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The Breath is the Life Force which is also the foundation of  pangalay movements.  (The same is true for Asian movements like qi gong, tai chi and aikido.)  Being a dance style not predetermined by linear time but by breathing in harmony with nature, pangalay connects the dancer and the audience to the Life Force.  Oftentimes, spectators of pangalay say that its slow and meditative movements are likened to a prayer.

Pangalay also promotes gentleness and harmony with inner and outer surroundings.  When we learn how to work with the Breath and allow the energy to do its own work freely as we dance, we can affect ourselves and our surroundings.

Meanwhile, the outer world—the modern world with its high-speed technology and unsustainable pattern of production and consumption– is the opposite of the slow and languid movements of pangalay.  The modern world produced the inconvenient reality of pollution, ecological imbalance, deforestation, and climate change that is now pushing the Earth to the edge of destruction.

In “Pangalay ng Bayan: Alay sa Kalikasan,”  Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa choreographs new works with the AlunAlun Dance Circle to promote awareness about climate change and other environmental concerns. The new dances will help raise consciousness about people’s responsibility in caring for the environment.

Program

The year 2011 was a milestone for the AlunAlun Dance Circle.

Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa returned to Tawitawi on 25 September 2011 to receive the award as the “Most Outstanding Artist of Tawitawi” given by the Tawitawi Provincial Grovernment on 27 September 2011.

The occasion allowed Ligaya Amilbangsa to re-connect and share with the artists and the people belonging to various ethnic groups—the Samal, Badjaw, Jama Mapun and the Tausug– who gave her their confidence and trust in documenting their lifeways and various artistic expressions four decades ago. Through this journey, Ligaya Amilbangsa came full circle as an artist and as a cultural conservationist.

Flashback

October 08, 2011

By Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa

Barely a day after my arrival from a seminar in Bangkok, I was again on my way to the airport at the ungodly hour of 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, September 25, 2011.

Nannette, Neil (the cinematographer), and myself patiently waited and speculated as to the whereabouts of Maricor. She was nowhere in sight until the break of dawn when we boarded the flight to Zamboanga City.

Alas! We were a happy foursome on the connecting flight to Bongao, Tawitawi that same morning to catch up with the 10^th Agalagal Festival.

After the usual arrival preliminaries at the Sangasanga airport, our group immediately proceeded to Bongao where the street parade was already in progress. It was hard to believe that I was in the midst of such a display of pomp and color in the capital of Tawitawi; the ati-atihan percussive rhythm assailed my ears, instead of the familiar instrumental and vocal music I heard all over the place four decades ago.

Such was the contrast that seemingly transported me to an entirely different world in the past: the call to prayer at daybreak from a distant mosque; the tantalizing cadence of kulintangan music that wafted unexpectedly anytime from somewhere; the engaging lilt of lelleng sung passionately after sundown by a neighborhood boy with a captivating voice; the hypnotic sound of lugo earnestly intoned from afar; the lullaby hummed by a solicitous mother to pacify a baby in a makeshift cradle on a boat. The memory is too numerous to enumerate.

The garish colors, fabrics, and decorations of the costumes and props in the parade jolted me. What has the festival done to the community? And what has the community done to itself? I cringe at the destructive effects of such an expensive and frivolous activity to the cultural well-being of Tawitawi – identified as one of the poorest provinces in the country, but certainly very rich culturally and historically. What a pity that all these go to waste due to misdirection at all levels.

Are the schools asleep? Are the people sleeping? Are the government institutions snoring in a deep slumber? Is everyone oblivious, or simply ignorant of what is true, beautiful, real, and functional in their particular environment? The natives owe it to themselves to wake up fast enough to preserve and conserve and harness their cultural uniqueness to reap the economic benefits of tourism, but above all to assert their ethnic identity.

In the early morning of June 12, 2011 we AlunAlun Dance Circle members excitedly assembled for our first-ever visit to Batangas City.  We had no idea what to expect from the kind  invitation extended to us by the Batangas City Cultural Committee through its leading member, Atty. Tony Pastor, except that our performance would be the main event for their Independence Day celebration.

A bit of suspense had pervaded our rehearsals, though.  A few days before the date,  heavy rains pummeled Batangas City and brought floods.   It was typhoon season after all!  The planned venue, an open air ampitheatre in the city center, was unusable, and city officials were preoccupied with helping the evacuees.  But Tony Pastor and his group were determined to have a meaningful Independence Day program, so, troopers all, we were going on with show!

