EMBODIED QUEER COMMUNITY:

Performing Buhol-Buhol on the Dance Floor

Of ‘Today x Future’ in Manila

Ian Ramirez

The Filipino’s love of festivity has transcended to the present time and it is incredibly
evident during different Philippine “pista”—a statefunded community gathering in celebration
of the town’s patron where a community narrative/shared history is performed and the best the
town has to offer is showcased through activities, food, and the warm hospitality and talents
of the people. This presentation analyzes LGBT party sites in Metro Manila, specifically Today
x Future (TxF), as space for the gathering of mixed people and considering their performance
of a shared narrative as manifestations of a “Cosmopolitan Pista.” Considering this narrative
of the Filipino LGBT, the presentation aims to disprove the divisiveness in hierarchy through
reflecting two key aspects on analyzing the “performance” found in TxF: formed relationships
between bodies and dance movements of the bodies. The presentation relies on Sir Anril
Tiatco’s notion of the “Buhol-buhol” and Jonathan Bollen’s “Queer Kinesthesia” in analyzing
these relationships.

The Filipino’s love of festivity has transcended to the present time and it is incredibly
evident during different Philippine pista—a state-funded gathering of a community in
celebration of the town’s patron where a community narrative / shared history is performed
and the best the town has to offer is showcased through activities, food, and the warm
hospitality and talents of the people (Tiatco 45). Taking from the celebratory nature of the pista,
situating it in cosmopolitan areas like Metro Manila, the sense of community gathering may no
longer be confined on the normative structure of the pista itself.
In this paper, I will analyze LGBT party sites in the Metro, specifically Today x Future
(TxF) as a space for the gathering of mixed people and considering their performance of a
shared narrative as manifestations of a “Cosmopolitan Pista.”
In Garcia’s essay “Philippine Gay Culture: An Update and a Postcolonial
Autocritique,” he argues that albeit there is increase in the national consciousness and while
the majority still “repetitively perform” these struggles, the “Filipino nation” continues to be
erased and abjected by the global capitalists (113). Here, Garcia effectively highlights and
raises the concerns and the struggles of the Filipino LGBT—the continuing divisions in
hierarchy on sexual orientations as imposed by global capitalists. Putting it in Tiatco’s terms,

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the Filipino LGBT is indeed entrapped. Considering this narrative of the Filipino LGBT, I aim
to disprove the divisiveness in hierarchy through reflecting on two key aspects on analyzing
the community’s performance in TxF: formed relationships between bodies and dance
movements of the bodies. I will use Tiatco’s notion of the “Buhol-buhol” and Bollen’s “Queer
Kinesthesia” in analyzing these relationships. Looking into TxF as a site of queer
performativity, what does it really mean to say when we speak of diversity being celebrated
without the imposition of a heteronormative perspective? Does that involve the liberation of
entrapped bodies?

Bodies on Today x Future

Today x Future situated near Cubao Expo, Quezon City is a resto-bar infused with art,
music, and literature. The place opens at ten in the evening and closes at four in morning. The
common scenes found on TxF are people drinking and conversing with each other and people
dancing on the dance floor. Oftentimes, Fridays are considered party nights but Saturdays are
the legitimate party nights at TxF. In this paper, I note on my observations from my last visit
to TxF in order to analyze the different bodily relationships formed between people and the
movement of the bodies.
Upon my arrival at TxF at around 12:30 am, I immediately noticed fewer people on the
exterior considering that it was a Saturday. Disregarding that matter, I entered the door into the
interior space of TxF. Inside, I was greeted by the DJ playing popular music, the smiles of the
people dancing on the dance floor, and the red light which says “The Future is Now.” Since
the amount of people inside are still relatively few, it makes Cru Camara’s “Color Split” photo
exhibit entirely visible, as well as the wide range of books and music records on shelves
hanging on the wall. Meanwhile, the people are composed of a mix of a few foreigners and
locals and familiar and unfamiliar faces (some of which are known people in the art, music and
entertainment industry namely Mikel Avarez, Jer Dee, Mike Magallanes, and Juan Miguel
Severo, although Severo came at the latter part of the night). Generally, the crowd was
composed of predominantly millennials and LGBT people; all are wearing day clothes but
differs on palette (some wears a black-white ensemble while others wear bright 80s palette.)
As I buy my drink, the DJ suddenly stopped playing which marks the change of DJ.
As DJ Roberto Sena sets up, I move back to the dance floor waiting for the set to start.
Sena began his set with Cindi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” setting the energy higher
than that of the preceding DJ. A few minutes passed and people, TxF residents, rapidly fill up

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the space. On that moment, TxF became so alive. As Sena plays music such as Whitney
Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and “How Will I Know,” KC and the Sunshine
Band’s “Shake Your Booty,” Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and many more, the people
now becomes dancers as they jump in swinging motion alternately raising their hands to the
beat while uttering the lyrics of the songs. The tightening of the space makes close contacts
between bodies, thus creating an intimate space for a social dance. As the songs continue to
shift, people just move around depending on the beat of the music. Meanwhile, as time
approaches to almost 3 am, the DJ starts playing songs with relatively slower rhythm thus
making people embrace each other while some gay and lesbian couples are doing a sweet
dance. After this, the DJ plays lively music again and one of which was “We are Family” by
The Sister Sledge.
Generally, the experience TxF left on me was a memory of being among others whether
with friends and/or strangers. The feeling of the body being connected to other bodies stays
and the hype brought by the music lingers, still. As manifested on the free moving of the bodies,
freedom is indeed a part of the event. The feeling of finding yourself moving to the beat with
everyone else in synchronicity leaves the mark of a collective experience. But what do those
body relations mean in terms of identities?

