The role of artists in aiding society’s urgent need to work towards systemic change is both undeniable and necessary. To be an artist whose work challenges the status quo, amplifies the voices of the most marginalized by reflecting their struggles and aspirations, and reaffirms cultural ideals of a new and just world is to be a revolutionary artist. By definition, artists are cultural workers, or creatives who uphold revolutionary culture, who must enthusiastically take up the role of serving the people through creative work. This creative work comes with a responsibility of spending time with people on-the-ground and organizing because as artists whose work has the power to move hearts and minds, we must constantly ask ourselves - for whom is our art for? 

In November 2022, world leaders gathered at the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt while activists protested inside and outside the walls of COP27 to heighten the call for both climate justice and human rights. On the same weekend, we (Bootleg Orchestra) flew to Seattle, Washington to collaborate with vocalist Roger Rigor of timeless, iconic Filipino disco band VST & Company, to record a song highlighting the climate crisis - perhaps the most broad and pressing crisis that is symptomatic of the social, economic, and political crises of today. At the intersection of art and activism, this documentary gives viewers insight into our creative and ideological process of producing a song that calls on people to build intergenerational and international solidarity and collectively work for climate justice.

Your Support is Instrumental

We are halfway to our goal of finishing the documentary now that we have our footage and a song demo. We can't make it to the finish line without your support! We need expenses to cover editing of the mini-documentary, the attached music video, and mix/mastering of the song. Recently, we found our editor, the amazingly talented Blaine Suque, who starts work this May, and we need to cover expenses for him and his team (e.g., colorist, sound editor) to bring the documentary to life. Additionally, we're hoping to have a music video attached to the mini-documentary so that viewers can hear the entirety of the song paired with imagery of the climate justice movement throughout the world as we must not lose sight of the people this work is for. 

Help us make it to the finish line! If you’d like to support BIPOC creatives who also value the practice of community organizing, YOU can make the difference in our part of this mass call for art that promotes justice movements and collective people power! Here's how you can support us...

1) Follow this campaign by clicking on the "follow" button

2) Choose an incentive level (right of this page) with your monetary contribution

3) The only way we'll reach our crowdfunding goal is if we reach beyond our networks. Please SPREAD THE WORD by sharing our campaign via your social media, e-mail, word-of-mouth conversations, etc. with your personal networks. Feel free to copy/paste below...

Help @bootlegorchestra and Roger Rigor (VST & Co) finish their mini-doc on using music to call for intergenerational and international climate action! Join them on @seedandspark : bootlegrchestra.com/documentary  

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW 

Who Are We?

Picture (left to right): Andrew, John, Menchie and Vanessa 

We are Menchie, Vanessa and Andrew from LA-based band Bootleg Orchestra and we are on this journey of exploring how music can be used as an inspirational and educational tool in advancing people’s movements - uplifting voices and advocating for rights. We're lucky enough to once again collaborate with our longtime creative partner and comrade Director John Haas, who we sometimes call the fourth band member of Bootleg Orchestra!

Each of us have deep roots in arts and music that span back to early childhood. In our adult years, our relationship to our creative work changed as we got more involved in community work and organizing. We learned from and integrated with the most marginalized people in communities in both our local area and our motherlands. As we put to practice community organizing and helping build collective power of the people, our commitment to serving the people however we can, especially using the arts, was affirmed. Through this journey, we’re grateful to learn how our work as creatives could be used in a meaningful way in people’s liberation movements. You can hear this reflected throughout our first album MAKIBAKA, which came out in August 2021, and John’s portfolio of documentary storytelling. 

In our journey of advocating for human rights in the Philippines and supporting the liberation movement of other communities, we also met Roger Rigor, vocalist from iconic Filipino disco band VST & Company (who are often referred to as the Filipino Bee Gees). The band remains to be one of Philippines’ most successful bands as they pioneered the Original Pilipino Music (OPM) genre and sparked the Philippine disco culture in the 1970s. 

The culmination of their career paralleled the height of Martial Law under then President Ferdinand Marcos.  VST & Company offered respite from the tumultuous anxiety and fear of Martial Law. After the split of VST & Company, Roger made a lifelong career in education teaching math and science in Seattle, including climate science. In his retirement, Roger can be found coordinating relief efforts overseas to disaster-stricken areas throughout Philippines. Collaborating with him over our love for music and love for the people was an incredible honor. 

