The main streets are unusually embellished this time of year. Colorful pennants start to flutter in the wind as the streets are readied to be dressed in the colored costumes of celebration.
This is the season of the Sandugo: a celebration of friendship that dates back centuries.
Sandugo, the union in blood by the Spanish authorities represented by Capitan Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and natives led by their chieftain Sikatuna (Si Catunao), is now commemorated in Bohol in pomp, pageantry and lavish events capped by Subli ug Kuradang sa Sandugo, a street-dancing and ritual presentations competition that unites all revelers to look back at their roots, inside the Carlos P Garcia Sports Complex, this July 27.
Sandugo is a Visayan street-dancing festival crowd drawer alright, but if you think you have seen all festivals that you’ve seen enough of Sandugo, think again.
Sandugo this year promises to be not your kind of run-of-the-mill swirling and twirling copy of the popular movement of the ‘sulog’ that infest majority of these "commercialized festivals."
Already on its 30th year of creative innovation, this year’s Sandugo again swerves with the realms of the creative interpretation of Sandugo: unity and peace, Sandugo Foundation Street Dancing Chair Carmen Gatal advances the information.
In fact, in the last two years, Bohol's Kuradang ug Subli sa Sandugo has slowly divorced itself from the lavish neon colored themes borrowed from another famous Visayan festival, and putting Bohol's street dance parade into its proper perspective has sprouted wells of inspiration and creativity, remarks festival creative director Lutgardo Labad.
This and the search for true Boholano identity has sprung triggers of innovation, which is the ultimate end of self-sustaining a celebration of life in the Sandugo, he added.
The endless search for innovation infects Bohol's most festive kuradang street party this year, and if one is in for the already predictable repetitive reenactment of the blood compact, chances are, one is in for a surprise.
Already carving an identity by skipping away from the generic and invasive street-dancing routines copied from Latin American mardigras, Bohol's Sandugo Festival wheeled towards the kuradang, a Visayan folk dance that is characterized by flinging arms, with twisting thumbs and an intricate foot routine to the 6/8 beat.
Introduced about a couple of years ago, the innovative Kuradang steps of Sandugo Festival, had most people prophesied: since it started with a bang, it would end in a sizzle. Luckily, It did not.
Against the syndicated flare and flair of the professionalized band of choreographers who have uniformed ideas of street-dancing infested by the Visayan sinulog, Kuradang ug Subli sa Sandugo has stirred the creative pots of a new breed of choreographers who are finally thinking different from the horde of pretentious experts bringing in strange steps ungrounded in the local culture.
Trained by no less than the authentic cultural bearers and infused by inputs of history, traditions and mores, the new breed of dance choreographers finally started doing things right through their new-found diligence to research on the historic provenance, cultural and traditional base of the steps and worked to enhance their versions of how people used dance to imitate life.
But after years of getting served with the countless version of reenactment of the blood pact by dancing contingents, this year, it is going to be different, Labad shared.
By different, he means, if there is a reenactment of the Sandugo, then it would be for the contingent which picks the pre-Spanish to Spanish period that would have the right to stage one to be historically correct.
This year, for Boholanos to better appreciate local history, the Sandugo Foundation decided to explore on the historic periods in Bohol history and for the 8 dancing contingents to pick on storyline that speaks of peace and unity as a Sandugo them for the period.
This year, expect therefore not much of the dagger and the cup raising scenes, rather go for how local choreographers pick out historical scenes that depict unity and peace among Boholanos throughout the years, Labad shared a teaser for the rituals.
As to the street-dancing however, the kuradang still takes the main dance routine and judges would be discriminating on the non-rooted dance steps that would have the possibility to dilute the local culture and traditions of Bohol.
And now that you have been told, ready your walkers and sneakers, don on the most comfortable shirt, grab a camera, a water bottle and slap on a sunblock to get into the groove and experience Bohol history like you never knew. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)
No comments:
Post a Comment