The body is both the subject and location of her practice; it also becomes the site of unlearning in the ways in which Jocson trains and subjects herself to different physical regiments. Each work embeds her body’s changing sensibility and stance.
She studies how the body moves and what conditions make it move – be it social mobility or movement out of the Philippines through migrant work. In all her creations – from pole to macho dancing and hostess to Disney princess studies – capital is the driving force of movement pushing the indentured body into spatial geographies.
Eisa Jocson is a contemporary choreographer and dancer from the Philippines, trained as a visual artist, with a background in ballet. She has been commissioned by and toured extensively with major contemporary festivals with her solo triptych: Death of the Pole Dancer (2011), Macho Dancer (2013) and Host (2015). Macho Dancer won the prestigious Zurcher Kantonalbank Acknowledgement Prize at the Zurich Theater Spektakel in 2013.
In her new series, HAPPYLAND (2017), Part 1: Princess is a duet with Filipino performance artist Russ Ligtas, Part 2: Your Highness is a collaboration with five dancers from Ballet Philippines and the third part is set to premiere in summer 2020. This series continues to investigate Filipino labor, the performance of happiness and the production of fantasy within the happiness empire. Princess has been selected as one of the outstanding contemporary productions for the 2018 edition of Tanzplattform, Germany.
She recently premiered a new work commissioned by Sharjah Biennale 2019 titled: The Filipino Superwoman Band, a work that looks into the affective labor of Overseas Filipino Musicians. A recipient of the 2018 Cultural Centre of the Philippines 13 Artists Award, she won the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award 2019.
