The AlunAlun Dance Circle marked its 15th year since the organization’s legal existence in 2000. Here are 15 things to remember and be thankful for about 2015.

Sunday Pangalay Sessions

For 15 years, ADC members and friends continued the practice of holding dance sessions every Sunday, through sultry or stormy weather. The weekly practice has become a tradition.

The Handog Center

On 20 and 21 March 2015, the Handog Center was inaugurated with film showings on the first day and performances on the second day. The Handog Center is another home of the AlunAlun Dance Circle based in Marikina City, with address at 9 JP Rizal corner MH del Pilar streets, Calumpang, Marikina City. The Handog Center is the present (2016) address and office of the AlunAlun Dance Circle. 

Pangalay Handbook

Early in 2015, we learned that the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) approved our proposal to make a Pangalay Handbook or manual to aid in the teaching of pangalay. Completed in 2015 by pangalay guru, Ligaya F. Amilbangsa, it will soon be published by the ADC. The book is finished and will be out in 2016!

Children Dancing Pangalay

In 2015, children took center stage as the narrators and dancers in a short film entitled Ang Kuwento ng mga Aninong Sumasayaw (A Tale of Dancing Shadows) written and directed by Nannette Matilac with animation by Ellen Ramos. Produced in 2015 with NCCA support, the short film will be launched in 2016. The child dancers/narrators are Cai Wadi, Hannah Wadi, and Roni Matilac. In a few years, these children will grow into lovely ladies dancing pangalay!

The National Mission Conference

On 20 May 2015, the ADC presented a series of traditional and innovative choreographies for the National Mission Conference with the theme “Gifted to Give.” The performance was held at the Divine Word Seminary in Tagaytay City. The appreciative audience was composed of local and international delegates from the church sector. In the accompanying photo, Nannette Matilac dances the tariray using bamboo clappers with the beautiful mat from Tawi-Tawi as background, held by masked dancers.

2015 Ramon Magsaysay Award

The well-deserved award for Ms. Ligaya Amilbangsa, ADC artistic director, is recognition of her quiet and continuous efforts in preserving intangible cultural heritage. This iconic photo is by Isa Lorenzo.

Pangalay for Teachers’ Development

Two events for teachers were sponsored by the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) for public school teachers. In July 2015, on the occasion of the Eidl Fitr, the film Ang Pagbabalik sa Tawi-Tawi was shown to an audience of public school teachers, highlighted by a dance performance by ADC dancers. Then on 18 September 2015, Ligaya Amilbangsa gave a lecture with dance demonstration as part of the “KKK: Kalikasan, Kalusugan, Kasaysayan – An Alternative National Seminar Conference for Teachers.”

42nd Kamahardikaan and Agal-Agal Festival

Tawi-Tawi was the original place where Ligaya Amilbangsa started her research on pangalay since the 1960s. The link to the province has grown even stronger in the 21st century. In September 2015, Ligaya Amilbangsa and Louanne Mae Calipayan graced the 42nd Kamahardikaan Festival as judges in the Agal-Agal Festival. (See separate article by Louanne Mae Calipayan.)

Marikina City’s Tribute to ADC Artistic Director

On 28 September 2015, Marikina City hosted a dinner-tribute for Ligaya Amilbangsa at the Marikina City Cultural Center aka Kapitan Moy heritage house. Ligaya was given the honor as one of the city’s most outstanding citizens. The AlunAlun Dance Circle presented a spunky pangalay choreography using music of the Beatles and Michael Jackson – two artists who were unknown to Ligaya because she was so immersed in Sulu culture for decades.

Pangalay at Quezon City’s Diamond Jubilee

On a sultry afternoon on 10 October 2015, the ADC presented a dazzling 20-minute open air performance. This was on the occasion of the 75 th Anniversary of the founding of Quezon City. The performance preceded the street dancing competition.

Museum Volunteers of the Philippines

On 14 October 2015, the ADC led by Ligaya Amilbangsa conducted a lecture with dance demonstration for the members of the Museum Volunteers of the Philippines (MVP) for their Philippine history course. The lecture demo was held at the amphitheater of the Ateneo Professional Schools, Rockwell Center, Makati City. The activity signaled the start of a fruitful relationship with the MVP in 2016.

