Mindanao Literature, Arts and Culture

LSU Teatro Guindegan, the university theater company of La Salle University, staged the 1st critic night of  its work-in-progress production called SQUEEZABILITY last June 27, 2009 at the MPH, La Salle University, Ozamiz City.  The performance was held right after the TANGHALAN Mindanao Regional Consultation which the LSU Cultural Arts Office hosted.

SQUEEZABILITY is a collection of 3 devised short plays by the resident artists of LSU Teatro Guindegan.
Written, directed, designed and performed by the company, the project is part of the ongoing theater training of the company. It is designed to expose the resident artists into the basics of the craft of theater-making.

Squeezability

SQUEEZABILITY featured White Cloth and See You Later which are both written and directed by Ted Nudgent Tac-an and Forever and Ever which is collaboratively devised and written headed by Grace Shiela Bazar.

The 1st critic night was witnessed by Mindanao theater stalwarts : Karl Gaspar, Fe Remotigue, Steven Patrick Fernandez, Sunnie Noel, Marilie Ilagan, Hobart Savior,  and NCR-based artists Joseph Ramos and Glecy Atienza, who is currently the National Chairman of the NCCA National Committee on Dramatic Arts.

The public performance  of SQUEEZABILITY will be this coming September 2009 at the Integrated School Auditorium, La Salle University, Ozamiz City.

LSU Teatro Guindegan is under the artistic direction of Felimon Blanco.

Mindanao theater practitioners at LSU

The NCCA National Committee on Dramatic Arts, through the Teatro Sambisig, Inc., is spearheading this year a committee-initiated project called TANGHALAN : The Preparatory Consultation and Researches on Regional Theater Aesthetics. It is a preparatory research project that will attempt to record the best theater practices in the country.  Specifically, the project aims to

1. identify the existing qualities, history and philosophy of regional theater practice;

2. consult theater artists, scholars and cultural workers in identifying the outstanding qualities of regional theater practice;

3. conduct an initial appraisal of regional theater aesthetics;

4. contribute to the enrichment of Philippine theater vocabulary by identifying terms and experiences pertinent to Philippine theater aesthetics, and

5. build a framework to identify  Philippine theater aesthetics through a survey of regional theater aesthetics.

On June 27, 2009, the 1^st meeting-consultation about this project was conducted at La Salle University, Ozamiz City. The event was hosted by the LSU Cultural Arts Office headed by its Director, Chiedel Joan San Diego. The objective of the 1^st meeting in Ozamiz City was to decide on the research agenda that will be fit for the rich Mindanao theater experience.

The 1^st meeting was attended by the following:

• Karl Gaspar – Tanghalan Mindanao Research Consultant
• Felimon Blanco – Tanghalan Mindanao Coordinator
• Hobart Savior – CDA Committee Member
• Fe Remotigue – NCR-based Mindanao theater stalwart
• Steven Patrick Fernandez  – MSU-IIT IPAG
• Sunnie Noel – MSU Sining Kambayoka
• Marilie Ilagan – NCR-based Mindanao theater stalwart
• Glecy Atienza – NCDA National Chairman and National Project Director
• Joseph Ramos – National Project Coordinator
• Chiedel Joan San Diego – LSU Cultural Arts Director
• Maria Nancy Cadosales – LSU Dean of Graduate Studies
• Rezyl Mallorca – LSU Research Director

Mindanao artists at work

The body has agreed on 7 research agenda. These are the following:

1. Annotated Bibliography of Mindanao Theatre Studies (Resource Persons, Regular Events in Electronic Database, etc)
2. Mindanao Theatre Genealogy (Sources, Links, Interrelationships)
3. Compilation of Scripts written on Mindanao, by Mindanao artists and for Mindanao
4. Compilation of Play Production (books and other models)
5. Description of Mindanao Theatre Group Cultures (processes and products by period)
6. Definition, Typology, Functionality of existing Practices and Productions of Mindanao Theatre: Theatre Production vs. Theatre Movement
7. Identify whether Mindanao Scripts are used in the Academe Globally

However, those present during the meeting agreed to focus on 2 major research agenda:

1. Annotated Bibliography of Mindanao Theatre Studies (Resource Persons, Regular Events in Electronic Database) This means that we will try to retrieve information about Mindanao theater experience, history, practices in general.

