Amidst the pandemic, participation in our workshop has even become wider. Seventy-six participants completed basic training in acting, ensemble work, music, and dance in this year’s Basic Workshop in the Preforming Arts (BWPA).

Spanning six weeks of training which opened in June 23, the digital reach allowed participants from as far north as La Union and Pangasinan gathering culture and arts students of the Don Mariano Marcos Memorial University in Agoo, among others.

The BWPA is an annual workshop that prepares applicants entry as scholars to IPAG, being the resident company of the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT). Accepted scholars are granted free tuition, books, a monthly allowance, training and travel opportunities for a repertory company prides itself as the country’s most-travelled.

The forty-four-year-old IPAG, a major Philippine performing company with an international reputation, ensures the integrity of its productions and its artists through its 3 Ps method (Praxis, Pedagogy, and Production). The recital showcases how IPAG’s signature forms are executed, its creativity displayed in original works developed by the participants.

The culminating recital is set July 30 (Fri), 6 pm. and livestreamed through IPAG’s FB page facebook.com/ipagarts

#stayingalive   #inspiringipag  #inspiring44

IPAG master-facilitators Meshaq Dangel and Vicks Badiang Arlan are now midway their Music for Theater interactive lectures, fun and upbeat tapping of whatever stuff that creates sounds to drive the idea why music plays a huge part in enhancing the mood and atmosphere of a performance. Since we integrate our dance pedagogy pangalay into our dance performances and major dance drama musicals – our kind of music puts an extra layer to really draw an audience into the performance, because it becomes an even more immersive auditory experience.

Music augments or complicates the counter-language of theatre, and because the two languages are expressed at the same time in the same space, the combined effect is magnified, especially emotionally. For us, the emotional reception of the social transcreation of drama or a researched dance ritual (imitation of an action in the form of action), is made viscerally, rather than intellectually, “dramatic.”

The Music for Theater module in the Basic Workshop on the Performing Arts (BWPA) focuses on basic music elements: rhythm, harmony, movements and moments, breathing and phrasing. Delivery method is workshop with directed exercises principles and theory plus performance and evaluation after a series of directed exercises, listening activities for music appreciation. We also encourage our students and scholars, music analyses based on the principles and theory of performance. We will see them in the recitals (July 30) so watch for announcements in this page.

contributed: Archie Pacana

#inspiringIPAG#inspiring43#stayingalive#bwpa#musicfortheater

The Webinar series “Surviving the Surging Waters” scans performance as it is re-shaped in these pandemic circumstances while foreseeing what it will be like in the post-pandemic.

The series explores: What will define Philippine Theater and other performance genres after the COVID crisis is over? The conversations speculate the forms, processes, and manners of engagements that the present circumstances have determined. The forum also revisits the times World Theater rebounded from major crises like the world wars, pandemics, and social-political upheavals summing up how Performance survived these onslaughts.

Previous webinars discussed basic framework studies and concepts. Our conversations continue to perceive a setting to ensure that our Theater remains dynamic as ever.

The forums interrogate what constitutes Theater? What engagements are involved? How do forms morph to represent and engage cultures and situations? What economic exchanges take place? The series is part of a larger program in IPAG’s 43th and 44th Seasons tagged #stayingalive: Riding the Crests of the Pandemic.

FORUM 1. Performance, Production, and the Community
June 30 (Wed), 6:00 – 8:00 pm.

SIR ANRIL PINEDA TIATCO, Ph.D
STEVEN P.C. FERNANDEZ, DFA

FORUM 2. Dissecting the Play
July 1 (Thu), 6:00 – 8:00 pm.

STEVEN P.C. FERNANDEZ, DFA
NICHOLAS PICHAY, Ll.M
GLEN SEVILLA MAS, MFA

FORUM 3. Production and the Pandemic
July 2 (Fri), 6:00 – 8:00 pm.

