IMELDA – Summer Nights

“Perception is real… truth is not.”

To be an immigrant is to be haunted. Hailing from the Philippines, Maria Clara is proud of where she’s from… but not of its past. Maybe not even its present.

On top of carrying the grief of eroding her motherland from her personhood to keep up with the expectations of assimilation, Maria Clara’s infamous childhood hero comes back to her: former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos. As Maria Clara assesses the shoes she wears, the articles she writes, and the country she can no longer call home, it becomes horrifyingly clear that the last thing she wants to do is get rid of the only thing that makes her feel Filipino – the ability to forgive those who may not even deserve it.

[Featuring] some delicious footage of the scurrilous First Couple and a gobsmacking song about a bridge of love that might be called “Don’t Cry for Me, Filipina”. – Seesaw Magazine.
IMELDA was the recipient of the PICA Most Promising Contemporary Performance Award. (TILT 2022, WAAPA)