1. Mindanao Theatre Genealogy (sources, links, interrelationships). This  means tracing one’s roots, influences and affiliations that help shape the rich Mindanao theater experience.

Research Assistants (RAs) have been initially identified. The names will be announced very soon. These RAs will be the one to gather data / information which will be submitted to the Research Consultant (Bro Karl Gaspar).

Tanghalan consultation participants

All  Mindanao theater practitioners are enjoined to take part in this project by actively participating in the process – discussion through the adindanao discussion group. Over the next few weeks, we will be gathering information through online (using emails and adindanao).

The results of the research will be presented during a national conference that will be done on March 2010 during the World Theater Week celebration.

For information regarding the project, please contact Felimon Blanco, Tanghalan Mindanao Coordinator, through his email address fbb1973@yahoo.com.

At the CCP arts forum held at the National Arts Center in Makiling, Laguna, which some of us Mindanao artists attended, we saw this great video entitled TOCAR y LUCHAR.

The movie is about how the musician-conductor Jose Abreu set up what he calls EL SISTEMA or THE SYSTEM, which allowed for 250,000 poor youth from across Venezuela to learn and play classical music, and how they are all TRANSFORMED BY MUSIC.

The result is astounding.

The Venezuela El Sistema experience reminds us about the power of art to transform entire communities and change people’s attitudes and behaviors. We have all been trapped in the box, looking merely to politics and economics for the answers to all our problems. We forget that everything has to do with our belief systems–how we think and believe, and how we act upon what we think and believe. And the most powerful, if not the only way that can transform our thoughts and belief systems, is to awaken our right brain—where art and creativity reside.

>> Continue reading "Tocar y Luchar (Play and Fight)" >>

by Karl Gaspar, CsSr

It’s summer – hot, humid, horribly debilitating summer!  With climate change inflicting this kind of summer, one seeks the indoors, preferably an aircon room. That is, if one were privileged enough to have access to an aircon room.

Pity the cigarette and candy vendors, the street construction workers across the highways, the jeepney and trisikad drivers and all those who are out there in the streets when the heat becomes totally unbearable.

And how to entertain oneself this summer, especially if there is that much coveted aircon room?  Watch films, of course.

Speaking of films, there is a Cinema Paradiso in – of all places – Marawi City.  And no, Alma Moreno has nothing to do with it even if, technically, she is Marawi’s first of the First Ladies.

>> Continue reading "Marawi’s Cinema Paradiso" >>

When news of the death of Augusto Boal reached the mailing list of the Mindanao artists and cultural workers—members of MINDULANI (Ani sa Dulang Mindanaw, the network of cultural arts and theater practitioners in Mindanao)–several notes were exchanged about him and his influence in Mindanao culture work.  The exchanges unleashed a torrent of memoirs, theories, and perceptions of Mindanao culture and arts work.

Below are some of the exchanges, in tribute to the one who made the art of making theater accessible to the people–Brazilian theater guru Augusto Boal.

Really treasured the meeting we had with Augosto Boal in Darwin… as well as in Nothingham. We were all astounded by his presence, and until now I really missed him.

In his dramaturgical parlance (theatre of the oppressed) the breaking down of the barrier between the actors and the spectators takes on a progressive process — from Image theatre – forum theatre – invisible theatre and in the European context — breaking through the “cop in the head”.  in contrast to the Aristotlean concept of “catharsis”, he wants to go beyond Brechtian’s aesthetic on the “A-ffect”, as Boal wanted to make the audience be consciously participating in the “play making” process — similar to your “rehearsals for transformation” — as lived with their newly absorbed consciousness through theatre.

I wish i could participate in any form of tribute to the great Latino Dramaturg.

Yes, Augusto Boal has been much a part of our pedagogies. We salute a brave man. We praise a visionary and a beacon that illuminated the paths of our oppresed workers. Boal is not dead. Death cannot claim a vision.

