FROM Agusan to Zamboanga, they all came to Rodelsa Hall in Cagayan de Oro City for the recent Mindanao Theater Festival. And theatergoers all over the country had better sit up and take note!

Some 10 thrilling original productions were premiered during the four-day festival—from a neo-ethnic pop-rock dance theater musical about politics and the environment, to an intimate drama set around (and even on) a singular bed, to an original cheeky, in-your-face contemporary theater written and performed in English.

Not to mention a gripping indigenous ritual by Subanen folk from Pagadian City and a rousing performance by indigenous youth from Bukidnon.

“We are very excited that this cultural event in Cagayan de Oro City, which brings together hundreds of active theater practitioners who represent more than three generations of cultural workers, artists and advocates, can bring us to a more sharpened analysis of our practice,” said festival director Nestor Horfilla, executive director of Mindulani, the cultural network in Mindanao.

Funded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and managed by the Rodolfo Neri Pelaez (RNP) Foundation, in partnership with Mindulani and the City of Cagayan de Oro, the “Mindulani sa Milenyo Dos: The Mindanao Theater Festival 2008” also featured the Mindanao theater congress, a slew of theater workshops, and a calendar of outreach performances in partner communities.

Disclosure: This writer served as executive director of the festival and wrote the play which premiered on the festival’s opening night.

This was Pasundayag’s “Todos los Santos,” a documentary theater piece about how the larger sociopolitical forces in society impact on the crucial battleground of family and home.
Starring four of the greatest actors in Cagayan de Oro today—Mikki Chan, Baba Romblon, Albert Cahulogan and Iya Rollan—the play was directed by the legendary Anita Q. Santos, who single-handedly established the tradition of the annual school play in Cagayan de Oro City.

Nash Naganga’s evocative set of barbed wire and military checkpoint, together with the documentary video clips, brought the audience to the chilling world of martial law and the dictatorship.

Most powerful

The following night began with “Dula Ta” (Let’s Play) of Sining Kabpapagariya from General Santos City. Written and directed by Romy Narvaez, who sits on the NCCA’s National Committee on Dramatic Arts, the multilingual play started as child’s play and ended up a horrific microcosm of the internecine wars in Mindanao that continue to play on.

I found this the most powerful offering of the festival.

This play was twin-billed by Sining Kandidilimudan’s “Si Sanga.” Based on a Maguindanao folktale about deception and forgiveness, the production used the fabled Sining Kambayoka style of seamless ensemble performance, but with a twist—the main actors used giant masks. This allowed director Thallah Alava a free hand in exploring large gestures and poses, and other exciting romps in in-your-face wordings.

Keen theatergoers took note of a group of actors at stage right who hid their faces behind accordion fans—they turned out to be the lively voice talents who provided the witty repartees and hilarious radio drama-style theatrics.

I must say that this was the production I most enjoyed during the festival.

Clinching the festival’s gala offerings was Davao City-based Kathara’s “Sabwan.” A music-theater piece based on a Bagobo myth, this Boots Dumlao masterpiece was youth theater at its populist best. Clearly, the inspiration of this emergent group is Kaliwat theater Collective.

Interspersed during the hectic schedules of the festival were experimental theater outings, such as that of Artists’ Quarter of Butuan City. “Untitled” was a suite of interspersed monologues all set around a singular bed. It juxtaposed desires and dreams, love and loss and leaving. I thought this was a work-in-progress that needed just a little more intelligent tweaking here and there before a much-needed public presentation.

Contemporary dance

Capitol University’s “Kinalkal ni Tarabusaw ang Puso’t Laman ni Ina”—written, composed, directed, and choreographed by Cyrell Allado—was a smorgasbord of all that the promising Allado has to offer.

What got even Nes Jardin, president and artistic director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, talking even after the performance was Bag-ong Surigaonon’s “Gamhanan: Ang Paglupad sa Isip” (Power: I Think I’m Flying), a non-verbal theater piece about drug addiction.

The group is actually a contemporary dance group who kept on winning the first prize in the annual NCCA-sponsored National Modern Dance Competition in Koronadal until they had to be moved to the Hall of Fame.

Their main choreographer is Roger Odron, an engineering graduate whose passion is really in the arts, but the group put their creative juices together for this fabulous physical theater extravaganza featuring five actors, four male and one female. And the result was a gripping narrative affirming one’s responsibility to take destiny by the hand and go with it.

But don’t take my word for it: it wasn’t this feel-good “moral lesson” that made this piece a winner but the street-smart choreography that keeps on surprising you till the end. As for the structure, well, we can talk about it some other time.

Kudos, too, to “Pacita y Salma,” a Chavacano drama about Christian-Muslim relations written by the venerable Bert Torres, vice president for cultural affairs at the Western Mindanao State University in Zamboanga City, and Mandudulang Bukidnon’s “Dagulangan Ta Yugong” (Source of Lightning), a youth theater fusion explosion of spectacle and sounds under the artistic direction of Edsel Quemado.

“We are happy to host this festival,” enthused Dr. Mariano M. Lerin, president of Liceo de Cagayan University, whose Rodelsa Hall served as the main hub of the festival.

“Three years after we built this theater, the Mindanao theater Festival comes to town to perform on our stage. This is an affirmation that our community engagement through culture and the arts is on the right track.”

As Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Constantino Jaraula put it, “We are gathered in this festival to celebrate the multicultural complexity of Mindanao, and what better place to celebrate it than in the city of golden friendship, where peace and progress are intertwined in our fruitful journey toward nation-building.”

E-mail the author at mozpas@yahoo.com.