Buhol-buhol on the Dance Floor

As conceived by Tiatco, entanglement may be considered as a “condition of overlaps
and a condition of blending or mixing together” (20). Thus, a complexity as entanglement is
manifested through his four vectors: representations, relationships, histories, and genres.
Understanding TxF as a complex phenomenon among millennials and LGBT in Metro
Manila is an attempt to affirm the buhol-buhol on the dance floor. Queer performativities
manifested on the dance floor through the inter-relations between bodies, and the reactions of
bodies to the music provide an understanding on the type of mixing and matching present on
TxF’s dance floor. To futher understand how I conceive buhol-buhol on the dance floor of TxF,
it is necessary to look at Bollen’s notion of desire in “dancing among others.”
Bollen considers “dancing among others” as “one of the defining features of the dance-
floor experience is an involving engagement in relations with others” (292). He also considers
the demands of the dance floor as becoming an enactment of desiring relations and capacities.
Thus, what constitutes the buhol-buhol on the dance floor is the mixing and matching of
different representations of identities manifested through the way the people dressed and the
familiar and the unfamiliar faces in forming relationships. Nevertheless, the mere inter-relation

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of different bodies affirms the buhol-buhol on the dance floor. But if performing a community
is through becoming one or becoming as a community, what does the shift from buhol-buhol
to that oneness means?

Affiriming T x F as a Queer Community

A similarity in both Bollen’s and Tiatco’s theories are their reiteration of opening the
self to others. In Bollen’s essay, he outlines the impact of space on the openness and closeness
of bodies in dwelling with others, the synchronicity and imitation as manifested through the
“becoming-other” and the illogicality of morphological differences of the bodies thus paying
attention on identities and queer kinesthesia as movement. Meanwhile, Tiatco proposes in his
essay that “the narrative of the pista therefore, begins with this template of hospitality or
opening up the self to others” (57).
This “becoming-other” as proposed by Bollen is manifested through “the invasion of
the self by the gestures of others” (311). Using this proposition, I posit that the bodies
experiencing the dance floor on TxF are “becoming-other” in terms of moving together with
everybody else. Meanwhile, considering Lawrence’s outlining of the disco culture as parallel
with the queer narrative, and that dance music in TxF is composed mainly of disco, it is safe to
assume that the “other” which bodies on TxF become, is “queer.” Thus, bodies on TxF are not
only “becoming-other,” but they are “becoming-queer.”
This becoming homogeneous of an originally heterogeneous mixture of individuals
makes the becoming of a queer community possible. Thus, TxF is a venue of performing queer
community and performativity that shares the same colonial histories. Nevertheless, the
becoming as one still shows the celebration of diversity thus affirming the buhol-buhol on TxF.
Putting TxF as ‘Queer Community’ thus defines it as a venue for a gathering of a
“becoming-queer” community and celebrating diversity and shared histories through dancing
to the music of the disco.

What Matters: We Are Family

Living life is fun and we've just begun
To get our share of this world's delights
High, high hopes we have for the future
And our goal's in sight
We, no we don't get depressed
Here's what we call our golden rule
Have faith in you and the things you do
You won't go wrong, oh-no
This is our family Jewel
-Sister Sledge, “We Are Family”

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 What matters most in the performance of a queer community in TxF is the experience
of a family that one gets. With the hierarchy of divisions on sexual orientations still existing, it
enables global capitalists to step on the sexual minorities and not give them an identity. Despite
the huge impact of the global market on TxF, it still, as a venue where queer performativity is
performed raises consciousness on Philippine queer culture. With the advent of more spaces
where queer is performed (i.e. Poison Wednesdays and O Bar), raising the concern on the
narrative can be more effectively done. Nevertheless, it is important to promote the sense of
“Family” across the “Filipino Nation.”

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REFERENCES CITED

Bollen, Jonathan. “Queer Kinesthesia: Performativity on the Dance Floor.” Dancing Desires:
Choreographing Sexualities On and Off the Stage, edited by Jane Desmond, Society
for Dance History Scholars & University of Wisconsin Press, 2001.

Garcia, J. Neil C. “Philippine Gay Culture: An Update and a Postcolonial Autocritique.” The
Postcolonial Perverse: Critiques of Contemporary Philippine Culture, vol. 2, The
University of the Philippines Press, 2014, 81-123.

Hughes, Walter. “In The Empire of the Beat: Discipline and Disco.” Microphone Friends:
Youth Music and Youth Culture, Routledge, 1994, 147-57.

Lawrence, Tim. “Disco and the Queering of the Dance Floor.” Queer Adventures in Cultural
Studies, edited by Angela McRobbie, 25, 2, 2011: 230-243.

Sister Sledge. “We Are Family.” We Are Family, Cotillion Records, 1979.

Tiatco, Sir Anril P. “Pista.” Buhol-buhol / Entanglement: Contemporary Theatre in

Metropolitan Manila, Peter Lang, 2017, 41-81.

Tiatco, Sir Anril P. “Patibong.” Buhol-buhol / Entanglement: Contemporary Theatre in

Metropolitan Manila, Peter Lang, 2017, 125-155.