Verdaderamente, Viva!

by Karl Gaspar, playwright, dramaturgist

All what everyone has written so far points out to the fact that in the post-modern era (which for some theorists arose out of the wreckages of the 60s – the Paris youth uprisings, the rise of feminism, the gay multi-color movement, the civil rights movement, Vietnam and all the marching all around the world, Watergate, the Beatles/Rolling Stone, the films of the New Wave etc) as globalization (both the good and bad) also reared its heard, we have all become “global citizens.”

Which is to say the process of osmosis (anthropologists refer to them as diffusion) has soared across the globe. The theatre field is but one of the exciting fields where this took place, along with education and its evolving pedagogies, the arts (especially architecture), philosophy and theology and the social sciences.

Our connection to Latin America is undeniable owing to the paralles of Philippines/Mindanao to those countries across the globe below the White Gringo hemisphere (from the European colonial times) to the impact of American imperialism (the role of the CIA and all its cultural institutions).

No wonder Agosto Boal’s thoughts/ideas/discourses struck a chord with all of us who had the privilege of interfacing with him through various media from direct personal contact to encountering his texts on paper.  But then Boal is the child of the European masters who pioneered the great Critical School tradition, the god of whom is, of course, Karl Marx.  There would have been no Boal if there was no Brecht, there would have been no Brecht if there was no Marx.  There is a whole genealogical line among those who borrow from each other or who appropriate the early thoughts.

Mindanao in the 1960s and beyond was fertile ground for such osmosis.  As the likes of Ross Kidd (a Canadian theatre wannabe from Bostwana – he was a documentor rather than a practitioner and I should know as I arranged his exposure here – who knew of the Mindanao theatre movement through word-of-mouth and came for exposure to Mindanao and got thrilled by what he saw here as it paralleled what he already knew was happening in some circles of the world including Brazil) and the Dutch Epskamp who came up with his book and included extensively the Mindanao theatre experience (I may be wrong but he was the one who did research here and came up with that book where we Mindanawons are up there with everyone else in the Third World pushing the boundaries of theatre) found out,  we were beginning a new chapter of theatre history in the late 60s to the height of martial rule.

Even then, I knew we had something that could evolve into a movement that was/is/will be worth the attention of theatre theorists around the world.

But it was also happening in the other spheres. Education and theology were the best examples as our links in Mindanao extended across Central America (Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc.) to the big countries of Brazil, Chile etc. further down south of that great continent. Which is why on the same platform as Boal stands the likes of Paulo Freire (a Brazilian lawyer-popular educator), Gustavo Gutierrez (the toast of the theological world having fathered the Liberation Theology which frustrated the likes of the CIA), Victor Jara (the celebrated poet-songwriter-singer who disappeared in Chile along with the thousands salvaged but who helped gave birth to the El Nuevo Cancion movement across the continent) and so many more.

Mindanao with its progressive church and later legal institutions (the forerunner of NGOs) provided the bridges and we found ourselves under their “patronage” and even protection.  All these were intertwined.

As I write I am very conscious who is reading this text.  Those above 40 may find this interesting enough to read on, but I think those below 40 may find these quite didactic, boring and irrelevant.

Sigue lang.  (It’s okay.) Deaths also bring nostalgia and we hope our younger colleagues will allow us to remember, ponder and give thanks.

But then, at our last MINDULANI, there was “DULA TA” of the company led by Mamay Romy.

That was a play that connects the past to the present and the future… and a few of us in the crowd remembered when that kind of play emerged in Mindanao theatre history.  And we are proud, happy and grateful–the content, form, approach, aesthetics and philosophical foundations were all in line with that theatre movement that have been referred to as:  theatre of the oppressed, theatre of the simple folks (we appropriated it in the early 70s as Magdudulang Mayukmok), conscientizing theatre, progressive theatre, alternative theatre, etc.

One last point… not to lose sight of my own advocacy: WE IN MINDANAO have now a 40-year contemporary history part of which is post-modern, post-colonial, post-structural. And we’ve have the names for it:  MAYUKMOK, PUKAW-TANLAG, KAMBAYOKA, KAPAPAGARIYA, KALIWAT, EDCADS, KULTURANG ATIN, MINDULANI… and all the children who came after.

