PMA Associate Professor Christine Bacareza Balance was interviewed on This Filipino American Life (TFAL) podcast about Here Lies Love, a musical about the life of former Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, with concept and music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim. The project began as a song cycle, premiered off-Broadway at the Public Theater in 2013, and then was staged as a Broadway musical in 2023. It recently had a run at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles where the TFAL podcast hosts are based. Balance has been following the production, since its inception, for her current book project, Making Sense: Poetics, Performance and Philippine Martial Law.
Here Lies Love takes place on a disco dance floor and has been billed as “a transformative experience combining disco beats with adrenaline-fueled choreography.” In the interview, Balance discusses how the theatrical production capitalizes on contemporary immersive theatre practices while drawing from longer musical theatre forms and traditions. This mix of aesthetics, she argues, impacts how the audience relates to the characters and therefore this history.
“As much as Here Lies Love is publicized as a ‘revolutionary musical,’” Balance says, “it is not. It draws upon familiar musical theater forms like the love triangle, or the Pygmalion figure of Imelda Marcos, in order to tell the history of dictatorship in the Philippines. There are lots of projected images and flashing lights. The idea is, we want to immerse the audience straight in this history, but instead the visual serves as historical and narrative shorthand. Unless you know what these images contain and what they signify, it’s an overwhelming sensorial experience, curated and guided by the show’s artistic team. There’s not much space to think critically about what you’re viewing and experiencing.”
Read more about Christine Bacareza Balance’s work.
Read more about This Filipino American Life Podcast.
