Madame B.
"Madame B. is my firstborn. She surfaced when I was drowning in the morose of my third and most violent break-up. Through her, I exercise and exorcise the grief I inherit from my ancestors and the violence continually perpetuated on my queer body through the processes of discrimination and exclusion.
I give time and space for trauma to take the shape of a mad lover. In every performance, whether in 8-hour durations or momentary apparations, I peel off the generations and regenerations of rejection, victimhood, and abandonment in ritualized acts of catharsis for myself and the public."
Happy
"In 2010, I went to a psychiatrist for symptoms of depression. She gave me two things on my first visit: a diagnosis and a prescription for mood-stabilizers, anti-psychotics, and sleeping pills. After some time, I could no longer make sense of my treatment so I decided to self-medicate. I began to wear my true colors: a wandering fool in search of the holy hearth of joy, purpose, and belonging.
I staged my own therapy. I performed Happy's birth as a ritual admission of my mental condition. I told their sad story wherever I could—from the safety of interior spaces to the wilderness of cities. I invited the public to unusual practices of self-care like burying oneself in the soil of a mountain to recharge the body and the soul".
Roland Buenaviaje
Roland is a dream figure of the subconscious void from which his counterpart Happy arises. He is the city vagabond caught, trapped, and inexorably consumed by the urban rat race after leaving his island home.
Restless, Roland is out of reality's touch. He undertakes absurd Sisyphean tasks. He dives for treasures in a waterless detritus-filled swimming pool. He relentlessly reaches for impossible prizes dangling from a pole attached to his back. He renders his feet useless for the sole purpose of utilizing a spare pair of crutches.
The Other: Ariel
Ariel is an alien mermaid spirit from the deep blue. She has come to the human world to seek aid and shelter from a deathly climate of fear and despair. Emerging during President Duterte's drug war in the Philippines, Ariel reveals the darker truths of a time in the artist's life where the malevolent powers of murder, malice, and malaise reigned supreme in his inner and outer worlds.
Russ Hour
The eponymous host of the livestream phenomena inside the largest gay social media app in the world: Blued (now HeeSay), Russ Hour began as a social experiment on e-democracy within a specific online gay community. For over two years, Russ Hour made daily appearances depicting an ideal life and image of a pan-Asian cosmopolitan aesthete to elicit responses and reactions from every race, age-group, type, and social class that comprise his 150,000++ followers.
Ba Ba Bu Yas Yas
Ba Ba Bu Yas Yas is a high shaman of the indigenous Hapi, an ancient tribe of sea nomads subsisting along the coastlines of the Philippine archipelago. Ba Ba Bu Yas Yas lived along the shores of Manila Bay for ten years as steward of a Banwa(territory) in Malate, Manila. He has since migrated to the United States and has become the de facto ambassador of Hapi culture to the Western world. He is one of the last known remaining Ba Ba.
