Gracielle V is the biggest popstar in the Philippines. 24 hours before the biggest show of her life, she’s kidnapped.With time running out, Gracielle’s fans have no choice but to form a vigilante group to track the kidnappers down and rescue their pop star - and their country.It’s time to throw out the rules. Are you willing to do what it takes?
Are You Ready To Take The Law Into Your Own Hands? is an explosive live action performance by Manila theatre company the Sipat Lawin Ensemble.Combining action, dance and a barrage of iconic Filipino pop music, Are You Ready is the guns-blazing adventure through the contemporary Philippines you've been waiting for.
The hunt for the kidnapped pop star takes the vigilantes on a journey from street beauty pageants to political protests, from underground MC battles to glamorous senator's mansions.There’s mystic rituals to raise the dead, rooftop chases, knife fights in the back of speeding jeepneys, underwater gun battles, passion and love.And of course, there's music. From 1970s acoustic anthems to contemporary Filipino hiphop, from viral Youtube techno to iconic OPM (Original Pinoy Music) power ballads, Are You Ready is a showcase of Filipino pop music at its best.
Behind the glossy projections and edgy fashions, the ultra-slick dance moves and remorseless entertainment, there’s a hall of mirrors where art and propaganda become almost indistinguishable. It makes for gut-wrenching, unsettling subtext.However avowedly “not political” this show may claim to be, probably the closest analogues in European culture would be the work of Belarus Free Theatre and Pussy Riot, or Brecht in Threepenny Opera mode.The talent, courage and urgency that fuel this all-singing, all-dancing satire of celebrity culture make electrifying theatre.– Cameron Woodhead, The AgeAre You Ready to Take the Law into your Own Hands is as flashy, glitzy and energetic as it is intelligent, subversive and fun. It takes popular entertainment forms that shouldn’t necessarily work together, the action adventure and the glamour contest, and smashes them into each other in a delightful way that doesn’t entirely conceal how intelligent it is.– Rob Reid, Witness
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
The Sipat Lawin Ensemble is a site-specific performance company based in Manila, engaged in creating a contemporary community theater experience inside and/or outside the four walls of the theater.Previous work includes immersive cult-hit Battalia Royale, crowd-sourced musical LOVE: This Is Not Yet A Musical, and the participatory documentary about creating your own government Gobyerno.Are You Ready was first produced at Green Sun in Manila in August 2018, and then at Arts House in Melbourne, as part of the AsiaTOPA Festival.Pics on this page by Sarah Walker.
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FILIPINO PRIDE
Take a peek into the performing Philippines in 2018: a taste of some of the inspiration for the world of Are You Ready.
President Rodrigo Duterte does the viral Budots dance in Davao City.
Bayan Ko interpretive dancing.
Mascot anti-drug campaign.
Duterte campaign video.
Scary lipsynch vid.
Iconic TV soap star Lily Cruz is back in the best TV scene of all time.