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Macho Dance Workshop

Eisa Jocson

Sincerely Yours, the Philippines Dance Workshop
The photo shows dancer Eisa Jocson in a backward bent pose with her arms outstretched. She is wearing shorts and boots, and the scene is bathed in blue light.
The photo shows dancer Eisa Jocson in shorts and boots striking a dynamic pose on a stage lit by red lighting. Her arms and legs are stretched out expressively.
The photo shows performer Eisa Jocson with long black hair in a pose on the floor, her upper body bent backward. She is wearing black shorts and boots.
Sincerely Yours, the Philippines Dance Workshop

Macho Dance Workshop

Eisa Jocson

Be a macho man for once! Anything is possible on this evening. Eisa Jocson, choreographer, dancer, and curator of “Sincerely Yours, The Philippines,” introduces the basics of macho dancing in a one-hour workshop followed by a dance party. Macho dancing is a dance technique performed exclusively by men in Manila’s nightclubs. Eisa Jocson learned this technique for her solo “Macho Dancer,” which made her internationally famous and with which she has not only appeared several times at Mousonturm, but also in the 2016 video “Ho do you like my cut” by singer Peaches. In it, Jocson continues to captivate audiences around the world with her slow, circular hip movements. She flexes her muscles, conveying power and dominance through tension and poses, thus blurring the boundaries between the sexes. In her workshop, Eisa Jocson invites participants to explore the physicality of macho dance, its distinctive postures, gait, and various poses. After learning the basics in the first part of the evening, participants can then experiment with what they have learned in a macho dance party and declare war on machismo and patriarchy in a playful mimicry.   

Infos

Tanzkenntnisse sind nicht erforderlich – alle können mitmachen. Bitte Schuhe mit Gummisohlen und bequeme Kleidung mitbringen. Für den Workshop werden Knieschoner empfohlen.

Sponsors and Supporters

„Sincerely Yours, the Philippines“ ist ein Projekt des Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in Kooperation mit dem Goethe-Institut Philippinen. Gefördert durch die Kulturstiftung des Bundes, gefördert von dem Beauftragten für Kultur und Medien. Gefördert durch den Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain, das Goethe-Institut und „Philippinen - Ehrengast der Frankfurter Buchmesse 2025“.

Biography

Eisa Jocson is a visual artist and choreographer based in Manila (Philippines). She is a trained visual artist and had her first dance experiences in ballet and pole dance.  Her work exposes the politics of the body in the service and entertainment industry from the unique socio-economic perspective of the Philippines. She explores how the body moves and the conditions under which it moves - be it social mobility or movement out of the Philippines through migration. In all of her creations - from pole dance, macho dance and hostess work to her studies of Disney princesses, Superwoman and zoo animals - capital is the driving force of movement, pushing the conscripted body into spatial geographies. Jocson has a close working relationship with the Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm. The Mousonturm has co-produced or produced many of her works. She has presented many of them at numerous major festivals and regularly performs at theaters around the world; with the solo triptych: Death of the Pole Dancer (2011), Macho Dancer (2013) and Host (2015) as well as with the HAPPYLAND series: Princess (2017), Your Highness (2017), Manila Zoo (2021). The Filipino Superwoman Band (2019), a work about the affective labor of Filipino musicians overseas, was commissioned by the Sharjah Biennial. She is a winner of the 2018 Cultural Center of the Philippines 13 Artists Award, winner of the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award in 2019 and received the 2021 SeMa-HANA Award for the work TFSB2020: Superwoman, Empire Of Care at the Seoul MediaCity Biennale.