JASMINE ORPILLA is a multipliced Ilokana/x-American vocal performance artist and operatic composer of experimental theatrical sound installations, in which she activates her lifelong practices of folk ritual dance, combat systems and music of the Philippine diaspora, against the contemporary American framing of the 1st-generation, imperialist military culture of her own childhood. Unlimited by “soprano” nor so-called classical beauty, her unfiltered voice-in-motion exorcizes eurocentric performance structures from her muscle memory, while remaining accountable to the oral legacies and languages of the Indigenous Pilipino musical systems she, her family and community remains indebted to.* With decades embodying center with her energetically intensive solo practice as a multi-instrumental and multilingual writer/performer, Jasmine Orpilla’s work serves to humanize and honor the intersectionality of the Filipina/x-American body in agency, despite ongoing minimization of colonial history’s revisionist narratives.
Jasmine Orpilla’s performance installations are intentionally embedded with materials from her own family archives such as portraiture, heirloom jewelry, clay pottery, rare hand-woven cloth, uniforms, medallions, defunct weaponry, soil, bone, gold, copper, hand-forged musical instruments and handwritten letters. Fragile materials that have survived wartime, she creates with them a kinetic, movement and sound-sensitive space in which to re-visit, elevate or question the inter-generationally impacted stories preserved in each object, while marking their decay over time in correlation to her voice and body.
Following intensive experience with world-renowned theatre and opera directors such as Ariane Mnouchkine at Théâtre du Soleil, and Peter Sellars, over the past 10 years Jasmine Orpilla has taken space, internationally performing in genre-defying voices at REDCAT, CAP UCLA, LACMA, Hauser & Wirth, Hammer Museum, Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, Walt Disney Concert Hall Los Angeles, Kampnagel Hamburg, Germany, Theatre de La Villette Paris, France, HAU Hebbel Berlin, Germany, and more. Jasmine Orpilla’s solo and collaborative work has been supported by Creative Capital, United Artists, California Arts Council, Alliance for California Traditional Arts, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Durfee Foundation, the Mairie de Paris, France, and more.
Jasmine Orpilla’s art is personally based on the urgency of being one of the last knowledge bearers in her family. She continues to dedicate her latest works to the memory of her elders from Vigan, Ilocos Sur, Baguio, Benguet and Asingan, Pangasinan.
*As a Fil-Am culture worker on the unceded, ancestral Tongvaangar, she remains an ally to the Tongva people’s cultural preservation and land back rights. She is additionally committed to supporting the human rights, ancestral lands, creative livelihoods and legacies of the Tausug of the Sulu archipelago, the Maguindanao and Maranao of Lake Lanao, the Indigenous groups and women of the Lumad, the Igorot Indigenous groups throughout the entire Philippine Cordillera Administrative Region, and their BIBAK support communities taking refuge in the worldwide diaspora.
(above) In “How Many Years Did We Fight the Beast Together” by Jasmine Orpilla, ©2018. Photo credit: Carole Kim. (below) “Eukaliptus-Bagras series” by Jasmine Orpilla, ©2024. Photo credit: Ian Byers-Gamber.
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