Created by: Justin Talplacido Shoulder
Inhabiting the nature spirits of the Philippines, or the anitos, Justin Talplacido Shoulder and Victoria Hunt give ANITO life as individual and combined bizarre creatures. Their dance is at times instantly familiar and at times disconcertingly alien, and transports the audience to an invitingly mysterious land.
ANITO harnesses its power from its costume and design (Matthew Stegh, Anthony Aitch, and Talplacido Shoulder). This craft repurposes the shiny, artificial material of sleeping bags into animalistic hide and squelching fungal spores. However, whenever any visual or dance element lures the audience into any degree of comfort with a natural scene, in comes crashing the electronic dissonance of the soundtrack. At times industrial, at times acidic, it is experimental techno repurposed into the sounds of the rainforest.
There is something deeply unsettling at play here, a darkness that is pervasive through every movement and interaction. Everything appears to be harvesting itself, everything feeds. The most humanlike creature is also the most sinister. This creature feels as if it does not belong; its costume and jerking movements demonstrating that it has managed to evolve itself outside of place, outside of home.
As an entire experience, ANITO comes in waves. Waves of engagement, waves of boredom, waves of discomfort, waves of peace, waves of awkwardness, waves of confidence. There are brief, flittering moments of beauty. Primarily, when one is reminded that a person is creating this movement, this exquisite position with intention and care.
Nevertheless, when one is drawn back into the fiction of the ANITO, there is very little beauty here. It feels harsh and cruel, at times somewhat erotic in an unnerving way. Werner Herzog said in Burden of Dreams, “There is no harmony in the universe. We have to get acquainted to this idea that there is no real harmony as we have conceived it. But when I say this, I say this all full of admiration for the jungle. It is not that I hate it, I love it. I love it very much. But I love it against my better judgment.” ANITO, without language, distils this experience and pierces through the mist of modern life, drilling the magnificence and horror of nature directly into the audience’s mind.
Despite its unsettling elements, there is admiration in the silence that hangs over the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre, and a care from Talplacido Shoulder in the creation of ANITO. There may not be a great feeling of a utopian future, but folklore is not always kind. The cacophony of electronic beats and rainforest chirps envision some future, with or without humans, where life continues. There may be endless interpretations of Talplacido Shoulder’s intent with ANITO; whether or not it is a hopeful piece is not clear, but looking at the version of a world presented through a lens that centres the spirits starts to give some comfort.
From the audience’s human perspective, the scenes depict a world without their presence, a nature viewed as it really is and not through some naïve 18th-century Romantic lens. From the anito’s perspective, a spiritual perspective beyond the coloniser’s influence, ANITO is life as it is, and always was, before the blip of humanity tried to extract all life from the land.
Runs until 8 November 2025
KUNSTY runs until 8 November at Southbank Centre
The Reviews Hub Star Rating
70%
Strange unsettling beauty