HABI

The ADC has always supported preservation and development of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, especially those of the indigenous peoples. On 25 October 2015, the ADC participated in the Likhang Habi bazaar that showcased traditional weaving and fabrics of the Philippines. A short repertoire of pangalay choreographies at the open theater of the Glorietta 2 Ayala Malls included an interpretation of Norma Liongoren’s poem by Ligaya Amilbangsa. Norma has always been a close friend of the ADC since its inception.

Ka-loob Benefit Show for the Lumad Youth

On 28 October 2015, the ADC performed for the benefit of the Lumad youth of Mindanao. Dubbed as Ka-Loob, the benefit concert to support the Lumad youth was held at the GT-Toyota Asian Center Auditorium. The live kulintangan accompaniment of ADC’s performance was rendered by the members of UP Tugma from the UP College of Music.

The Sama Dilaut Conference

In less than two months after the Agal-Agal Festival in 2015, Ligaya Amilbangsa and Louanne Calipayan were back to Tawi-Tawi, this time for the 1 st Sama Dilaut (Philippine Badjaw) International Conference held in Tawi-Tawi on 1-3 December 2015. Of course, Ligaya Amilbangsa’s participation was important. She was the first to document Sama Dilaut ritual dances in early 1970s, bringing them to the legitimate stage at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Ligaya delivered the paper entitled: “Negotiation and Accommodation of Igal as Aesthetic and Performative Ritual.” The first conference on the Badjaw in the province was held at MSU-Tawitawi College of Technology and Oceanography.

Friends in Media and from All Over the World

We thank our friends and co-advocates who work for the preservation of traditional cultural heritage. We thank the print, broadcast, and online media coverage in 2015 that helped in disseminating information about what the AlunAlun Dance Circle is doing to preserve pangalay (aka igal or pansak) and related arts of Southern Philippines.

Ramon Magsaysay Awards cites Filipino for art crusade in South

Citation for the 2015 Ramon Magsaysay Award

LIGAYA FERNANDO-AMILBANGSA

In a time that has seen nations violently torn apart by ethnic and religious wars, it is important to be reminded of the healing power of the arts in showing that while culture is what makes people of various ethnicities, religions, and nationalities distinct, it is also culture that connects them in the awareness of a shared humanity that is enriched by such differences.

This truth lies at the heart of the lifework of Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa. Born to a prominent Catholic family in Marikina, Metro Manila, Fernando-Amilbangsa had always loved dance and the arts. A turning point in her life came when she married a schoolmate and moved to his home in Sulu where, in the next three decades, she immersed herself in the rich cultural life of the Muslim South. In the midst of the region’s secessionist and insurgent conflicts, she turned her love for the arts into a vocation as cultural researcher, educator, artist and advocate of the indigenous arts of the southern Philippines, particularly the Sulu Archipelago.

Her signature involvement has been the study, conservation, practice and promotion of the dance style called pangalay (“gift offering,” or “temple of dance” in Sanskrit), a pre-Islamic dance tradition among the Samal, Badjao, Jama Mapun, and Tausug peoples of the provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi. A highly intricate and expressive dance of many variations, traditionally performed in weddings and other festive events, pangalay has the richest movement vocabulary of all ethnic dances in the Philippines and is the country’s living link to the ancient, classical dance traditions elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

Fascinated by its beauty and recognizing its importance in the cultural heritage of the Sulu Archipelago and the entire Filipino nation, she was saddened to see that pangalay was becoming a marginalized tradition. Thus she committed her life to patiently documenting the dance and its allied expressions; teaching the dance using a method she personally developed, promoting it by choreographing and organizing performances, and making it known to the world through her lectures, performances, and writings on pangalay and the visual arts of the Sulu Archipelago.
Working mainly in an individual capacity and using her own personal resources, she inspired the formation of performing arts groups, networked with dance scholars and practitioners in Asia, and presented both traditional and innovative pangalay choreographies in and outside the country. Moving back to Metro Manila in 1999, she formed the AlunAlun Dance Circle (ADC) and lent her own home for a dance studio—to study, teach, and perform pangalay and other traditional dance forms. The group has since done hundreds of performances and workshops throughout the country.

For Fernando-Amilbangsa, traditional dances like pangalay are not museum pieces but something to be nurtured as a living tradition that grows as societies change. Thus she has innovated with pangalay performances done to modern music, conveying contemporary themes like women’s rights and environmental conservation. Yet she has always stressed that art must stay rooted in the basic values that humanize—beauty, grace, a disciplined spirituality, and harmony with nature and fellow humans. “Without looking to the past,” she says, “something really new cannot be created.”

