As explained on its website, “The International Theatre Institute (ITI), the world’s largest performing arts organization founded in 1948 by theatre and dance experts and UNESCO, strives for a society in which performing arts and their artists thrive and flourish. ITI advances UNESCO’s goals of mutual understanding and peace and advocates for the protection and promotion of cultural expressions, regardless of age, gender, creed or ethnicity. It works to these ends internationally and nationally in the areas of arts education, international exchange and collaboration, and youth training.”
One of the objectives of ITI is “to increase public awareness of the need to take artistic creation into consideration in the domain of development.” Sadly, in our own country, theater — not to mention the entire area of culture (sometimes referred to as “the creative industry”) — rarely enters discussions on national development.
Admittedly, there have been major successful efforts on the part of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines to make policy makers aware of the need to take culture as seriously as the stock market, foreign remittances, and the like. Examples of such efforts are the Philippine Cultural Education Program and the UNESCO inputs into the new Basic Education Curriculum. A sterling example of a politician who has made culture a key ingredient of his legislative agenda is Senator Edgardo Angara, author of several bills on culture. These successful efforts, however, are very few and not enough to fulfil the objectives not only of ITI but of UNESCO itself.
Two major ITI events are being held in the Philippines this year. I hope that these two events will attract the attention of our policy makers and keep them from forgetting something more important than bank accounts and SALNs.
From February 15 to 21, the International Playwrights’ Forum (IPF), one of the ITI committees, will conduct several activities, such as the IPF-Philippines Exchange of Playwrights and Theater Organizations, a Dramaturgy Workshop, a Symposium on the Role of Playwrights and Theater Artists in Gender and Social Development, and a Basic Writeshop on Gender-Sensitive Plays, in Manila, Bacolod, Iloilo, and other cities. These IPF activities are hosted by NCCA’s National Committee on Dramatic Arts (NCDA).
From March 5 to 9, ITI’s Committee for Cultural Identity and Development (CIDC) will meet in Manila, hosted by ITI Philippines and Earthsavers UNESCO DREAM Center, “to plan the observance of World Arts Education Week in May 2012, as approved by the UNESCO General Conference, which will animate globally diverse artistic expressions in different continents fused with climate change and disaster risk prevention content with eco-systems rehabilitation concerns to promote a holistic approach for safeguarding bio-cultural diversity.”
While the CIDC members, as well as members of the Executive Council of ITI and the presidents of the other ITI committees are in Manila, ITI Philippines will launch the worldwide celebration of the 50th anniversary of World Theatre Day. Various activities will be held all over the country.
What is World Theatre Day?
According to ITI, “World Theatre Day, created in 1961, is celebrated annually on the 27th of March by ITI Centres and the international theatre community. Various national and international theatre events are organized to mark this occasion.”
Why is the anniversary being launched in the Philippines? Because our country, which was earlier named the First ASEAN Culture Capital, was elected to be the launching venue during the ITI Congress held in Xiamen last September.
Here are some of the activities lined up for March: training of handicapable artists in Manila, a workshop for peace through theater in armed conflict, a healing arts session for refugees of ecological disasters in Mindanao, cultural caregiving to vulnerable groups, the launching of an Asian Performing Arts Award on Cultural Diversity and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the official entry of the ASEAN Theatre Community to ITI, and a workshop with the Philippine Center for the Organization International for Scenographers and Theatre Technicians (OISTAT).
That the Philippines is recognized all over the world as a center for theater and culture is not surprising, given the number of performing artists we have that have made names for themselves here and abroad. If we added Filipino film artists, visual artists, singers, and other kinds of artists to the list of our world-famous theater artists, we could truly say that our reputation internationally is not linked only to our OFWs, but also to the prizes won by our artists in numerous international competitions. Here is a quick question to prove my point: have you ever heard of a Filipino choral group, even one made up only of university students, that has lost in an international competition?
By the way, March 21 to 27 is the annual World Theatre Week in the Philippines, following the 2007 Presidential Proclamation No. 1262. You might want to see a theater production this month (National Arts Month) and next month. You can see for yourself why almost a hundred countries voted for the Philippines to host the launching of the golden anniversary of World Theatre Day.