Interview with Asia Center 2025 Artists in Residence Abigail G. Billones and Eric V. Dela Cruz

Embodied Theater and Narrative Change: Asia Center 2025 Artists in Residence Abigail G. Billones and Eric V. Dela Cruz are joined by Asia Center Associate Aurélien Bellucci (PhD ’23) to discuss with the Asia Center their diverse paths into theater, the role of Philippine culture in their work, and what participants can expect from their upcoming two-day workshop. Learn more about their events during the week of October 6-10 here and here.

Q: Please share your backgrounds in theater education and community engagement. How did you come to your current practice?

Eric V. Dela Cruz: My undergraduate degree is in physical therapy—I’m a licensed physical therapist and was supposed to go to medical school. I’ve always loved science and medicine, but I realized it could feel too predictable. Since I was a kid, I also had a passion for acting. After college, I started as an actor in TV and film, then discovered theater through PETA (Philippine Educational Theater Association). I went on to take a master’s in theater and began teaching. Eventually, I developed a new passion for directing and dramaturgy.

That’s when I began exploring how theater could move beyond representation into lived, sensory encounters. With PETA, I learned how theater could be socially engaged—in education, community building, and advocacy—a tool for transformation. Over time, my background in science caught up with me, and I started merging art and science. Out of this grew TAXI (Theater. Applied. Experiential, Immersive), a platform for immersive, multisensory performances and interdisciplinary collaboration. For me, theater is about weaving performance, pedagogy, research, and community engagement into one practice where the audience doesn’t just watch—they feel, listen, taste, co-create meaning, and metabolize stories together.

Abigail G. Billones: I started theater in my college years—more than 30 years ago—mainly as an activist and advocate. After college I joined PETA, working as international desk officer and as an artist-teacher. I became involved in the children’s theater program, developing performances and training adult caregivers for child protection and child development. My degree was in human and family development studies, so I already had a background in child psychology.

Later, I worked with children who had experienced abuse—sexual abuse, incest—and saw the need to use theater for healing. Since the 1990s, I’ve been developing PETA’s “Healing Through the Arts” program. I apprenticed with psychologists and psychiatrists so I could understand how theater and arts processes fit into trauma recovery. Over time, I expanded this work into disaster response and humanitarian emergencies, and more recently into mental health and psychosocial support.

For the last 20 years, I’ve focused on helping young people and communities reflect, process their experiences, and find confidence through theater. I’ve worked in communities devastated by disasters like Typhoon Haiyan, bringing creative tools to help survivors reflect and rebuild. I’ve also worked with people affected by war conflict in Mindanao and the War on Drugs in Metro Manila, where mental health challenges and stigma are widespread. It’s not always easy, but it gives me deep satisfaction to see the power of theater and the arts in healing, recovery, and change.

Aurélien Bellucci: My path was different. In France I studied modern literature and political science and later came to Harvard for a PhD in comparative literature. I became a historian of theater, focusing on politcal theater in France, China, and India.

I first encountered PETA in Manila, where I met Gail and Eric at their Control + Shift: Changing Narratives festival. I was struck by the plays’ focus on urgent issues like corruption and social media, and also by the audience—so many young people, which is rare in theater. I discovered that PETA’s members are both artists and teachers, which is unusual, and that their work is participatory. They don’t just perform; they engage audiences before, during, and after. Talkbacks and other devices allow audiences to contribute to shaping narratives. This democratic approach to storytelling fascinated me.

Q: How has the history and culture of the Philippines shaped your theater practice?

Eric: Philippine culture is profoundly communal and collective. We’re diverse, archipelagic, and connected to land and sea. Everyday life is filled with music, food, color, and people. Even our languages reflect geography—mountain dialects are sharp and angular, while those shaped by the sea are melodic. These sensibilities push me to create embodied, multisensory performances.

Our entangled histories of colonization, disaster, and resilience also inform my projects, which focus on memory, inclusivity, care, and survival. Through sensorial storytelling, I try to create work that resonates with universal human experiences and invites audiences everywhere to connect.

Gail: I’ve realized that Filipinos are not primarily cognitive learners. They learn more by doing and feeling. That has shaped my practice, because abstract concepts like human rights or disaster preparedness can be hard to grasp unless they’re embodied. Through theater, people can experience these concepts directly and apply them in their lives.

