BRIDGING COMMUNITIES, BINDING ONE NATION
Tales From Mindanao enthralls the Fulbright Program
DeLa Salle U, Dasmarinas, Cavite, July 21-22
IPAG’s Tales From Mindanao for the Fulbright “Dunong at Kalinangan” immersions was titled “Three Peoples in One Island” to showcase the diverse cultures in Mindanao. So apt for the event as the participants came from similar cultural environments like the Hawaiian Islands and the US West Coast. To say that the engagement was warm may be an understatement.
The exchanges were beyond our already-inspired fellowships. Not only were the participants taking in bits of Philippine culture, but our IPAG artists were immersed in the landscapes of diverse and overlapping cultures.
The responses were electric.
The University of Hawaii and IPAG, resident company of the MSU-IIT, have decided to pursue such engagements further. With excited anticipation, we are now working on this. Our last roadshow of the Hawaiian Islands when UH and the Philippine-American Association hosted us for the Phil-Am Centennial was in 2006. Many still remembered this significant sojourn marking its place in the cultural calendar of Pinoys in Hawaii.
The Fulbright event would not have been possible without Dr. Federico Magdalena, Ph.D, the Project Director, Faculty Dr. Jason Parba (who we have collaborated with in many instances), and Dr. Pia Arboleda, the Director of the Center for Philippine Studies.
Of course, there is La Salle Dasmarinas Cavite where our event was held (Salamat Dr. George Francisco, Ph.D) in their exotic campus of historic structures. And our home, the MSU-IIT that has been supportive all throughout our 45 years.
IPAG’s Sita Opens National Road Shows
Theater regains its vitality in the Post Pandemic
CCP launches Gawad Sining Folio
The MSU-IIT IPAG was recognized with the Gawad CCP para sa Sining, the highest award given by the country’s premier art institution, the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). Celebrating its 52nd anniversary, the Center virtually launches its Gawad CCP Folio, September 30, 2021, @2pm via CCP and CCP Intertextual Division Facebook pages.
With IPAG are awardees danseur Nonoy Froilan, pianist and former CCP president Raul M. Sunico, theater veteran Felix “Nonon” Padilla, visual artist Luis “Junyee” Yee, Jr., writer Lualhati T. Bautista, filmmaker Clodualdo “Doy” del Mundo Jr., architect Cristina V. Turalba, designer Kenneth Cobonpue, cultural worker Nestor Horfilla, Danilo L. Dolor, the late Tony Fabella, and the late Alice Guillermo, and the Liwayway Magazine.”The folio is an excellent guide on the Filipino artists whose outstanding achievements and contributions to Philippine arts and culture are something that every Filipino, especially the young generations, can emulate,” said CCP chairperson Moran-Floirendo.
#CCPGawadParaSaSining | #CCPOnline
Riding the Crests of the Pandemic
IPAG Caps Transition with Recital Performances
The INTEGRATED PERFORMING ARTS GUILD completes its 2nd phase of its tranSCRIPT Dramaturgy, Playwriting, and Dance Workshops with recitals on Saturday, Dec. 12 (Dance), and Wed. and Thu, 16 and 17 (Dramaturgy-Playwriting).
Dubbed “#stayingalive,” all performances will be livestreamed at 6 pm., Phil. Time.
The recitals cap over 20 Sessions of training which started last August. The program ensures that performance activities remain active through the pandemic.
In three phases, the practice and knowledge of in-based artists and participants from various parts of the country are enhanced by craft-based modules. Exploring new modalities, new plays and their production see performance in post-COVID times. IPAG has framed these phases according to the pandemic circumstances from adaptation, transition, and the resurrection foreseen in 2021.
Eight playwrights collaborate with eight dramaturges to present their initial outputs in the recital. The dance-training classes gather over 30 apprentices who will form the core of the performing ensemble in the Resurrection Phase.
Eminent facilitators have included international dramaturges Makato Sato, Aubrey Mellor, and Nicholas Pichay. Managing the program is IPAG Founding Artistic Director Steven P.C. Fernandez.
Completing the program are webinars on Arts Administration, Meranao Kulintang, Cultural Heritage, and Tourism.
Supporting the program are grants from the CCP Kalinga sa Sining, Japan Foundation Manila, Inc, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), and the host MSU-IIT through its Center for Culture and the Arts Studies.
Locally, Tales From Mindanao and Tatlo sa Isa continued its long-running tours enthralling gym-size audiences in Davao Oriental, Dumaguete (Luce Auditorium, Silliman U), Metro Manila, and Iligan further nailing its claim as the country’s most-traveled repertory production. Still, IPAG headlined the CCP Outreach’s collaboration with its Pearl of the Orient Sun performing to enraptured audiences at the CCP Tanghalang Tolentino and the Nueva Viscaya Convention Center to celebrate the Outreach’s 50 years.