STEVEN P.C. FERNANDEZ, DFA
ERIC DIVINAGRACIA, MFA
KARLO GALAY DAVID, MA

checkout: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=875038486435257

#stayingalive: Riding the Crests of the Pandemic Waves

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=816220729327618

Phase 3 of IPAG’s New Modalities Program will soon premiere eight (8) new works developed during the pandemic.

This course, which began in August 2020, has included lecture-workshops in directing, dramaturgy, playwriting, movement, and webinars benefitting 16 Fellows, now 8-10 apprentice directors, and the hundreds who follow our live streams. The courses were conducted by some of the more distinguished practitioners of performance among them Aubrey Mellor, Sato Makato, and Nicholas Pichay. Program Director is Steven P.C. Fernandez.

Draft of their works were presented in a virtual recital last December. The mounting and rehearsals follow extensive critiquing and rewrites adapting to these present circumstances.

Activities explored venues where performance can be sustained minus live audiences in the transition. Alternatives navigate unchartered waters looking forward to a “New Normal” traversing these points: Adaptation, Transition, and Resurrection.

#stayingalive #inspiringipag

Four decades in five minutes. Over four decades of inspired work. We proudly banner the significant contributions to Philippine Performing Arts, its mark as the country’s most-travelled repertory company representing the country in over 100 cities worldwide, and its cultural milestones in the nation.

#inspiringipag

IPAG joins CCP Arts Market and Festival

The INTEGRATED PERFORMING ARTS GUILD (IPAG) joins the CCP Arts Market and the Pasinaya Festival (Tuloy Po Kayo), March 19-28. IPAG proudly banners the significant contributions to Philippine Performing Arts, its mark as the country’s most-travelled repertory company representing the country in over 100 cities worldwide, and its cultural milestones in the nation.

IPAG premieres its world-acclaimed Sita: The Ramayana Revisited in the Palabas (Performance) component of the festival (March 20, Sat., 3:30 pm). Artistic Director Steven P.C. Fernandez lectures on his performance pedagogy (Palihan component) as documented in his latest book Performance Level. Also lecturing on the Literatures of the South is Retired Professor and Director of the Mindanao Culture and Creative Writers Group Prof. Christine Godinez-Ortega.

IPAG takes part in the Arts Market (Palitan) offering its performances and learning resources to international institutions negotiating to engage with the creative product of Philippine artists.

INTEGRATED PERFORMING ARTS GUILD (IPAG) is one with the country as it celebrates February ARTS MONTH

EVENTS
13 (Sat)10:00 am.
BOOK LAUNCH
Performance Level, Directing on the Fringes, and Representation, Meaning, and Identity by STEVEN P.C. FERNANDEZ, DFA

Over four decades of the production of performance have derived a method. Playwright-dramaturg Steven P.C. Fernandez has collated the expressions in theater, ritual, cultural enactments, and other social events in three significant books that collate the Three Ps (3Ps) of performance: Pedagogy, Praxis, and Production. These pioneering works illustrate Aesthetics evolved from the blend of Culture and Performance. These works collate the process of how performance operates and how practitioners may adapt these. Chronicled are significant productions and performance events that Fernandez and IPAG have produced, researched on, and facilitated. These works have shaped a characteristic Aesthetics framed by the principles of Transcreation and Distillation, creative processes that have made a deep impact in Philippine dramaturgy.

Announcements: the introduction Pang-Alay of the IPAG Magazine
tentative launch: April 2021 (Literature Month)

the training-teaching videos of its practice towards the establish of a Performance Academy

the continuing production of tranSCRIPT, the national dramaturgy and playwriting workshop of New Modalities, July 2021

3:00 pm.
DIRECTING ON THE FRINGES: The IPAG Story
Documentary chronicling the growth of the most-travelled Philippine performing company from its beginnings in 1978. This full-feature AV narrates the timeline of the IPAG success from its simple homegrown origins to its significant position in Philippine performance practice and production after 43 years.

