Kinhason Festival

When a call was routed to this writer from Dr. Rowena Manalili of Santa Fe with an invitation to upgrade the Kinhason Festival, overnight plans came to action last Friday to conduct the first Kinhason Festival dance workshop for local choreographers, teachers and students.

Spearheaded by Mayor Jennifer Ilustrisimo and SB member/Chairperson, Committee on Tourism, the workshop lasted three days at the municipal sports complex.

This workshop intended to update participants with latest trends, techniques and skills vital for the festival to sustain and grow. Choreographers were taught the rudiments of concept building, dance composition and staging. Dancers were taught movement vocabulary. Festival organizers also dealt with festival management and guidelines clarification.

Finally, three basic steps were agreed upon for the Kinhason Festival – “Kai-kai” (foot digging), “Kahig” (separating the shells from the mud) and “Punit” (picking up the shell and placing it to the container). From these basic steps, the participants were then made to incorporate elements of folk and modern popular dance (jazz). The result – creative dancing moving to the Kinhason beat that was composed and arranged by Musikenises recording master Elvis Somosot.

Kinhason Festival, instead of being mimetic, is now considered an occupational festival as being expressed through the sentiments of the ritual/ stationary and progressive concepts during the workshop.

The said workshop successfully culminated with the different presentations of the color-coded workshop participants. Now equipped with so much technical know-how, Kinhason Festival is poised for the Pasigarbo contest which may happen sometime in August.