Eisa Jocson (PH)

Eisa Jocson is a contemporary choreographer and dancer from the Philippines. Trained as a visual artist, with a background in ballet, she won her first pole-dancing competition in Manila in 2010. Her 3 solo works; Death of the Pole Dancer (2011), Macho Dancer (2013) and Host (2015) has toured extensively in major festivals worldwide, including Impulstanz, Vienna (2013), Noorderzon, Groningen (2013 & 2015), Tanz im August, Berlin (2013 & 2015), Zurich Theater Spektakel (2012, 2013, 2015 & 2017), Theatre der Welt (2014), Asia Triennial of Performing Arts, Melbourne (2017). The solos have been presented as a trilogy in LIVEWORKS festival in Sydney (2016) and Counterpulse festival & SF MOMA in San Francisco (2016). Macho Dancer won the Zürcher Kantonalbank Acknowledgement Prize 2013. She had her first solo exhibition, Philippine Macho Academy (2014) in Vargas Museum, University of the Philippines.

From pole to macho dancing to hostess work, Eisa investigates the labour and representations of the dancing body in the service industry, and exposes identity and gender formation, seduction politics, and Filipino social mobility. Under the HAPPYLAND (2017) series, her new creation Princess a duet with Filipino performance artist Russ Ligtas and Your Highness a collaboration with 5 dancers from Ballet Philippines is a continuation of her investigation into Filipino labour, performance of happiness and production of fantasy within the happiness empire.