We have a treasure with our communal accumulated experience.

Time now to harvest these as in Mindulani as we gather together every now and then, as we remount he productions of the past that mattered, as Arthur Casanova collects and get them published, etc.

But we haven’t harvested all these in terms of A MINDANAO THEORY that can be studied not just by Mindanawons but Chileans, Brazilians, Hongkong-ers, Tamils, Somalians and wherever in the world one finds someone who loves Shakespeare and Neil Simon but also wants to expand his/her horizon.

Marili (Fernandez-Ilagan)… you are in such a position to do it and your Kaliwat colleagues are there to help out.

Marrio (Mapanao): Make sure the “Protestant” voice is not marginalized.

Felimon (Blanco) and your circle… when do you reveal your own move?

Pepot (Fe Remotigue): when will you increase the time you can set aside for the writing you must begin to do?

Geejay (Arriola)… the Mebuyan project is so rich in what you’ve done… are you making sure the documentations are in place?

Waldolito (Nestor Horfilla)… write your memoir if you have no patience with the highfaluttin academic ek-ek.

Arthur: make sure your Mindanao theatre history book set aside space for “discourse-constructions”.

And so on and so forth.

And come May 9/10 along with the Latin American circles… let us celebrate a life that mattered as we celebrate lives that will make theatre matter even more in the centuries to come.  Pepot’s poem is your take off point.

by Marrio Mapanao, cultural work advocate

Visiting Mother Romy (Narvaez) and Plapla (Basilidas Pilapil) at their lodgings yesterday 7:30 AM thereabouts, I inquired whether any of them had read the postings on the e-group on revered Brazilian theatre master (giving his full name).  Then updated with emphasis (mine) on what it takes Nestor to

break his silence online. Ingon ko (I said), they have the responsibility to inform/share with their participants kung kinsa si (who is) Augusto Boal ug implications for Mindanao community/people’s theatre.

Then Meg Quinones (passed by them) (she is subscribed to this group) SCC-CEREA-CMA staff in charge (to have) breakfast on campus and Day 3 of theatre workshop.  I started going back to nearby house, when remembered had to get newspaper from gasoline station by main road.  So, naapas nako ang grupo (I caught up with the group) (that was boarding a trisykad).  As they were leaving, Plapla who sat by the back suddenly blurts out, like recalling from memory: “(si) Augusto?”!

Am not superstitious or what, but last nite it dawned on me that indeed theatre-and- in-life guru Augusto Boal has a spiritual connection with Mindanao and Mindulani.  At the SCC Global House where Mother Romy, Plapla and Tava (Thassalah Alava) are staying (last nite would have been her first), the rooms are named after the continents on planet Earth.

Call it coincidence, serendipidity, mere chance or what. (But) Mother Romy and Plapla are billeted in, of all places – the Latin American room! Now, this is just too much of a coincidence. Because up to Sunday afternoon, the room was occupied by staff from PhilRights, who are conducting the ongoing children’s camp in Kidapawan. With the so many rooms at the Global House that are vacant (they are actually the only guests), how come it is the Latin American room that they are occupying? I can’t recall his sense of humour, but would Augusto be playing a positive joke on us?

Going back to that circa 1995/ or 6 lecture, the Hong Kong Cultural Center studio at Tsimshatsui is a cross (audience-size wise) between the CCP Tanghalang Huseng Batute (Experimental Theatre) and the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (Little Theatre). This one thinks the seating was like three columns, I can’t recall the stage whether it was more like an elevated classroom’s one. Now, correct me if am wrong (on any or all counts) for those who have met and directly interacted with him (I was just in the audience); the nearest Philippine person in the cultural and entertainment field that reminds me of him is Peque Gallaga – figuratively and literally that big and tall. Can’t recall if he had a beard. Medyo taas ata iyang buhok (His hair was probably a bit long), and yellowish (blondish?) or was it silver.

With his towering figure, malakas talaga ang dating (he had a powerful presence) at the very start.  His Latin machismo (or my perception of it) started to turn me off.  But, gradually he got into one’s system, may pagka-grandfather type ba tu cya (he was the grandfather type) until you get won over to his side.

