The International Dance Day Festival from 22-26 April 2026 at the Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Circuit Makati featured a weeklong celebration of dance with local and international performers across folk, street, ballet, and contemporary genres. Audiences were treated to an exhilarating and emotional culture and arts festivity that captured the imagination, effectively acting as […]
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The AlunAlun Dance Circle
We seek to preserve Pangalay, a living link to traditional dance cultures in the Asian region where sensitivity is the key to learning and mastery of the many nuances of traditional dances. Pangalay has closest affinity to the Indian, Javanese, Thai, Burmese and Cambodian styles of classical dancing.
Our Mission
Under the tutelage of pangalay dance teacher and choreographer, Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa, the AlunAlun Dance Circle aspires to revive, stimulate and sustain interest in ancient Filipino art forms, notably the pangalay dance style, through comprehensive dance instruction, research, and performances.
Pangalay: literally, a gift offering.
Pangalay also means "temple of dance" in Sanskrit. Pangalay antedates Christianity and Islam in the Philippines. Among Philippine indigenous dances, the pangalay dance style has the richest movement vocabulary. It is the closest to a classical form.
News and Updates
Souls in Motion: Pangalay’s Sacred Language in Sari Dalena’s CINEMARTYRS
In the luminous world of Philippine independent cinema, collaborations between filmmakers and traditional artists are rare — but when they do occur, they often result in works that transcend genre and speak to something deeper in the national soul. Such is the case in Sari Dalena’s Cinemalaya entry “Cinemartyrs,” a haunting, poetic, and unflinching meditation […]
A Pangalay Memoir
“It seemed easy enough to do,” I thought to myself as I watched the pangalay program at the Roman Garden on the bank of the Marikina River in 2005. I had already seen Ligaya Fernando Amilbangsa give a short demonstration of it at a conference at CCP many years ago, and given what I thought […]