Stone Belly

STONE BELLY is a dance-theater performance centering the resilient mythology of babaylans and teachings of indigenous land-based healers from the Philippines. Babaylans are pre-colonial women and trans matriarchal shamanic healers whose traditions still persist today, called by different names. Based on Visayan legend, Spanish colonizers cut our babaylans’ bodies and fed them to the crocodiles. In their bellies, the babaylan spirit survived. STONE BELLY re-imagines this myth, telling the story of BABAE — fragments of neither mother, grandmother, nor daughter – stuck inside the crocodile belly. They cross-contaminate timelines through debris of fascia, memories, and typhoons, engulfing the gaps that separate BABAE from their fragments. The work incorporates explosive choreography, expansive original live music, poetic narrative, and intergenerational community gatherings within an installation of handwoven netting and discarded packaging paper.