Karl, you are very right. As I sat listening the presentation, it wasn’t anything like new because what he said spoke of our situation in Mindanao. And what colleagues and friends were/are doing (I am just a supporter and advocate). I won’t go to the extent of saying it was nothing new… But, when are we going to ever believe in ourselves that we have so much to document and share with the wide wide world (www).  Now, here am really getting confused, but iya or gamit lang ba niya tung (is it his or he just used the) theatre-in-the-round, and why does the theatre of the absurd come to my mind when thinking about the theatre of the oppressed?

At the end of the lecture-demo, am not that sure pero murag (it seemed like he had a) standing ovation tu cya. A t the least, very warm applause. And to think it was like a full room with a mainly Hong Kong audience. Dili man cguro kay (It probably wasn’t because he was the) flavor and in-thing cya sa (in the) theatre circuit then, but believe me even in a cosmopolitan place like Hong Kong, there are interested and concerned souls.

Potski, will email your/Mindulani’s collective poem via three meditation center channels in Rio de Janiero. English language may be a problem for them, but it is the thought that counts and the good wishes, pure feelings, positive vibrations and human solidarity.

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For the immediate record, the so-called “Protestant” church connection was through the NCCP-PACEM and then PACT special programs in Mindanao project called TROUPE “Theatre Outreach to the People”.

NCCP stands for the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (mainline ecumenical and non-Roman Catholic churches) and PACEM for Program Aimed at Christian Education about Muslims. Successor program was PACT for the People’s Action for Cultural Ties – Mindanao program, that served to link Protestant church people with the Muslim Filipino and indigenous Filipino populations in their life and struggles etc.

PACEM started operation October 16, 1975 (I had resigned from a first semester teaching fledging ivory tower career at UP Los Banos).

The TROUPE special project of PACEM – which was the bigger special project would have started 1980 or late 1979 (?). The like first phase for PACT would have been 1993-1995, based in Midsayap. (Manila office by the NCCP headquarters was for work in northern and southern Luzon.) But this was extended as the office even moved to Cagayan de Oro.

Pepot (Fe Remotigue) is in a better position to clarify TROUPE’s life span/s traversing PACEM and PACT, she was the TROUPE project staff person, I was then her boss (officially leaving the employment of the Council April 16, 1993 to return to the ivory tower of graduate school). Now, events have come full circle and it is the total re/inverse.

Speaking for myself, people’s theatre (”community based theatre” was more the “Catholic” parlance then), was a way of getting church peoplearoused, organized and mobilized. And while our stage of engagement was with the Protestant church sector, Pepot was coordinating more with the (Roman) Catholic Mindanao-Sulu Pastoral Conference (MSPC) secretariat through the Creative Dramatics (CD) desk with Jehoven “Jeje” A. Honculada – who just for the historical record happens to be Protestant born (UCCP).

While I cannot, at the top of my head, name one Protestant pastor or church worker from Mindanao who is performing on stage to date, I assure you they are in the forefront and arena of wherever people’s struggles are dramatized in day to day life and death issues in Mindanao and imported from Mindanao up to Manila – be it on the streets or up in the mountains.

And while there are those like me who have moved on into silencing through the dictum: “when i change, the world changes”, I can be appreciative of and salute those who have managed to stick in out through thick and thin, despite their old and outdated paradigms.

Now memories come rushing and flooding in like a dam about to burst. We say past is past and we just have to move on. No matter if some individual claims sole authorship for “Two Hills of the Same Land: Truth Behind the Mindanao Problem” circa 1976 or so. There would have been a Third Hill, but we just had to put a stop to one’s individual interpretation of Mindanao history over and above the people’s collective history and memory. Karl, took note of the the time you asked to add to Pet’s input on the history of tribal Filipinos/indigenous people’s support work/whatever name it be called (at one time the revered historian of the Cordilleras William Henry Scott (”Scotty”) wrote (tongue in cheek i suppose): “why not indigenes?”

