Cecile Alvarez’s coup: RP, first Asian venue of World Theater Congress

Besides boosting tourism, our country’s stature and prestige is elevated to an immeasurable degree with the 31st UNESCO-International Theater Institute World Congress, on its 58-year history, being held in Manila from May 16 to 29. The Philippines is thus the first SE Asian country hosting an event of such cultural magnitude and significance.

This has been made possible through the vision and initiative of Cecile Guidote Alvarez, executive director of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and president of the ITI-Philippines. As we shall see, Alvarez is a dynamo of energy and a powder keg of ideas.

The World Congress will coincide with the UN Celebration of Cultural Diversity and Development Week, and Ocean Heritage Month.

Some 500 delegates from about 100 countries are attending the Congress on the mind-boggling theme "Ancestral Roots to New Artistic Routes of Experience: Mobilizing Cultural Diversity to Achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals".

On May 22, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will host a dinner for UNESCO Director-General Koichiro Matsuura, UN officials, ministers of culture, Nobel Laureates and delegates who, on May 23, will hold a Leaders’ Forum, to be presided by Mr. Matsuura at the Manila Hotel. To be discussed are the UN Millennium Goals including eradication of extreme poverty, issues on children, women, health, environment, peace, partnership for development and cultural diversity.

Expectedly a rendezvous of "theater powers" will be the gathering of top drama personalities from India, China, Singapore, Iran, South Africa, Burkina (Fasso), Romania, Ukraine, Peru and Mexico for the World Festival of Drama Schools.

"This will be a defining moment," says Alvarez, "not only for the Philippines but also for the global community of artists and cultural workers. We shall witness the commitment of the world’s ‘theater powers’ to use their arsenal of creativity for fighting global illiteracy and malnutrition, poverty and injustice. It definitely puts the Philippines at the cultural crossroads of mobilizing the world’s creative resources to articulate the UN Millennium Goals and work for their attainment. It affirms our bid to become the cultural gateway to ASEAN."

From May 17 to 31, the World Festival will feature complementary workshops that will enrich Manila and indigenous regions in Baguio, Isabela, Ilocos Sur, Nueva Ecija, Albay, Palawan, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro, Davao and Zamboanga. The awesome World Festival of Drama Schools is being spearheaded by actor-director Nick Lizaso.

Prof. Andrey Andreev (Theater Academy of St. Petersburg, Russia) will give a workshop on Chekov, including a staging of Chekov’s "The Marriage Proposal". Actress-director Sayoko Shirotani of Japan will conduct a workshop on "Japanese Traditional Culture", Prof. Maria Horne (Buffalo U., NY) will demonstrate American Method Acting. All three workshops will be at St. Paul College, QC. Dr. Anton Juan (Philippines) will demonstrate creative theater toward the attainment of UN Millennium Development Goals. Venue is Lyceum U.

Children’s theater groups will be the responsibility of playwright-professor Marilou Jacob. During the Congress, marginalized children of Mexican peasants will perform with Alvarez’s own Earthsavers Dreams Ensemble composed of disabled youngsters. It was in the ITI Congress in 2004, with the Mexican and Philippine groups sharing the limelight, that the idea of holding the 31st World Theater Congress in Manila was concretized by Alvarez.

Bibi Russell, international Bangladeshi supermodel and UNESCO Artist for Peace will advocate the employment of cultural assets to combat poverty.

From May 22 to 28, the Theater Olympics of the Nations will stage performances of outstanding theater groups from Asia, Africa, the Arab states, Latin America, the Caribbean, N. America, Europe as well as the Philippines. The special indigenous people’s component will highlight the wealth of Asian-European heritage, its capacity for cultural survival and identity preservation amidst threats of globalization and rapid technological advances.

On May 26 to 27, the 2nd Ministerial Meeting on Asian Media Content and Creative Industries – broadcast television, visual and cinematic mediums – will be held. On May 26, a colloquium will focus on poverty alleviation through the arts and media, with interaction on-site visits. Topics include cultural response to the Diaspora, youth link to indigenous heritage, a reachout to masses through radio and drama, poverty alleviation through the KALAHI Care-giving to vulnerable groups.

A special closing event will be the tour of UNESCO-declared World Heritage Sites such as the Cordilleras, Palawan’s underground river and Mt. Makiling.

Herewith are excerpts from the World Theater Day International Message of Mexican playwright Victor Hugo Rascón-Banda:

Theater is a living creature that destroys itself as it is created, but always arises from the ashes. It is a magic communication in which all people give and receive something that transforms them. / The theater reflects humankind’s existential anguish and unravels the human condition. It is not the creators who speak through the theater, but rather the society of the epoch. / The theater has visible enemies, the lack of artistic education in childhood that hinders discovering and enjoying it, the poverty that is invading the world, keeping audiences away, and the indifference and neglect of governments that should be promoting it. / We have to experience the theater in order to understand what is happening to us, to transmit the pain and the suffering that is all around us, but also to glimpse a ray of hope in the chaos and nightmare of our daily lives.

Long live the theater!