Into our hired van we piled in with our bagsful of costumes and simple props, Reggie’s portable kulintangan, and rolls of linoleum in case we needed to cover some rough surfaces.  The dancers were Ligaya, Nannette, Punch, Temay, Joy, Rama, Mannex, Gimo, and myself, plus six-year-old Roni  in only her second performance with the group, and, by a great stroke of luck, Peter Paul de Guzman, who is here for a few months from Los Angeles.

Upon our arrival, the first thing we did was check on the alternative venue, a huge covered court surrounded by various government offices.  Nini, our technical person, quickly touched based with the sounds people.  A local organization conducting a day of fun and games for families was requested to end their program early so that we could do our blocking.  We took stock of the bare cement stage, the absence of  dressing rooms, the cavernous structure…and prepared ourselves to make do.  We were confident we had rich cultural fare to offer the people of Batangas City, and we were happy to do it even in the humblest public facility.

We had our first inkling of the kind of Batangueno hospitality that was in store for us, when Tony Pastor  warmly ushered us into the elegant Pastor-Acosta ancestral home.  Built in the 1900’s by Tony’s parents, and devotedly and superbly preserved by Tony, its every exquisite detail thrilled us city folks, so thirsty for connections with our authentic Pinoy soul. Kapiyas, mesa altars, four-poster beds, santos, family portraits, lacy curtains and gilt-framed mirrors completed this scene of provincial urbanidad.  Proudly standing as centerpiece in the airy living room was a gleaming Bosendorfer piano that was Tony Pastor’s prized possession and dearest toy.

Lunch was served!  “A simple Batangueno lunch,” Tony Pastor modestly described it, prepared and served by a bevy of staff, obviously well-trained for frequent gatherings, the Pastor-Acosta home being in effect a mini-cultural center.  A stand-out was the pork adobo, Pastor family style, which was shorn of fat and tinted with achuete.  But lest you think you are saved from cholesterol, the skin and fat have been cut up into cubes and cooked to crispy goodness into homemade chicharon.  Yummm!

Soon we had to tear ourselves away from the leche flan and rest a bit before getting ready for the show.  We thought we would have enough time for a technical rehearsal (some of us missing the tamales that were served for merienda), but we realized we would only be able to do re-blocking on stage.  Several numbers had to be re-oriented to a proscenium-type set-up instead of  in-the-round. Ligaya and Nanette figured out adjustments to cater to the audience’s line of sight which our studio rehearsals could not take into consideration.

I marvelled at everybody’s gung-ho spirit and flawless teamwork. Each one found a place somewhere at the back of the stage to park his or her stuff for speedy costume and props changes.  The younger ones helped the senior dancers remember which was which.  No one was fazed by the limitations of the situation, the humid atmosphere and the vicious mosquitoes buzzing about.  The Cultural Committee thoughtfully pointed out to us a comfort room inside one of the air-conditioned offices that we could run to for our basic needs.

People started trickling in and soon all the 500 or so seats were taken.  It was satisfying to see that our audience were the ordinary townsfolk,  aside from the handful of  VIP’s that were seated up front.  A sense of expectation filled the air, quieting to a hush as the master of ceremonies introduced us. We felt the usual nervousness even as little Roni made her self-confident entrance for  “Ano ang Pangalay?”.

As each number was met with warm applause, we became more relaxed, but the fast pace of the program, with necessary costume or prop changes, was still challenging.  From behind the stage I occasionally peeped to check  how receptive the  audience was, and I saw Tony Pastor seated in front, his whole body alert and attentive to all the goings on.  He was visibly delighted, and especially amused with the surprise number Ligaya had prepared for him– a playful choreography depicting luksong tinik and tug-of-war to the music of Sonata in C Major by Mozart, as rendered by Tony in a CD recording he had given me.

This, and other energetic numbers like tawti were possible because for the first time we had four strong male dancers in the group.  ” Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang Lupa”, a dramatic tableau choreographed by Ligaya to Bonifacio’s poem (powerfully sung in the Inang Laya CD by Becky Abraham), also maximized the presence of the four “boys” symbolizing the various sectors that make up Philippine society.

Given the good sequencing and diversity of numbers, the audience was one with us, from the poignant melody of “Ugoy ng Duyan” as danced by Nannette, to the vibrant folk tune of “Sa Kabukiran,”  and finally the rock hit song “Bonggahan”.  Ligaya’s boogie moves to Sampaguita’s popular classic never fails to evoke the fun-lover in every Pinoy, bringing the program to a rousing close.

