By Lila Victoria F. Mortel / Photos by Gabrell Guazon
There’s no better way to say it: Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG), the resident dance theatre company of the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, is a world-classically Filipino. In that fiberglass stage and soaring lights of the SM Skydome, Tales from Mindanao came alive.
With five stories ranging from legends to comedies and cultural dances, IPAG showcased detailed costumes, colorful narration, and talented dancing. Founded in 1978 in Mindanao State University, they’ve since amazed all around the world, including North America, France, Korea and many more. The company’s dancing, accompanied by beautifully tailored costumes creates, necessarily, one thing: a service.
It is a service to every Filipino to represent Mindanaoan art and Philippine theater as a whole, despite the struggle of keeping it alive. The level of brilliance poured onto the stage was palpable as all eyes were on them. After a minute or two of stunned silence bathed in culture, the sudden realization of identity comes into the hearts of the audience.
The dancing was not short of anything but beautiful. One memorable stunt on stage was from the legend of Maria Cristina falls. A dancer, clad in simple, masterful baro’t saya, ran towards a mountain of her companions jumping towards them. Like clockwork, she fell towards back-first, suddenly carried upwards to the cloudy lights with flowing hair hanging ajar. Slowly she descends as music swells; as if she was a waterfall. The masterful representation of that climax was just one of many brilliant choreography of Nolly Ceballos.
The kinesthetics was brilliant and was accompanied by intricate costumes jumping with details and designs. With traditional cuts and patterns from Mindanaoan indigenous cultures, it wasn’t restrictive to dancers as the fabrics were light and allowed movements with ease. Female costumes popped more than men costumes; placed side-by-side, men’s were simpler. The patterns and designs from Mindanaoan indigenous people were respected enough to be done well and treated well.
A small critique will be that throughout the performance, the lighting was more detrimental than helpful to tell a story. At times, the lights may come off as harsh and even clinical, clashing with the bright dresses and washing out the dancers’ forms. It is a possibility that it might not even be the dance company’s fault that it looked like this, rather the venue.
Nonetheless, Tales of Mindanao did not fail to amaze, but it was not just a spectacle to behold. The performance educates its audience with colorful beckonings of heroism, femininity and comedy. It is a physical literature that spoke stories, even to the illiterate, providing a welcomed contrast to the stereotypical media representation of Mindanao.
Choreographer Nolly Ceballos reminds us that Mindanao is not just a war zone, as the media portrays. It is a place that has everyday life with everyday people and everyday stories. It is a colorful region far from the capital but is as attached into the beautiful tapestry that we call a culture.
Performances of Tales of Mindanao’s kind and its derivation are as important socially as it is culturally for representation matters. As an archipelago, the Philippines have a diverse culture with hundreds of stories, languages and customs. But, with that diversity did not come to a unity where no part of it is forgotten.
That’s why cultural content and our religious consumerism of it should happen. We, as Filipinos, owe that to our fellow Filipinos and hear their stories of not just war but love.
Image credits: Gabrell Guazon