Script, Direction, and Music: STEVEN P.C. FERNANDEZ
Videography: BRYAN LINDIO

Premiere: EA
The IPAG Music Video explores music and movements distilled from indigenous expressions innovated to present new meanings mirroring our present settings. Eä is derived from J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, as a realization of the vision of the Ainur which literally means “be” or “exist”.

Music: MESHAQ DANGEL Choreography: Juliet Celeste-Malit, as recreated by KENN ERWIN VELASQUEZ and the IPAG Creative Collective

BOOK OFFER in the Humanities, Theater, Culture, Art, and Performance Studies bundled In these invaluable references to enhance instruction and production. Appropriate basic references for Culture-Arts complement courses in high school, college, and graduate schools authored by a leading scholar and practitioner.

IPAG TV (Theater Video) series continues. Tighod (Tides of Times) opens January 4 (Thurs), 3:00 p.m.

Cancelled by COVID for its national premiere in Tanghal Cebu last March, TIGHOD momentarily migrates to the digital platform.

TIGHOD, ebb and flow, a devised piece narrating the odyssey of a group of creatures born out from water elements, their discovery of a new realm, and their change of existence that leads to a point of no return. This is a skeletal allusion to the proverbial cycle of mankind’s history. It also alludes to the devastation we now encounter.

Tighod premiered to acclaim at the 2019 Festival of the Asia Pacific Bond of Theater Schools at the Vietnam International Performance Academy in Hanoi and at the MSU-IIT celebrating National Arts Month last February.

Check link to be posted at: www.ipagarts.com fb: ipagarts

(43rd Season features full-length productions on video in IPAG’s active repertoire. Soonest as this crisis ends, we bring excitement back to our theaters in our grand Resurrection!)

#stayingalive #inspiring43 #inspiringipag #tighod

(YouTube link: https://youtu.be/_7yDUCe6sE8 premieres on Jan. 4)

When COVID struck, instinctively we shifted modes. After Tighod, a 2020 highlight, received raving notices in Hanoi, then Iligan, Cebu cancelled its national premiere. Our 43rd Season supposed to begin in June fell through. But we have exceeded what we would have accomplished in normal times. Shifting modalities halfway past the year, IPAG completed the 2nd phase of a Dramaturgy, Playwriting, and Movements program. Gathering Fellows from around the country, the program has produced the seeds of eight new plays read in two recitals. These follow 15 sessions of virtual workshops mentored by famous director-playwrights Sato Makato (Japan), Aubrey Mellor (Australia), and Nic Pichay (Philippines).

https://www.facebook.com/ipagarts/videos/932864970783315

The Movements workshop of our apprentices has produced choreographed works in another recital foreseeing production in our “resurrection” in 2021.Five live performances, a national road show, and four live-streamed productions in international events make up for what would have been a robust season of postponed international tours including a feature in the International University Theatre Association festival last August at the CCP.

The quarantine has accomplished two books, our inclusion in the online edition of the CCP Encyclopedia, more worldwide exposures of our Ramayana (IPAG represents the Philippines in an ambitious 200-volume five-year Global Ramayana Encyclopedia project) including an international TV interview, plus over ten IPAG-led webinars on art, culture, and performance, including one on the establishment of a Philippine Theatre Academy, and the production of a film documentary on the IPAG Story.

We’ve tightened our international links: Asia-Pacific Bond, Asian League of Institute of Art, ITI-UNESCO, and our ties with the CCP, Japan Foundation, the NCCA, and our peers in Mindanao. Soon we will back on the world road.Three national awards cap 2020: two CCP Gadors for IPAG and its Artistic Director, and the Gawad CCP, the highest distinction for a company’s outstanding contributions.

2021 WILL BE MORE INSPIRING!

/news/#recital

The INTEGRATED PERFORMING ARTS GUILD completes its 2^nd 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.