Why Are We Doing This?

Our “why” often leads back to justice and people’s rights. As cultural workers, we are dedicated to the practice of creating art that challenges the dominant narrative, uplifts the people’s narrative, informs people, and inspires people to take action. 

We wrote about the climate crisis because it’s a reality too close to home.

• In 2016, Menchie traveled throughout Philippines where she saw the many faces of the climate crisis. From integrating with a farmer community whose harvested rice were contaminated by residue from nearby mining operations, an indigenous community whose land was a site of military war games and land-grabbing, and a typhoon-struck community, Menchie was moved by how communities fought to defend their land and rights in the face of transnational corporations and the military.
• Roger overseas efforts coordinates disaster reliefs, medical missions, and humanitarian missions with a US-based organization that aids affected communities in Philippines, to promote quality life, health and education among Filipinos.
• Throughout the 2010s, Vanessa traveled to Oaxaca to soak in the teachings of healer and indigenous grandmother Julieta Casimiro, a member of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, a collective of spiritual leaders concerned with the unprecedented destruction of the planet and Indigenous ways of life.

These learnings in community laid groundwork to how we saw the climate crisis, which is an economic crisis at its root. Our global capitalist system has inherently allowed the overproduction of goods wherein industrialized countries and transnational corporations extract resources from Third World Nations, often at the expense of the economy and livelihood of the people. This overproduction of goods to benefit a few and collective consumption of goods has accelerated the climate crisis nearly to the point of irreversible damage. While green technologies are gaining popularity, one must acknowledge that this solution still enables an economic structure of unnecessary extraction linked to overproduction of goods for corporate profit.

Key Themes

The musician as the cultural worker. Throughout history, people have seen how the power of one song can give life to a people’s movement by deepening collective understanding and analysis of a struggle, engendering solidarity across communities, rekindling hope, and galvanizing people into action to usher in a more just world. One begs to ask whether artists still have this same practice and impact today. With today’s mounting struggles, there is a dire need for society, including artists, to do the work of organizing for systemic change through community work and co-creating a just future.

The global climate crisis is an economic and human rights crisis. While music is the vehicle, the primary topic of this project is climate justice and the urgent need for international solidarity. In this documentary, we echo the urgent societal task of drastically reducing environmental extraction of natural resources for corporate profit to better care for the land and water, on which people depend for survival. 

The Philippines is rich but the people are poor. The Philippines serves as an example of how Third World Nations bear the brunt of the climate crisis. Since the Marcos era, the saying “the Philippines is rich but the people are poor” remains relevant today, if not moreso. The Philippines is rich in mineral resources (e.g., gold, silver, copper, nickel), agriculture (e.g., rice, banana, coconut), fertile land (e.g., lumber), oil, and fishing, yet the majority of the population lives in poverty. While 75% of the population live in the countryside, the people of the Philippines don’t reap the benefits of the land they till. 

Format

The documentary largely includes scenes in Roger’s home brainstorming the song, recording the song at renowned Avast Recording Studios, a solo interview with Roger, and a roundtable discussion with Bootleg Orchestra. Scenes in the recording studio were filmed on a 1970’s lens that reflects the era of VST & Co’s popularity as well as our choice to frame the documentary within the classic 4x3 aspect ratio, allowing us to navigate seamlessly between footage from the past and the present. Other footage embedded  throughout the film include Menchie’s trip to Philippines in 2016 and various scenes around the globe depicting environmental disaster. The documentary will include a music video that centers the lyrics and largely shows images of communities throughout the world impacted by climate change. 

What to Expect After We Reach Our Fundraising Goal

Frankly, our current fundraising goal is the bare minimum we need to finish the documentary. Upon completion, we plan on hosting community screenings starting with Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Seattle. Each community screening will include a panel discussion with the documentary team and, hopefully, community leaders in climate justice so that audience members have concrete take-aways of how they can support ongoing and genuine solutions to the climate crisis. To expand the reach of our documentary, we also plan on hosting virtual screenings and submitting to the festival circuit. Because distributing and screening our mini-doc will require additional funds, we welcome funds that exceed our initial goal of $9.6K! 

Together, Let's Create Space for Art and Music That Reflects the New and Just World We Dream Of