by Marili Fernandez, theater director, researcher

Theatre of the absurd comes to mind when thinking of theatre of the oppressed because vefremdunseffekt of Brecht is one theatrical trend that influenced the theatre of the absurd.  And so it connects — absurdist theatre jolts audiences and stirs them to action.  Ingon gani ni Nestor ug Pepot (Nestor and Pepot said), if Brecht makes us think, Boal makes us act.  Pero kon wa si Marx (But if Marx did not exist), wa pod ning (neither would the) schools of thought ni (of) Brecht and Boal.  Sinususugan ko si karl. (I am backing up Karl.)

by Jaime “Bong” Antonio, cultural worker, trainer

I can’t help but contribute! I don’t have the time to go through the e-mail trail on Boal, however, I will post this now before it escapes me.

At about the time when Jojo Noval was ED of KAFI I was doing cultural work in Zamboanga and Basilan. Prior to this I was with PERYANTE in Manila, a street theatre group using the Boal pedagogy as its’ aesthetic spine. I moved back to Basilan in 1987 with Boal on my mind.

KAFI  and MCPC helped me and my group set up the Zamboanga Institute for Peoples Culture (ZIPC). I was doing the work with Jejunee Rivera (now, Dr. Jejunee Rivera), Inday Silagpo with two other young men from Basilan. We were linked with community organizers from the Canelar Urban Poor Development Programme (CUPDAP). I can only remember the nicknames now and to honor their work on Boal let me mention, Boogie, Rene, Bebot and Rowena (a couple now) Manny, + other Claretian Fathers including Father Fred (+) and Father Rene, and the other Claretian Seminarians from Pagadian and Dapitan. Kim Elago (now a Councilor in Zambonga City) was coordinating with us through the justice and peace sector as ED of a JP NGO.

We were using Boal’s pedagogy applying it in the context of slums, proving deprivations and inequality. Organizing communities in the advent of demolition and harrassment. Awareness raising through concerts (we called our singing group PATAKA a pun after PATATAG who was “the” best protest singing group at that time… nag pataka ra gyud mi ug kanta sa mga tinagalog nga (we really were just trying hard to sing the Tagalog) translations of protest songs from Brazil and the Nicaraguas).  I even remember workshops being conducted on domestic violence, using in-situ theatre techniques to stop wives being beaten. Later I have discovered that these small actions turned out to be the celebrated “Bantay Banay” technology that has spread nationwide.

Bulk of the work was concentrated in building positive progressive values among young people living in the slums and valuing them for their potential in initiating productivity at the neighborhood level. This we did in three urban slums (Canelar, Baliwasan and the Barangay near the Airport).

We were also bored with how the “elders” were organizing mass actions at the time. And to demonstrate a much creative way, we launched ZIPC through a protest parade which, as I look back now, fits the genre of what we call now the “street dance” — we wanted to make mass action as creative as can be. I remember seven floats with murals painted by the Jumalon Family. We called the protest street dance MASKARADOS (true to Chavacano). We wanted to let people know that protest in the city is alive yet “underway” despite it being host to the AFP South Command. Of course this was at the time when militarization in Mindanao was a banner issue. This parade was made possible through a grant from an NGO, I remember it was Dwight Zabala (now with UNICEF) who reviewed my proposal and recommended for approval. I marveled at how this development NGO agreed to fund it despite it being “different” compared to other development actions being done at that time.

My, oh my, I have more stories to tell… let this be my first tranche.

I will also try to write about the workshops we were doing in the schools and in the hills!

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I am not sure though, if we are ready to venture into this new “myth making” journey? We have come of age and more wisdomful!

. . . The split made cultural work more challenging during those times. However, it was not only political or ideological as most of us would look at it, it was, for me, the time at which the aesthetic direction of performances or in its universal form–the theatre movement–in Mindanao will start to “re-shape” itself. I have always thought that that period holds the answer  to what is necessary now. It would be good to use that bit of history as a jump-off to determine what is needed to be done at this point. I remember hearing common sentiments from Mindanaoan artists “we are stuck… where will all this lead to?” Geejay’s (Arriola) comment during the INFACE conference resounds to date…”we need to discover new things, to do new things!”