Double-20 conspires to further expand our theater reach, again returning to the Ramayana’s culture of its birth in the next weeks. Besides Ayodha and Mumbai, Sita has performed previously in New Delhi, Kolkata, Bangkok, and Singapore. Plus: more international road tours and our own national commitments.
A PROLIFIC 2020 TO ALL!
(The 2020 schedules will be posted next. ABANGAN!)
#inspiringipag #inspiring42 #sitatheramayanarevisited #ipag #msuiit #talesfrommindanao
“Tales” opens Silliman U’s 57th Season
Tales From Mindanao, Philippines theatre’s most-travelled repertoire of dances and music from Mindanao narratives, opens the 57th Season of the Silliman University in Dumaguete City.
Tales in the past 2 decades has continued to enthrall audiences in cities and in festivals here and abroad. It has performed to over 100 cities worldwide the most recent being a coast-to-coast US road show.
Highly-acclaimed since its premiere at the 1992 CCP National Theater Festival, “Tales” continues its national tours this 42nd Season moving on to more performances in Manila, Compostela Valley, Iligan City, Cabadbaran, Surigao City, and in more sites before its next international road show.
Silliman dates: November 21 (2:00 pm/4:00 pm), 22 (8:00 pm gala), and 23 (3:00 pm/8:00 pm), Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium
Tales is hosted by the Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee celebrating a long tradition of the arts and culture in this distinguished university and in Negros Oriental. Theme of the celebration is “Handulantaw” that looks back to the rich cultural heritage of Philippine music and the art.
(photo credits: Ronald Allan Salazar)
#ayodhya
IPAG’s Ramayana enthralls India anew
And the field is silenced. IPAG’s Sita: The Ramayana Revisited enthralled Ayodha in India’s festival of festivals, Diwali (Oct. 26, Ramkatha field) for the Deepotsav celebrations.
Writes foremost Ramayana scholar and author Anita Bose (Ramayana: Footprints in SouthEast Asian Culture and Heritage): “… a unique piece … from (the) core of your heart and respect. Ramlila … is not only about the showcasing (of) your actions or movement, it is always tuned with utmost devotion and insight… . your performance was not only magnificent but also divine… . Hopefully my book will give you something more on this topic. My prayers, wishes, love, and respect for your team will be always.”
Adds Yogendra Pratap Singhh, Festival Director, 2019 Deepotsav Ayodha: “Great performance”
Next stops, Colombo, Sri Lanka Ramayana Festival and the 2nd International Ramayana Conference in Jabalpuri in January 2020
IPAG expands international links
The MSU-IIT Integrated Performing Arts Guild enhanced its growing international reputation with its sixth participation at the Asia-Pacific Bond (APB) of Theatre Schools Festival in Hanoi, Vietnam. IPAG performed Tighod (Tide of Times), a devised piece that narrates the odyssey of creatures born from water.
Besides the performance, IPAG facilitated a workshop on its performance pedagogy and collaborated in a culminating recital piece.
The APB reputedly the dominant organization of elite universities with theatre programs has been the venue where major IPAG works premiered. International acknowledgements have been heaped on Sita: The Ramayana Revisited, The Orpheus Trilogy, Suhi, Uwahig, and Suhi, all produced in as many cities in the Asia-Pacific.
Tighod presents images, actions, and sounds whose representations are non-realistic. The piece well-received in this international premiere imaged the proverbial cycle of mankind’s history. It was conceived by MSU-IIT visual artist Jan Pagarigan and History Associate Professor Neil Azcuna. Giving life to the piece were Junah Lucasan, faculty at the Department of Physical Education, dancers Jane Allyson Dantes, Psymon Flores, Jacob Togonon, and IPAG Associate Kenn Erwin Velasquez who together with Leilani Fernandez facilitated the choreography. Music was composed by Roy Matthew T. Bongalo and Fitzgerald N. Torralba. Dramaturg is IPAG Director Steven P.C. Fernandez.
The 2019 APB foreseeing the consequent challenges of a growing conglomerate of performing arts institutions elected a new set of leaders. IPAG Founder Fernandez was elected to the Board of Advisors while Ateneo de Manila Professor Ricardo Abad took the helm of incoming President, two Filipinos among seven officers. The APB has expanded to a growing network of 27 universities to date since IPAG was invited to join in 2012 upon the nomination of theatre luminary Aubrey Mellor.
This edition opened more opportunities for IPAG to collaborate, projects set up with the State University of San Diego, Chulalongkorn U, and Taipei National University of the Arts. Meanwhile, the Asian League of Institutes of Arts (ALIA) where the MSU-IIT is a charter member has proposed a joint project among other institutes. IPAG is also a member of the International University Theatre Association, among others, which holds its world festival in Manila next year.
