Holland Festival: Pearls -Joshua Serafin

A ritual of healing

Before the arrival of the strict Catholic Spaniards in the 16th century, identity in the 'Pearl of the East' was not a matter of clearly defined contradictions. It was considered fluid and non-binary and rooted in the divine. High Priestesses embodied this gender diversity and passed it on to subsequent generations. Serafin and his fellow actors in the Philippines rewrite history and imagine a future where bodies become divine again, away from conventional gender norms.

In this way, PEARLS wants to be more than a performance but a healing ritual. The three performers (Serafin on stage and the two other performers via a live connection) share the pain they experience as queer and trans people with brown bodies. They know how to transform their stories of trauma into scenes of unprecedented beauty, just as oysters can do by covering a strange and abrasive particle with layers until it becomes a beautiful pearl.