When I was with PERYANTE, the Mindanao theatre movement was for me, larger than any performance myth I have known as a theatre major. The power of that myth (as J. Campbell would say) made your work stand out from the rest.

“Bridging the Islands, Bonding with the Oceans”

http://www.davaolivingartsfestival.com

PRE-FESTIVAL EVENTS:

May 8 to 15 PUNTA-PAWIKAN Community Arts Workshops

FESTIVAL EVENTS

May 18, Monday: Davao Living Arts Festival Opening

• 4:00 PM Lakad- Alay sa Karagatan (People’s Walk for the Oceans) from Freedom Park to People’s Park
• 5:00 PM Pagpupugay sa Dakilang Manlilikha: People’s Ecumenical Worship People’s Park
• 5:30 PM Living Arts Festival Opening
• Concert of Children Artists with Ms. Bayang Barrios, Popong Landero and the Indonesian Performing Artists

May 19, Tuesday:  Bridging the Islands: Arts, Artists and the Concerns for the Oceans”

• 10:00 AM Opening of “Nature: Ecollabor(art) Visual Arts Exhibit, Holy Cross of Davao College Museum
• 2:00 PM Opening of “Environs” Visual Arts Exhibit, Museo Dabawenyo
• 5:00 PM Dance Concert @ People’s Park featuring: Magallanes Elementary School Cultural Troupe, Madayan Dance Troupe, Groove Unlimited, Davao City Teachers Performing Arts Company,  Royeca School of Ballet and the award-winning Bag-ong Surigaonon Contemporary Dance Company
• 7:00 PM SAMADHI Music Interaction Workshop Opening, Matina Town Square

May 20, Wednesday: Punta-Pawikan Community Arts Festival

• 9:30 AM Unveiling of Punta-Pawikan Public Art
• 10:00 AM Punta-Pawikan Community Arts Workshops
• 2:00 PM Opening of Exhibit on Davao Gulf – SM CITY MALL
• 5:00 PM Chorale Concert @ People’s Park featuring: St. Joseph the Worker Parish Choir, Chorthereze Singers, Matina Central Children’s Choir, Davao Boy’s Choir and the UM Choir

May 21. Thursday: “Bonding with the Oceans: Saving Davao Gulf”

• 10:00 PM Inter-Agency Conference on Ecological Sensitivity Index of Davao Gulf, SM City Mall
• 5:00 PM SAMADHI: Davao-based Musicians Concert @ People’s Park featuring: Samahan Ng Mga Musikero Ng Davao
• 9:00 PM TANOD-LUPA @ MTS: Featuring: Bayang Barrios, Gary Granada, Eric Gancio and Waway Saway

May 22, Friday: “Advancing the Culture and Arts Agenda”

• 9:00 AM LAWIG: Ecological Tour to Coastal Communities
• 10:00 AM “Legislative Action for Culture and the Arts”  Cultural Workers and Local Legislators Forum supported by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts
• 5:00 PM SAMADHI: Davao-based Musicians Concert @ People’s Park featuring: Samahan Ng Mga Musikero Ng Davao
• 9:00 PM SAVE TAMUGAN RIVER CONCERT @ MTS – featuring: Mebuyan and Joey Ayala

May 23, Saturday Living Arts Closing Ceremonies

• 9:00 AM “Limpiyo Ta’g Baybay – Simultaneous Coastal Clean-up”
• 5:00 PM Isang Pagpupugay: Living Arts Closing Ritual with Joey Ayala and the Indonesian Gamelan Ensemble
• 6:30 PM Finale Music Concert @ People’s Park featuring Kalumon and Reggae Mistress
• 7:00 PM Living Arts Finale Concert (RAR 3: Third Roots-Arts-Reggae Festival) @ Matina Town Sqaure featuring: PLO, Reggae Mistress,  Comradz, Arangkagana, Manong’s Island, Reggal8, Island Paroject, Garlic Invaders, Kamagong, Lost Tribe

(Press release from the office of Councilor Leo Avila III, President, Save Davao Gulf Foundation, Inc.)

More than sixty (60) children and youth of Punta Dumalag I in Brgy. Aplaya participate in a four-day community art workshop  (May 8 to 12), under the direction of Ric Obenza. The workshop is one of the components and preliminary activity of the week-long Davao Living Arts Festival.

