Celebrating its fourth year, Against the Grain Performance Festival, curated by Manuel Meza, presents seven short dance works at Theaterforum Kreuzberg on 8 and 9 May 2026.
After the show, Manuel Meza, the producer and curator of this evening’s seven dance performances, comes on stage. They share that this festival has been a “passion project” that’s been ongoing without any funding, and despite the immense workload, they love doing it. Looking at the program note, I am surprised that Meza is also the festival’s light and sound technician, as well as a choreographer for one of the pieces. “It’s my duty to do this,” they say, explaining that they have had the privilege of attending two prestigious dance schools that opened many doors for them. Yet most freelance dance artists struggle to earn even a basic living through dance-related work alone. In the lobby before the show and during intermission, I overhear audience members—presumably fellow dance artists—talking about juggling three jobs, working for below minimum wage, etc.
The fact that Meza has five roles in a single festival reflects the challenges of surviving in the independent performing arts scene. As a freelance choreographer myself, I’ve found it natural to wear multiple hats and push my mental and physical limits—most of the time without adequate financial compensation—in order to realize my productions. It has been heartbreaking to see many of my friends, freelance performance artists in their late 30s, deeply exhausted and desperately searching for stability.
As I watch the performers in the festival, whose youthful presence and well-trained bodies move with skill, what strikes me most is their zeal. Marcel Casablanca, wearing a black velvet dress and a large grey sun hat, gestures dramatically to Rambalín by Rodrigo Cuevas, a song that honors Rambal, a gay cabaret performer murdered in 1976. Arturo Lugo personifies a bat through shifting soundscapes that begin with the ticking sounds of bats and culminate in club-style bass music. In Ilaw (“light” in Tagalog), Ann Francis Ang and Christina Beunaflor perform with a focused radiance as they blend Pandanggo sa Ilaw—a traditional Philippine folk dance in which performers balance candles on their heads and hands while dancing—with waacking.
I think about a letter I recently wrote to a dancer friend, with whom I often exchange about finding “other options” for financial (and mental) security. Reminiscing about our more youthful days when we pursued our dreams with devotion, hope, and love, I had shared an excerpt of Eileen Myles’ “The Poet”:
I made myself into a poet because it was the first thing I really loved. It was an act of will. […] I stumbled onto this idea about the purity of the heart. This is a way I could get what I want. To desire one thing, that’s the idea. I knew I could do that. And I already knew what I wanted. To keep doing what I was doing, but to know that it was true. It was right for me to keep doing that, to want nothing else but that. I felt free at last. My life had become a dream. My dream.
After the show, I tell my friend about the festival. She says she’ll apply next year because she still wants to create work for reasons other than money. This moves me, and for a moment, I feel the romance for dance that I had lost revive in my heart.
Against the Grain Performance Festival, curated by Manuel Meza, took place at Theaterforum Kreuzberg on 8 and 9 May 2026.