The IPAG has performed its diverse repertoire in over a hundred cities worldwide.
In the last week of October, IPAG highlights the Dipotsava Festival in Ayodha, Uttar Pradesh, India, with its Sita. Ayodha is the city where King Rama built his royal palace. The various invitations to India and Asia of IPAG’s Ramayana evidences how its version has been well received by the nations where the epic is a heritage. It last performed Sita to critical acclaim at the Mumbai festival in February this year after performing in New Delhi, Kolkata, Bangkok, and Singapore.
#2019apb
THE INTEGRATED Performing Arts Guild (IPAG), resident company of the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology, joins 25 other major universities in the Asia-Pacific in a Drama Festival in Hanoi, Vietnam from Sept, 23 to 29.
The Asia-Pacific Bond (APB) of Drama Schools is an annual event that gathers some of the more prestigious universities including Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), Shanghai Theatre Academy (China), Victoria College of the Arts (Australia), National School of Drama (India), among others. The Philippines is represented by Ateneo de Manila University and the MSU-IIT. Membership to this exclusive network is through nomination and election. (IPAG was nominated in 2012 in Taipei and accepted in 2013 in Shanghai.) This will be IPAG’s third performance appearance in Vietnam and its sixth for the APB.
This year’s edition is hosted by the Vietnam International Performance Academy (VIPA).
Besides performances, the week-long APB will also hold workshops and facilitate a directors’ forum.
For the Vietnam festival, IPAG showcases a devised production Tighod: Tide of Times using contemporary dance as its medium. The experimental production was written and conceptualized by Asst. Prof. Neil Arkhe P. Azcuna and Jan Christian A. Pagarigan, both alumni of the Department of History. Using elements from Performance and Installation Art, Tighod (ebb and flow) explores man’s inescapable entanglement with history through a bleak and fragmented perspective. Strewn all over the performance are metaphors of audience and performance and references to Art and History’s cyclical diorama in pre-colonial nations.
Tighod is part of the laboratory pieces that reinforce IPAG’s dramaturgy innovating production through contemporary mediums. Dramaturg is Prof. Steven Patrick C. Fernandez and the choreography is by Kenn Erwin A. Velasquez, collaborated with the IPAG Creative Collective.
Live feed performances, Aug. 20, 2019
42nd Season Opens
The Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG), resident company of the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT), announces its offerings for the 42nd Season, August 2019-May 2020.
The widely-acclaimed Tales From Mindanao and Tatlo sa Isa (Three Peoples, One Island) opens the Season with road shows at the SM North Skydome (Aug. 19-20) and at the Letran in Calamba, Laguna (Aug. 21).
Tales journeys on more shows this season. These include a home-based performance at the MSU-IIT gym on September 16-17 and another at the Luce Auditorium in Silliman U in November.
IPAG headlines the collaborative Gintong Alab sa Silangan (Pearl of the Orient Sun), a dance-music suite narrating the growth of the Filipino nation. This five-part piece composed by Steven P.C. Fernandez highlights Forty Years of the Outreach (now Cultural Exchange Department) of the Cultural Center of the Philippines with performances at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (Little Theater) on October 10 (3 and 7 p.m.) plus out-of-town appearances thereafter.
Sita: The Ramayana Revisited, IPAG’s Ramayana version, performs for another Ramayana Festival, the Dipotsava 2019 in Ayodha, Uttar Pradesh, the very city of the epic’s setting, on Oct. 24-26. Sita has been performed to acclamation in New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangkok, and Singapore.
Deconstructing Greek mythology, IPAG presents a contemporized Orpheus Trilogy narrating of the ascent of the music god to depths of personal rediscovery, Oct. 27-29 at the CASSalida Black Box.
Tighod: Tide of Times premieres at the Asia Pacific Bond Theatre Festival in Hanoi in September. This devised improvisation using movements and non-verbal texts narrates a community’s journey through water. It will have its full run at the MSU-IIT open grounds on Feb. 19 and 20, 2020 to celebrate the National Arts Month.
Wrapping up the Season is the IPAG version of the Oedipus story, Suhi (Breech Birth), how gods rule fate. Reset in Mindanao, Suhi goes onstage March 18-20, 2020 at the CASSalida Black Box.
IPAG is widely acclaimed for its innovative productions recognized as the most-travelled Philippine repertory company representing the best of Philippine dramaturgy in major festivals around the world.
Besides performances and road tours, IPAG conducts apprenticeships in stagecraft, dance and movement, playwriting, music, and production. Performances for special events have also been confirmed.
Updates shall be posted. Also visit the IPAG website: ipagarts.com
