Hold On Let Go 2025 - it is for when you meet me by Anjela Magpantay

When: Feb 7, 2025 @ 7pm
Where: The Russian Hall (600 Campbell Ave. Vancouver)

it is for when you meet me is an interactive theatre piece that explores and draws upon cultural gift-giving and the human nature of acceptance. Intermingling autobiographical material, verbatim texts and personal family histories, it is for when you meet me will guide the audience through a process of asking: what does it mean to gift-give as a way of connecting with loved ones who we are separated or distanced from?

it is for when you meet me will engage with the Filipino cultural phenomenon of gift-giving, in which travelers bring or send a ‘Pasalubong’ home from their travels. The English translation of Pasalubong is: “A gift for when you welcome me.” It is customary for the one traveling to bring thoughtful gifts back home, often packed in big cardboard boxes, called “Balikbayan boxes”. Overseas Filipino Workers have modernly adapted this custom in situations where they can’t go back home right away, stuffing large boxes with Tim Hortons ground coffee; Centrum vitamin pills; SPAM; name brand clothes and much more to express love and the sentiment: “I am coming soon.”