Bhenji Ra

Bhenji Ra
Born 1990 in Warrang / Sydney, Australia
Lives and works in Warrang / Sydney

Bhenji Ra is a transdisciplinary artist currently based on Gadigal land, Eora Nation. Her practice combines dance, video, illustration and community activation. Her work dissects cultural theory and identity, centralising her own personal histories as a tool to reframe performance. She is the mother of Western Sydney based collective and ballroom house SLÉ.

The Offering (Pang Alay) presents a small glimpse into the relationship between Tau'sug elder Sitti Obeso and dance artist Bhenji Ra. Sitti is a cultural bearer of the Pangalay, a pre-islamic classical dance form Indigenous to the Tau’sug people of the Sulu Archipelago. The two first connected in the province of Lasang, Davao in 2018 when a mutual family member brought them together. Now oceans apart they reconnect via Zoom, communicating at ease by performing Pangalay together when they find themselves stuck between (mis)translations. They discuss Bhenji's tattoo of a kriss (a symbol of sovereignty for the Moro people of the Southern Philippines) as well as Sitti's personal history of the bantot (a word used to describe trans* folk in her hometown). As they dance, we watch their bodies unknot, merge, and respond to one another, witnessing the intimacy and cultural bonds of mentor (Sitti) and student (Bhenji) begin to unfold. Through mimicry and intuitive memory Bhenji follows Sitti's instructions, conversing through a vocabulary of movement that is deeply familial and ancestral.

For the 22nd Biennale of Sydney, Filipina Australian artist Bhenji Ra engages Tausug Elder and Pangalay master Sitti Obeso from southern Philippines in performative conversation. Bleeding the lines between ocean and land, traditional and contemporary, the original and the diasporic body, this exchange between teacher and student is a generous sharing of a relationship sustained by periodical visits to home country, the sharing of personal ephemera, and online messages across the Pacific Ocean. This performance lecture offers an alternative mode of cultural pedagogy that avoids reductive notions around performing culture and learning repertoire.