SAMMAY : Who Is This Person? Stop. See. Oh!
/When my digestive system must detoxify with the assistance of Indigenous De-vicing
Along comes Daluyan
And the dazzle of Dizon
The mustard under my hands, driving the Drum
And a Prayer. And a Finding. And the Crush
of stones beneath my feet
When dirt
became
Golden.
-opening piece for “Daluyan,” directed by SAMMAY, May 2019, Bindlestiff Studio, San Francisco, California
SAMMAY and Author (Photo courtesy of Sammay Dizon)
Last May, UxI celebrated its sixth iteration in hybrid virtual and live spaces, masked and socially distanced, as per CDC protocols. The in-person Closing Event at Kapwa Gardens in San Francisco, out in fresh air, with a soundscape by music duo Astralogik, and a mini- Daluyan workshop by SAMMAY, eased socializing with human beings again after 15 months of pandemic isolation. It was SAMMAY’s excellent way of casting a space of inclusiveness and beautiful energy.
In 2019, I was a cohort member in the production “Daluyan” (Vessel), which consisted of an 11- week intensive workshop series in embodied storytelling, culminating in a live performance at Bindlestiff Studio in the SOMA Pilipinas district of San Francisco. When I first enrolled in the workshop, my interest stemmed from a desire to explore the healing of intergenerational trauma. What would happen if I enrolled in a workshop when the odds were that I would be the eldest member of the cohort where my pre-perceived place in intergenerational healing might become redefined along the continuum we collectively chose to walk? And, what if I tried doing something I don’t yet know how to do? Yes, I am a storyteller, but dance to me is not a familiar medium of expression.
UxI Closing Event at Kapwa Gardens (Photo by Michelle Lapitan)
Still, embodied storytelling intrigued me. The challenge of moving into a world unknown deeply awakened my senses. However, when I learned that our workshop would eventually morph into a live performance, I almost ran the other way (I did not tell this to SAMMAY.) In this offering, SAMMAY intentionally centered BIPOC women and non-binary experiences with interwoven stories and artistic expressions through dance and written word. In retrospect, the most profound lesson I learned by being an active participant in “Daluyan” is that intergenerational exchange arises from the courage to approach and offer your gifts even if you yourself don’t even know what gifts will present themselves. SAMMAY was the perfect director to hold such a space for the broad variety of talent who answered the call.
Daughter of Yolanda Peñaflor Dizon and Eduardo Agdeppa Dizon, Samantha Peñaflor Dizon’s work always contains an aspect of homage to her parents, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines. Indeed, when I asked her where she’d like to begin, she immediately spoke of her parents, attributing her scrappy, determined mentality to the gusto of her parents who did so much with so little.
“I work really hard and not just working really hard, but working really strategically, doing a lot with a little--specifically financial resources,” SAMMAY says.
Since graduating from UC Berkeley in 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Studies/Sociology, with minors in Dance and Performance Studies /Global Poverty & Practice, SAMMAY has continued to be a student of community and theater. Even as an audience member, SAMMAY is always learning. “I think that is what it means to be Filipino. Like what it means to be an immigrant, or a child of immigrants.
In 2021, “Hinga (Breath),” a film SAMMAY conceived and directed, made its debut in CAAMFest. With movement, prayer, spoken word, and performance ritual, “Hinga” is also a tribute to the late, gone-too-soon Fil-Am activist and community organizer Amado Khaya Canham Rodriguez. It is not your average film, and the team faced the challenge of which category to choose: Narrative? Experimental? “It’s more the elements: spoken word, composition that has inspiration from indigenous Philippine music, dance. There’s dance. There’s ritual.”
“Hinga” poster (Poster by Eduardo Daza Taylor IV)
SAMMAY expresses gratitude to all her collaborators. “Particularly with ‘Hinga,’ working with Kat Gorospe Cole, another queer Pilipinx/Pinay creative who is invested in the good, the heart, and who is also a dancer, thus, shares that eye with me.”
She adds, “’Hinga’ presents the most whole picture of what I have tried to do over the years in terms of bridging activism, spirituality, and intercultural and intergenerational change.”
Most people don’t know that upon graduation from high school, SAMMAY chose to attend UC Berkeley wanting to be part of its competitive hip hop team, a vision they had held since middle school in their home town of Carson, California. At first, when coming to San Francisco and SOMA Pilipinas, San Francisco’s Filipino Heritage District, there was a feeling of “you’re not from here.” So SAMMAY’s first few years of being an artist in San Francisco involved going to panel discussions and community workshops to get to know what was out there, to see what resonated.
When SAMMAY started with Bindlestiff Studio in 2014, right out of college, she was an actor and imagined acting while maybe doing movement here and there. Then she was in Alleluia Panis’ “She, Who Can See.” It was her first professional dance job outside of theatre.
“There are also nuances there because that was contemporary dance but my background, some modern experience, was moving toward Embodiment Project where I came full circle and I was back in street dance and hip hop but actually in a space where I could be in holistic healing.”
Embodiment Project, a dance company, was a space in which SAMMAY learned how to source from her own wounds and trauma. “If someone had seen me dance, they would know my story.”
In 2018, H.O.L.Y. (Hate Often Loves You) City was SAMMAY’S first full-length work. It closely examined the violence against people of color and how to keep one another “safe.”
“Boy it took a lot out of me. I had been in this cycle of producing and feeling burnt out always. I think more recently that I’ve reflected that H.O.L.Y. City was really brave… was some deep shit, like borderline disturbing but necessary, you know?”
A thread which is found within the tapestry of her work is Trust. Each of the projects requires collaboration, and therefore, the relationships that develop must be rooted in trust.
“On a zoom out, that’s the whole embodiment of decolonization: trusting ourselves again; trusting our bodies again; trusting one another. For example, in Daluyan, for sure, the process was to have these workshops and rehearse and then put on a show for the whole community, but the real intention and goal was to help you all to trust yourselves. Also, working with Earl Paus in the section for “Hinga,” the whole thing was trusting that the medicine was already there, waiting for an outlet of expression.
“Aside from ‘Hinga,’ in 2020, like many artists, I didn’t create all that I thought I would create. I wasn’t sure if I would even have the capacity to do this movie on a mental, emotional, spiritual level, you know? Honestly, this past year I’ve been more focused on my own professional development and really honing in on my infrastructure as a sole proprietor, as a small arts business owner. And that—SAMMAY Productions—is a gift that this pandemic portal has given me. Not just slow down, but Stop.
What is next? SAMMAY has been accepted to UCLA’s MFA program and will be relocating to southern California to attend graduate school in the Fall Quarter, 2021. SAMMAY has layers of fear around this decision, fears harking back to toxicity previously experienced in academia. But rooted as a student of community, theatre, an analytical audience member, a self-assured SAMMAY will return to academia with a formidable treasure box of accomplishments. In the words of Malidoma that SAMMAY keeps close: “Conflict is the spirit of the relationship asking itself to deepen.”
*The author has made a conscious choice to alternate SAMMAY’s pronouns throughout the piece.
Lisa Suguitan Melnick is a Zoom-bound professor at the College of San Mateo as we continue to march forth through the pandemic portal. She is the author of #30 Collantes Street (Carayan Press, 2015) and is currently working on a collection of flash fiction pieces.
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