In electing Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa to receive the 2015 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes her single-minded crusade in preserving the endangered artistic heritage of southern Philippines, and in creatively propagating a dance form that celebrates and deepens the sense of shared cultural identity among Asians.

This link will redirect to the original Philippine Daily Inquirer article.

The AlunAlun Dance Circle and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts present Pangalay ng Bayan: Sayaw at Laro ng Lahi at the ValerianoE.FugosoElementary  School  Quadrangle, Manila Boys’ Town Complex, Parang, Marikina City on 15 December 2014 , 10 a.m.

The 30-minute recital featuring new dances will recreate selected Philippine Games in pangalay dance style, like habulan, taguan, bahay-bahayan, and others. The dances will showcase the pangalay dance style which is now part of the K-12 program of DepEd. The recital is the culminating activity of the ongoing pangalay dance training among the young wards of the Girls’ Home Unit and Boys’ Home Unit of Manila Boys’ Town Complex.

Pangalay at Larong Pilipino
Karapatan ng mga bata ang maglaro sa mga ligtas, malawak, at natural na kapaligiran. Ang mga Pilipino ay may mga katutubong laro na nanganganib nang mawala dahil sa paglaganap ng TV, ng cellphone, ng mga computer game, at ng Internet. Pahalagahan at alalahanin natin ang mga laro ng ating lahi dahil maraming itinuturo ang mga larong ito sa paghubog ng ugali, isip, diwa, at damdamin ng mga kabataan.

August 2014 is a lucky and busy month.

On 4 August 2014, the 10th Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival exhibited under its Pinoy Pride Philippine Documentaries the film Ang Pagbabalik sa Tawi-Tawi  (Return to Tawi-Tawi), Monday, 12:45 pm at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP)  Little Theater.

The guests of honor who graced the affair were Dr Bienvenido Lumbera and Dr Ramon Santos, National Artists; Hon. Ruby M. Sahali, Representative of the Lone District of Tawi-Tawi province; Dr. Nina Lim-Yuson, President and CEO of Museo Pambata; Carmen D. Padilla, President of International Organization of Folk Art (IOV), Mr Bayani Fernando, President of BF Group of Companies and former MMDA Chair; Ma. Lourdes C. Fernando, multi-awarded former Mayor of Marikina City.  Basilio Esteban Villaruz, art critic and UP Prof Emeritus in Dance at the College of Music, was not able to make it but sent his best wishes and congratulations.

Many among the audience were natives of Tawi-Tawi and Sulu provinces. Some flew in from the Sulu Archipelago just to attend the meaningful film showing, like Cong. Ruby Sahali, Dr. Filemon Romero, and Prof. Johnny Lee with his two daughters. Romero and Lee were founding members of the Tambuli Cultural Troupe in 1974. The two performed in the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1974. Therefore, after 40 years, this reunion at the CCP for the film “Ang Pagbabalik sa Tawi-Tawi” was really a coming into full circle, a completion, a milestone.

The 71-minute film culminated in a performance by the AlunAlun Dance Circle. Mannex Siapno performed the tawti while the closing credits rolled on the big screen. Child dancer Hannah Wadi danced beautifully, hands adorned with her cute janggay (metal claws). Accompanying Hannah were Mariel Francisco and Pacita Gavino who both performed the bula’bula or dance with bamboo clappers. Nannette Matilac did a solo pangalay dance. The finale of the performance was Ligaya Amilbangsa who showed her beautiful lines in the linggisan or bird dance, which is one of the original chore0graphy of Ligaya Amilbangsa based on field research that is essayed in the documentary film. The film showing is just the beginning of a series of film exhibitions of the documentary film all over the country and abroad.

On 2 August 2014, the AlunAlun Dance Circle performed in two separate venues at the Museo Pambata and at the SM the Block Atrium for the 2014 Eid’l Fitr Festival.

The Eid’l Fitr Exhibit at the Museo Pambata opened with a performance and interaction with children. It was a fun afternoon with children. Another session is set on 9 August 2014.

 

Levi Azarcon and Mannex Siapno demonstrate pangalay postures and gestures while boys enthusiastically imitate them.