INTRODUCTION

Performance has been counted into art since the early 20th century when Futurism

manifesto indicated “performance was the surest means of disrupting a complacent public”.

(Goldberg, 1988). Briefly speaking, performance art is a kind of art form, in which artists use live

bodies to offer performance. The foremost purpose of Performance art has almost always been

to challenge the conventions of traditional forms of visual art such as painting and sculpture. When

these modes no longer seem to answer artists' needs - when they seem too conservative, or to

enmeshed in the traditional art world and too distant from ordinary people - artists have often

turned to Performance in order to find new audiences and test new ideas.

Since then, performance arts keep on developing its way to express an eye-opening

opinion, usually argues with conventional ideas. Actually, SIPAF (Solidarity in Performance Art

Festival) 2018, taking the responsibility to convey strong and intellectual ideas, in order to

contribute or to make a formidable change in our society, by performing different kind of

performance art during September 12 -22, around Metro Manila – Angeles Pampanga, fortunately

including Polytechnic University of the Philippines Sta. Mesa. It is consist of performances that is

relevant and connected to peace and solidarity, that is led by both local and international artist.

The whole program is completely comprised of performance arts that have a unique style

of communicating their message through the audience. Though, our group focused on the

performances that has a concept of robbery – life, wealth, and rights. In the current bloodthirsty

society, slaughtering thousands of people, under the campaign of war on drugs, it’s considered

as robbery, as it mindlessly stole the life of human being. The icons, wherein people are

blindfolded and handcuffed, it is considered to be robbery because it stole the rights of human

being to see and get involve to the particular issue. Corruption is no longer new for the

government, it is a form of robbery of wealth, as it took the money and fund of the country.
 There are plenty of evidences to show that almost all the performance art relies on four

elements including body, audience, space and time. In the following performances, they

essentially used their body, including their movement and noise, to deliver the content of their

performance art. It was used to give emphasis and to settle the mood or atmosphere of their

performance. Moreover, the following performances, maintained an interaction between the

audiences. The audience becomes the essential element, without which the performance wouldn’t

make any progress. Therefore, it is very wise to focus on the following element, body and

engagement, in order to give a meaningful critique, for those elements were prominent on all of

the performances that our group chose.