Blind Together — Body, Space, and Perception in the Dark a workshop by Toffee Sabklong and Ong Pholchai
Workshop Session: 2.5 hours, Mon Feb 9: 1:00-3:30 p.m. UP College of Music Dance Studio☘️
Interested participants may register on or before 5 FEBRUARY 2026 at bit.ly/BTParticipants or by scanning the QR code. — Blind Together — Body, Space, and Perception in the Dark is an experiential movement workshop that invites participants to encounter the body without relying on vision. Through movement, listening, touch, and spatial awareness, the workshop explores how perception reorganizes when sight is no longer the primary sense. By temporarily embracing visual limitation, participants investigate how the body reads space, relates to others, and navigates uncertainty through non-visual modes of knowing.
The process gently guides participants into unfamiliar bodily states—hesitation, vulnerability, disorientation, or lack of confidence—and offers practical ways to remain present with these sensations. Drawing inspiration from the working methods of blind dancers and Contact Improvisation, the workshop engages perception at multiple levels: bodily orientation, listening, touch, spatial navigation, and interpersonal communication. The session also opens critical questions around inclusive and accessible performance, proposing the body as a site of shared perception rather than visual mastery.
We are pleased to announce that we are now accepting applications for the UP Diliman Honorific Award for Student Performing Arts Group (UPD-HASPAG) Cycle 4 (2026-2029).
Interested performing organizations should accomplish the Intent to Apply form on or before 17 February 2026 through bit.ly/UPDHASPAGApplication to start the application process.
For further inquiries, you may contact us via email at haspag_pasp_oica.upd@up.edu.ph.
— The UP Diliman Honorific Award for Student Performing Arts Group (UPD HASPAG) is an awards system under the Artist Support Program of the UP Diliman Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts (UPD-OICA). It gives qualified groups the honorific title “Official Student Performing Arts Group of UP Diliman (OSPAG).” The OSPAG holds the appointment for three years and is entitled to an annual incentive grant of PhP250,000.00 to be used for the group’s major productions.
The UP Diliman Office for Initiatives in Culture and the Arts (UPD-OICA), together with the UP Dance Company and the Quezon City Person with Disability Affairs Office (QC PDAO), invites volunteer performers to take part in BLIND TOGETHER, a site-responsive performance project exploring access, perception, and embodied ways of knowing.
The project is conceived and led by Thai blind performing artist Toffee Tabklong, facilitated by Thai artist and activist Nitipat Ong Phochai, and centers non-visual approaches to movement, sound, and performance.
We Are Looking For:
20 movement-based performers 10 musicians (open to all instruments and sound-based practices)
This is a volunteer-based artistic collaboration open to UP students, faculty, alumni, independent artists, and community members interested in inclusive, socially engaged, and experimental performance.
Schedule Volunteer-artists must be present at all rehearsals and the performance proper.
Orientation: February 2, 2:00 PM Rehearsals: February 2, 4, 6, 9, and 11, 4:30 PM Technical Rehearsal: February 12, 3:00 PM Public Showcase: February 13, 4:00 PM
Join us in creating a shared space of listening, movement, and access.
Ating gunitain ang buhay ni Dr. Jose Rizal—isang siyentista, pilosopo, makata—sa pamamagitan ng pagyakap sa iba’t ibang uri ng kaalaman at kakayahan at sa pagsasaloob ng mga ito sa iba’t ibang uring serbisyong pampubliko tungo sa isang marangal, makatarungan, at mulat na pagpapairal ng nasyonalism sa ating lipunan.
Ito ang ilang piling mga sulatin tungkol sa buhay ni Dr. Jose Rizal, na nagpapakita ng kanyang paglago bilang intelektual at rebolusyonaryo:
Mojares, Resil B. “Jose Rizal in the World of German Anthropology.” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 41, no. 3/4 (2013): 163–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43854727.
Capino, Diosdado G. “Jose Rizal and His Meaning for Germany.” Internationales Jahrbuch Für Geschichtsunterricht 8 (1961): 183–94. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43054787.
Ocampo, Ambeth R. “Rizal’s Morga and Views of Philippine History.” Philippine Studies 46, no. 2 (1998): 184–214. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42634257.
GUILLERMO, RAMON. “Moral Forces, Philosophy of History, and War in José Rizal.” Philippine Studies: Historical & Ethnographic Viewpoints 60, no. 1 (2012): 5–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42634701.
Ocampo, Estaban A. de. “Dr. Jose Rizal, Father of Filipino Nationalism.” Journal of Southeast Asian History 3, no. 1 (1962): 44–55. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0217781100000545.