Rey Anthony H. Chiu
TAGBILARAN
CITY, July 25 (PIA) – Bohol’s unparalleled artistry and creativity, along
with a strong sense of expressing life, brought a soaring success for the
first Sandugo street-dancing, minus the ostentatious display of pompous
extravagance in props and production design.
No less
than National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) Chairman Felipe de
Leon pointed out the Boholano creativity, ingenuity and talent after he
witnessed the festival’s new inspiration in a traditional Visayan dance.
The move
to do away with the generic street-dancing steps to the more specific Visayan
kuradang, did not sit well with the choreographers.
But that
was before witnessing how the decision to go for the more traditionally rooted
kuradang as the main inspiration of this year’s contest.
“It has
been observed that the streetdancing competition has degenerated into a
routinary exercise of imitative gestures and dance patterns bereft of
originality. Creativity and rootedness,” Bohol’s top and multi-awarded cultural
and arts director Lutgardo Labad noted.
He
explained that in the past years, the Sandugo Festival, which commemorates the
historic blood compact between Castillian adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi
and native chief Datu Sikatuna on March 25, 1565.
The blood
compact, a ritual of friendship, allows both parties into drawing drops of
blood from either the arms or the chest, mixed it with wine, the mixture
divided equally between the two parties, and both drain their cups by drinking
from it.
The
ritual has been the first recorded international treaty of friendship and
Boholanos claim it as the seed of the brotherhood of the United Nations.
But,
without any guide to the inspiration of the festival streetdancing associated
with the Sandugo, what came out were largely copies and improvisations of the
beauty, form and substance of the Cebu’s Sinulog.
Moreover,
local cultural workers have bemoaned the practice of hiring non-local
choreographers and directors in street dancing groups, saying the practice
insults the ingenuity and talent of the Boholano artists.
The
hiring of non-Boholanos have also brought in the propensity to rent outlandish
props, glittering costumes and costly bands, Labad said.
Due to
this, the Provincial Tourism Council decided to do something to institute
the Boholano spirit in the dance, music, set design and storylines to cut on
the extravagant costs of props, and maximize on the artistry and the
originality.
This is
where kuradang comes in, acclaimed as the most local of traditional dances also
performed by Boholanos.
Local
historian Professor Marianito Luspo said the kuradang has three main
characteristics each reflective of the Visayan people.
He said
kuradang is lively and spontaneous with no fixed pattern of movement and
filled with improvisations and it is informal, irreverent and ribald.
He said
there is still existing in Bohol a version of the kuradang in its raw form, not
as intricate as the kuradang in Ilo-ilo but contains the basic forward-backward
steps and open handed arm movement as well as the distinctive hip-swaying among
the ladies, performed to the equally distinctive music which has survived to
this day.
Luspo
also believes the kuradang may have been an improvisation of the Sinulog, but
since the dance to the Santo Nino retains its being a sacred offering, dancers
need to project a serious face while the kuradang is more of the festive and
the celebratory. (rmn/rac/PIA7-Bohol)
- See
more at:
http://news.pia.gov.ph/article/view/1101469428580/first-kuradang-sa-sandugo-posts-success#sthash.UFef4FGP.dpuf