Talisay City's San Roque Elementary School - braving the odds

CEBU, Philippines - Eight contingents coming from all levels vied for this year’s Halad-Inasal Festival of Talisay City last October 15.

Among the eight, only San Roque Elementary School of San Roque, Talisay City, braved its unique production with a unique concept, colorful visuals, dynamic, coordinated performance and creative dance vocabulary unmatched by any other contingent of the said festival. That was why people were surprised when the verdict was announced that they did not land in any of the top three spot.

With a very big “why” the quest for a rationale had to be provided.

Sense meant a very big deal for dance productions. If meaning did not quite “add up”, then the production loses its grip of sense.

Out of the five known classifications of Filipino folk dances, two were Christian-based that stemmed from the rich western influence most particularly from Spanish rule. Ironically, these two classifications represented the opposite spectrum of Spanish influence, for the rich and affluent there’s the Maria Clara, a coined term for the dances representing the era of the heroine of Jose Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere”; and dances that reflected the merry sentiments of the rural townsfolk mainly composed of the poor and less fortunate, rural in motif.

If research was essential to the production that had to emulate Filipino tradition, why did the first place winner sport Maria Clara costumes against a rural (“bahay kubo”) façade and the third place winner donned rural costumes made of satin material? (Satin, during Spanish times, was a luxurious commodity only afforded by the well-to-do).

Visuals provide impact to the presentation. But when props or costumes presented do not have any relation to the storyline, sense becomes nonsense.

Most of the performances of other contingents did not require the slightest degree of difficulty and dance vocabularies were anything but creative. Oftentimes to a layman’s point of view, crowd cheer and loud unrelated visuals may efface the real essence of the presentation.

Obviously, the winners brought along with them a bandwagon of cheerers who contributed to audience impact. Among the three however, only one of the judges was not carried away by the cued cheers. He voted SERS in first place. The other two judges rather had different opinions.

Word has it that SRES showed pop jazz movements combined with folk dance that may have led to its defeat. But a contingent that performed a hip-hop dance routine landed in third place! How come? Besides, festival director Victor Cuenco made ocular inspections on all contingents during rehearsals, but made no negative comments on SRES at the time of full inspection.

Among the quintessential of festival presentations, only the dance has the greatest capacity to evolve which may be influenced by the concept of the production and the changing times. Folk dance fusions may remain with strict rules but that does not mean sacrificing creativity. If dance is not allowed to evolve, then the festival may die. Meaning, if you have seen the same thing over and over again through the years, you may not maintain an appreciation for it. If one ceases to push boundaries because maybe the judges would not see the same light, then it may become disadvantageous to the festival.

Being a festival judge requires a lot of responsibility, integrity, experience and research to be able to see a performance objectively. A lack thereof may resort to a lot of subjective interests and motives. Like the incidents aforementioned, judges become questionable personalities even after their final non-appealable decision has been made.

Judge 1 for Halad-Inasal 2011, who voted for SRES, was the only award-winning national festival (Aliwan festival) competitor among the group and a consistent Sinulog festival winner. Judge 2, was a consistent runner-up of the choreographer of SRES in previous local festival competitions and was known for picking “different choices” in most festivals he judged. There was even a time in 2006 when nine credible judges voted unanimously while he rooted for an inferior contingent. This year, a similar account happened when this writer was also a judge with him in a local festival. Well, everyone’s entitled to his own irrational opinions but one can never attain credibility with that. Judge 3 never had an experience of choreographing a competing contingent in any of the festivals in the Philippines and was never spotted joining a national folk dance workshop for teachers at all. However, he was known to have a lot of “connections” with the Cebuano dance community, thus explaining his invitation as a judge.

Let this be a wake-up call to all festival organizers that choosing credible judges and checking their backgrounds is a great responsibility. Choose them for their track record and senior experience and not because they are your friends or those who may be available for the schedule. A lot of things may go haywire for ignoring this detail.

Festival organizers are channels of cultural awareness. Thus, see to it that by hailing a well-executed, profound and politically correct researched production material, the audience will also be properly, and with authority, educated in the process. Check that your choice of judges would extend the same courtesy on this matter.

Moreover, broaden your perspectives by joining festival workshops. This is a must!

As for San Roque Elementary School performers headed by Principal Lolit Lim, a salute. You are the people’s choice. Nothing and no one else beats that!