For the first two days (May 8 and 9), Obenza, who heads the Kalapati Art Group, taught the participants the basics of drawing and painting and divided them in three groups: stone painting, sand painting and tie-dying workshops. The next two days (May 10 and 11) will be devoted to mural painting.

(Erratum: The workshop was coordinated by Nonoy Narciso and facilitated by Ric Obenza, Jun Cayas, Joel Geolamen and Maree Contaoi.  Apologies to those whose names were not included.)

>> Continue reading "Community art workshop kicks off Davao Living Arts Festival" >>

THE (GB) Garbong Bisaya International Photographers club would like to invite new breed of photographers all over the country.

Cagayan de Oro City will organize a group called GB CDO-based, and you are invited to join.

The qualifications are simple:

1)  you may be a photography student or a photography hobbyist.

2)  must have at least one camera–(cameraphone, DIGI cam (point and shoot), film camera, DSL)

The GB CDO base will ensure your knowledge in photography such as:

- getting a good photo (subjects, objects,and any interesting subjects in photgraphy)

- enhancing photo quality

- having fun in shooting; not feeling bored to shoot

- winning more friends internationally and locally.

- expressing your own art

Contact OXYGEN, the administrator of GB <oxy63n@yahoo.com> or visit his photo stream at: www.flickr.com/photos/moresco1 and you can flickr mail him there.  Mobile 09266410992.

College students are much welcome.  Join now and become a master tomorrow.

Lifetime of no end,
Agosto, our friend

We knew you,
much much later after
doing newspaper theatres,
invisible theatres,
forum theatres,

We knew you,
much much deeply like
the pangs of an empty table;
the quivers of naked skin;
silence that is no chosen;

We embraced you,
much much warmly as
a breeze that whispers freedom;
a bird that shows to soar;
yes, the audience is the actor

Few of us saw you in flesh;
Many of us knew your works;
Thousands of us  rewrite your wisdom
Millions of us savor your inspiration;
Generations shall live your lifetime of no end.

As the mortal in you
passes this lifetime,
Those of you that cannot be trapped;
Will live on,
in a lifetime of no end.

And we keep that part of you deeply
In the heart of Mindanaoans,
cultural workers and masses
where you dwell always
in a lifetime of no end

From the artists and cultural workers of Mindanao, Philippines
MINDULANI (Ani sa Dulang Mindanaw)
6 May 2009
written by Fe Remotigue

I am inviting everyone to a photoshoot to be done in Bohol this summer.
This will be done on May, 16-17, 2009
Basic set-up would be, suroy-suroy ta sa mga sites sa Bohol.

Suggested Itinerary:

(2 days, 1 night)

Day 1
10am arrival
(then chocolate hills tour)
12am lunch sa river cruise (loay most probably visiting some old churches/houses along the way)
2pm bilar man-made forest
2.30pm chocolate hills
4pm some beach in panglao for a photoshoot with models (boys/girls you decide hehe) derecho na ni sunset, strobist-style available if you like
6pm check in at a panglao resort
9pm discoral or videoke or bonfire by the beach

Day 2
6am tagbilaran early morning street photography
(market, fish port, streets)
7.30am breakfast @ cainggit beach (kilaw, oysters, sugba, etc)
9am (optional: fashion shoot w/ Posh models)
12nn lunch sa Island City Mall
2pm flight back to Cebu..awww float diay..

Ang gastohon:
oceanjet/weesam/supercat P800 back n forth
regular rates sa rooms sa resort: P1200 2px plus 200 per person

food..KKB
loay river cruise..P300/pax buffet
tickets/entrance fees..P100 cguro all in

mga P2500 payts na cguro oi…minimum..one night ra man pud stay sa hotel…

tentative pa ni..if the group wants to go to Danao Eco-Advenure to spend the night..we will miss the beach pero mas makatipid kay pwede ra man tents didto…magda lang ta tents..

you can visit this link for an update…

http://www.flickr.com/groups/garbongbisayainternational/discuss/72157615050475938/