Our open forum, a standard feature of our presentations, as usual brought several good questions to the fore, giving us our wished-for opportunity to enlighten more people about pangalay.  And coming from the revered tradition of Batangas’ own subli, our audience was not at all shy about trying out pangalay movements when invited to do so.

Back at the Pastor-Acosta home, we had our reward of another sumptuous dinner prepared byTony’s kitchen staff.  Over dinner we had a lively exchange of cultural views with members of the Batangas City Cultural Committee and other culturally-minded citizens of Batangas City. After dinner jamming began with piano playing and singing by our host, with a live reprise of Sonata in C major, the better to show some of the playful moves.  We also discovered some similarities between subli and pangalay–two sacred dances, coming from different ancient  spiritual traditions, each finding expression in the Filipino psyche.

With regrets we had to start off for Manila–but not before promising to return for the subli festival on July 25.  And that is another story.

(Photo and video documentation of the performance by Milo and Cynch Paz)

by Mariel N. Francisco

Stillness enveloped the plenum hall with 100 participants representing 18 countries.   After two days  of presentations and group discussions, we were in a quiet evening session titled “Listening to Karma”.  It was the continuation of the previous evening’s “Listening to the Earth”.   The idea was for everyone to sit in a circle in meditative silence, and whoever was moved to stand up and speak on the theme was to  do so, then  take his seat again.  There was to be no discussion, simply a sharing of one’s thoughts and feelings which we could all take into our sleep.
The place was Emerson College, a center for anthroposophical learning in East Sussex in the UK.  My friend Susana and I were attending the Worldwide Biography Conference, held every two years for teachers and practitioners of the growing field of Biography Work.  We were newly certified graduates of the course conducted  here in the Philippines by teachers from the UK,  eager to connect  and learn from  those who were professionally helping people see deeper meaning in their lives.
This year the theme was  “Living in Awareness of  Karma “.   The lead organizer was Fumiko, Japanese woman living in the UK who had been teaching Biography Work extensively in her home country.   A group of her students over the years made up the strong Japanese delegation.   On two walls of the plenary hall was an exhibit of stunningly beautiful photographs:  “Fukushima before March 11”.  No one could escape remembering  the tragedy of this bustling coastal city devastated beyond description by  earthquake,  tsunami  and nuclear radiation.

On the first evening, one by one individuals stood up and voiced a  lament on the sad state of our planet.  “In the future, will there be flowers for me to see and smell?” wondered Ileana, an earnest young woman from Rumania.  “Every morning when I wake up, I just say a prayer of gratitude for life, for the gift of another day,” said Christina, a chic Brazilian, and one of the organizers.  “What does the earth want to say to us, what is it really asking from us?”  asked Margli, a leading pioneer of Biography Work in the UK.  Her question stayed with me the whole night and until the next day.

Fragments of thoughts came to me, such as, that I have planted  5000 trees in my lifetime so far.  That the leader of a local cult told me many years ago that water would be the cause of violent clashes  in our country, despite our being an archipelago  between  the China Sea and Pacific Ocean.  And how we live from day to day with the  fear that with the next  earthquake it will be out turn to be hit.   But I seriously wondered if what I had to say would matter to anyone–or to the planet.  Words broke the silence and vanished again in the silence.    Some words felt like they were coming from the head, not from the heart.  My intended words sounded hollow even to myself.  So I kept quiet.

On the second evening, Ileana plaintively brought up her concern again.  “Will I even remember what a flower looks like?” she asked.   I felt listless.  Nothing really new or striking  was being said.  My heart was full of  what I couldn’t find words for.  Then came a lull just long enough for me to gather all the courage I had, and I stood up and found myself speaking.  “‘I don’t know if some of you are a bit tired of words… as I am…” I heard my slow and tentative words resonating across the room.   I felt everyone’s  curious attention shift to me.  I continued:  “I have been thinking about what  Margli asked last night, ‘What does the earth want from us? what is it asking of us?’ And it just occurred to me that the earth wants us to mirror its beauty to itself.  The earth wants us to be as beautiful as the flowers and the trees.  The earth wants us to sing and dance.  We have been singing together…now I would like to offer this dance from the indigenous people of Southern Philippines.  In ancient times it was probably danced in temples in India, where it originated before spreading throughout Asia.   It is therefore a sacred dance, a dance celebrating nature by mimicking the waves of the sea, the wind, the birds, the coconut trees, and so on…  If you will allow me to enter  the sacred space (indicating the circle around which our chairs were arranged,  in the center of which  a big vase of flowers stood), may I  step gently on the earth on behalf of us all…”  or something like that.  Nods and expectant  glances accompanied my nervous steps to the edge of the circle.

