KULARTS’s Bedside Manner
Andréa Spearman
Identify. Implement. Monitor.
These are the essential duties of a registered nurse. And that is exactly what Alleluia Panis has brought to the ODC stage.
KULARTS presented Alleluia Panis’s Nursing These Wounds, at ODC Theater Fri-Sun, Sep 22–24, an immersive dance performance investigating the impact of colonization on Pilipinx health and caregiving through the lens of Pilipinx nurses’ history.
Panis identified a community overlooked in the healthcare system and in general in the U.S. for their ongoing care and commitment. They implemented this storytelling journey that takes us from the 1948 Exchange Visitor Program to current day nurses blowing off steam via karaoke and laughter. And we the audience monitored the toll the current COVID pandemic took on an individual nurse(Dre “Poko” Devis) and how the ancestral spirit of Kadua guided her and kept her alive to help the patients.
It really helped support the long held theory of how Filipinos spirituality connects to their desire and purpose to be of service to their fellow man, specifically in healthcare and their bedside manner. These cultural values and beliefs translate to a high regard for compassion, work ethic, and group harmony. And as shared through the video and provided links, more Philippine healing modalities have become more common as alternatives to Western medicine.
The work started off with dancers dressed in a mixture of nurse hats, white pants and dark brown tops, feather adornments and red pieces of fabric wrapped around their bodies. Descending from the sound booth at the top of the stairs behind the audience, the women carried boat-shaped baskets, waving and scooping them through the air. This creates the swaying motion of a boats’ journey through waves. The men carried glowing lanterns at the end of wooden sticks lighting the path of holistic healing.
It was a joy to follow this historical timeline of costumes, informational videos, and live singing. The old school nursing uniforms with their straight lines, fitted waists and jaunty hats giving way to the current pale blue and green loose fitting scrubs of today.
The cast sang and marched their way through memory, folklore, ritual and history. The moment of karaoke stands out the most because of the cast actually singing. First a Mariah Carey song (“Hero”), then a Filipino pop song in Tagalog. Everyone can relate to that joy, that relaxed down time with friends and co-workers to just let loose at the end of rough days. The dancers in their scrubs took to the microphone as duets passing it back and forth as they swayed and sang joyously.
As the live singing gave way to recorded music the duet partners circled, lifted and swung each other in their own areas spread across the stage. There were four folks at a mahjong table moving in slow motion, expressly waving their hands at each other and slamming their pieces down on the table.
While not my first time experiencing Panis’s work, this was by far the most informative. Without this creative interpretation and demonstration of this incredibly dynamic piece of history, I too would have continued to wonder, “why are there so many Filipino nurses in California?”
Bay Area native, Andréa Spearman is an administrator, choreographer, performer, teacher, and student of a variety of modern-based movement with over 20 years of experience. Director of her own dance company, A. Spearman & Co. and also currently produces and hosts, The Black Landscape podcast, a series of conversations that spotlight Black leaders in the SF Bay Area communities in various industries. Listen on Apple Music, BuzzSprout, Google Podcasts, and more. https://theblacklandscape.buzzsprout.com
