Reflection of Filipino ritual and ceremonies pasearch
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[caption id="attachment_13681" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Performers of the Street Dancing Competition during the Kalilangan Festival in General Santos City, Philippines"]Performers of the Street Dancing Competition during the Kalilangan Festival in General Santos City, Philippines [/caption]
The Atelier for Young Festival Managers, a mentorship program initiated by the European Festival Association (EFA) is becoming the most important and comprehensive forum for international discussions on a worldwide cultural phenomenon, the arts festivals.
During the opening of the atelier in Singapore, one of the mentors, Rose Fenton, co-founder of the London International Festival of Theater asked the question: How many festivals do we really need? There were eleven mentors and 34 participants from ASEM countries, Africa and Central America. In the plenary alone there were close to fifty festivals celebrating different ways of life, events and things.
An interesting note, as the third edition of the Atelier which was held for the first time in Asia, the question “are Asian festivals using the European Model?” was often raised. An Atelier mentor Wai-Lap Kwong, the Program Director of the Guangdong Modern Dance Festival in China, stressed that in Asia, Festivals are community events that oftentimes centered on food.
Philippine festivals are town fiestas celebrating moments in history that defined identity, polity and locality. Celebration of the arts and culture, albeit made central to these festivities, only comes as a texture instead of text in the whole exercise of the Festival. This articulation of the festival differs entirely from the European frame borrowed from Bernard Faivre D’Arcier (former Director of the Avignon Festival) that “the true role of the festival is for artists to dare, to engage in new projects”. Despite the cultural divides of eastern and western thoughts, Philippine festivals are still festivals nonetheless.