I had actually performed pangalay the week before to a smaller audience of mostly Brits.  My college classmate Norma, now married to a world-renowned British composer, requested me to dance at the party she organized to introduce herself to her husband’s friends (it was a second marriage for both of them). But that was planned well ahead of time and I had come fully rehearsed and costumed.  This time I was proposing to dance–unbidden!– before 100 people, mostly strangers.  It seemed the height of audacity!  Yet I wanted to honor the spirit of pangalay that I felt was moving me.

My heart was thumping loudly as I left my shoes behind and went into my figure 8 at three levels, then three more to the opposite side of the body. I just hoped my hands were not trembling too visibly.  I went on with whatever movements I could remember that best expressed natural phenomena–such as grass growing, tail of the bird flicking, flowers opening,  and more that my state of high tension obliterated from my memory.   Not a tinkle of a sound could be heard as I moved around the circle with my inhale and my exhale.   At last I reached the opening  where I had come in, and with running figure 8’s made my way back to  my seat.
I had to take in big gulps of air to keep my chest from exploding.  My knees were  shaking so much, I pressed  them together  with all my might.   Feeling  overwhelmed, I bowed my head,  unable to bear seeing any raised eyebrows or  impassive faces.   Many thoughts went through my mind.  I knew that pangalay was beautiful no matter how imperfectly I had done it, and no one could fail to be touched by it.  I remembered my teacher  Ligaya’s reassuring words, that in pangalay we are not after perfection but knowing the vocabulary of the dance.   I felt I had somehow made a statement for the Philippines–our closeness to the land, and hopefully the grace and artistry of our people–that was in keeping with the  theme of the conference.   It was obvious that I was not really a dancer, so I trusted they realized  it was not a performance but a prayer  offering to the earth, in community with everyone in the room.
Soon the silence was broken by one, then two, people who stood up and thanked me for my dance.  Throughout the evening here and there other speakers  would mention that my dance had touched them,  so my heart began to settle and I was able to feel my happiness. “I’m so proud of you,” my friend Susana whispered to me and I gripped her hand gratefully.

When the session ended, people came up to me and thanked me for my “beautiful dance”.  A tall and stocky man whom I guessed was from the Netherlands, and with whom I had not exchanged so much as a smile, came to my seat and touched my shoulder.  “Thank you for your dance,” he said with formality and sincerity.   Some said, “That took a lot of courage!  You were brave!”– which was truly what I had felt,  yet it didn’t quite sound so flattering even if they meant it as a compliment.   No matter, I decided to take all responses positively.  “Egos don’t dance,” as my favorite quote from Gabrielle Roth goes.
Early in the morning the next day, as we walked to the breakfast rooms,  I saw Leah, one of the  American participants I had felt drawn to,  coming toward me. We held hands like old friends.  “Kathleen and I were in tears,” she told me.  “It was so moving,  how you made every step with reverence.   We wished  we, too, had a dance for the earth like yours.”  When Shlomit, the woman from Israel who had befriended us from day one, complimented me,  I tried to tell her more about pangalay and the Sama, Tausug, Badjaw, Yakan  and Jama Mapun who live by the sea.   “You embodied it,” she said with smiling eyes.  Mizuho, a contributing editor of the Kyoto Journal, wanted her daughter who was into dance to learn pangalay, and would not let me go until I promised to send her some YouTube videos of Ligaya.   Carine, a young woman from Switzerland who was one of the organizers, showed me how she  tried to do the figure 8 movement, and asked if I could teach it to her and others.  Of course, I said, but there was no more time.  “Next conference we have  to include it among the presentations, ” she said resolutely.
I was floored!  Truly I had not expected such…uhmm… acclaim.   Pangalay had passed yet another  test of timeless and universal appeal.  Despite the shattered nerves I had suffered,  I became  more and more pleased that I had obyed the loud insistent voice that had goaded me to present myself for that seemingly immodest task.   But it was not me, the foolhardy dancer, but the dance.  Pangalay is the perfect  language to communicate our love for the earth that binds us all.  It calls our attention to the natural  wonders all around us that we take for granted–the fluttering of birds’ wings, the soft tropical breezes,  the swaying of seaweeds,  the ebb and flow of tides.  Its soft  gliding steps symbolize how we must tread gently upon the earth and leave only the faintest possible footprints–or none at all.  Its creative  flowing  energy caresses,  nourishes and heals my spirit.   I am so proud and happy to have pangalay as a companion on my continuing life journey, as a Filipino and as a citizen of the cosmos.