Eisa Jocson
Corponomy Archive
2019
Documentation of training videos & research from the Artist’s archives
The term ‘Corponomy’ is one that Jocson uses to describe the body as it adapts to different economic situations, as well as the dynamic relationship between marginalised communities and mass culture. Comprising an intertextual installation of dance sequences, training videos, and research archives, Jocson inhabits a wide repertoire of genres attributed to Philippine migrant workers operating in the entertainment and service industries across the world. By conditioning her body to fit into these diverse roles, Jocson is able to re-route the original functions of these dances, contemplating the representational possibilities of migrant Filipino bodies, and bringing such contemplations to the public sphere.
About Eisa Jocson：
b. 1986, Philippines
Lives and works in Philippines
Eisa Jocson is a contemporary choreographer and visual artist based in Manila. Jocson focuses on the body in dance to investigate its representation through the prisms of gender and identity, as well as the service and entertainment industries. Her work often emphasizes particular aspects of body politics, such as labor, social mobility, or the dynamics of seduction, refracted through the socioeconomic context of the Philippines. She studies how the body moves and what conditions make it move – be it social mobility or movement out of Philippines through migrant work. She has taken part in numerous performing arts festivals around the world, including the Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Zürich (2012, 2013, 2015, 2017); Tanz im August, Berlin (2013, 2015); the Asia Triennial of Performing Arts (2017); and Dance Platform Germany 2018. In 2014 she held a solo exhibition, Philippine Macho Academy, at the Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center, University of the Philippines, Manila. She has participated in international exhibitions including RAM HIGHLIGHT 2018: Is It My Body? at Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai (2018); Leaving the Echo Chamber, Sharjah Biennial 14 (2019); and My Body Holds Its Shape at Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2020). A recipient of the 2018 Cultural Centre of the Philippines 13 Artists Award, she won the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award 2019 and received the 2020 SeMa-HANA Award at the Seoul MediaCity Biennale.