine Sea at Gerry’s Seafood outside on the sand.  So fun, so relaxing, and so unlike my regular Februarys in the US.