That’s why I say theater is a rehearsal for life and for change. When young people realize, “If I can do this in a workshop, maybe I can do it in real life,” that’s when transformation happens. It takes time, but through constant doing and applying, behaviors and attitudes begin to shift. That’s the most important—and most challenging—part of community engagement.

Q: What are your goals for your Asia Center residency? What do you hope the Harvard community will take away?

Gail: My goal is to connect—with Filipinos in the Harvard community, with other Asians, and with people working in community mental health and psychosocial support. Sharing our work is important, but it’s equally important to learn from others here.

Eric: My main goal is to connect and exchange ideas. I want to share my framework of creative sensory attunement, which has evolved into relational sensory dramaturgy. I hope the Harvard community experiences theater as a laboratory for rethinking care, connection, and cultural memory. Theater is more than a performance on stage—it’s about attention, listening, and creating spaces of encounter where participants shape meaning together.

Q: What can students and other participants expect from your two-day workshop? Why should they sign up?

Eric: Be prepared to be amazed at what you can do. Our workshops are embodied and sensorial—we’ll work with breath awareness, imagination, and simple materials. It’s about expanding perception and creativity, whatever your field of study. This is not just for arts students—social sciences, education, sciences, anyone curious about memory, storytelling, and community will benefit.

Gail: We’ll also explore the three elements of narrative change: the stories themselves, empowering storytellers, and the ways stories are told—whether online, onsite, or in everyday spaces. Theater isn’t just for artists. It’s a generalist tool that can serve different purposes in daily life and work. What’s most important is that participants reflect on the narratives they live by and realize they have the power to change them.

Q: Finally, why theater? How does it work uniquely compared to other art forms?

Gail: At PETA we say theater is a composite art. It brings together creative drama, music, movement, poetry, and visual arts. But beyond that, theater can be a potent tool in organizing people/artists. Rehearsals and performances bring artists together again and again. It becomes a platform for building relationships and sustaining communities—especially for young people after the pandemic, when live performance has become so important.

Eric: For me, theater is about connection and presence. It happens live, between people, in shared space and time. There’s something intangible about that. The pandemic showed us that it can extend online too, but it remains relational and embodied. My sensory dramaturgy practice tries to extend theater into all the senses, so it becomes not just a story but an environment you inhabit—a community.

In today’s paradoxical world, where we are constantly “connected” yet often feel isolated, theater offers a way back to attention, presence, and care. I often end my presentations by asking: When was the last time you were aware of a single moment? For me, that’s what theater is about—our encounters with the senses and how we take care of them.

Aurélien: Traditionally, theater is where you see something in a new light, something different from daily life. But what PETA and Taxi Theater do is go further: they bring theater to new audiences and new participants. The upcoming workshop at Harvard will give students and faculty the chance not only to watch theater but to participate in story-making themselves. And they’ll do so with two deeply talented and generous practitioners.

About the artists and moderator:

Eric V. Dela Cruz is a Filipino performance-maker, dramaturg, and facilitator whose work explores memory, community, and the senses through immersive, multisensory performance. He is the founder of Theater. Applied. Experiential. Immersive (TAXI) Theater and designer of the Creative Sensory Attunement Workshop (CSAW), which developed into Relational Sensory Dramaturgy (RSD) —a practice of immersive, multisensory performance rooted in awe, curiosity, and care. A senior artist-teacher with the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), Eric has presented his practice internationally. His current project Sinag Lahi explores endangered Filipino foodways, beginning with Asin Tibuok.

Abigail G. Billones is Program Director of the Lingap Sining Program of the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA). She is also a Senior Artist in PETA. The She leads initiatives on narrative change, human rights, community mental health, and youth civic engagement, including Control + Shift: Changing Narratives and Youth Start-Up programs. With over 150 workshops facilitated since 1994, she has partnered with global organizations such as Misereor, The Asia Foundation, and UNICEF. A performer and educator, she has appeared in nearly 40 productions. She holds a BS in Human Ecology from the University of the Philippines Los Baños.

Aurélien Bellucci is a postdoctoral fellow at the American University of Paris, currently working on the relationship between theater and gentrification (ERC project THEAGENT). He was trained at Paris-Sorbonne and Sciences Po before he received his PhD in comparative literature from Harvard University. His research, which focuses on people's theaters in Europe, China, and India, is based in fieldwork with theater makers and active audiences. As an associate researcher at the Asia Center, he has recently focused on political theaters from Taiwan and the Philippines.