Maverhick: Dance

Dinagyang in Vivid Color

WOODEN beads dancing with tribesmen’s every move, feathers in vivid colorstanding out against the gathered crowds,prisms of sinamay and hablon fabrics paraded by smiling dancers, and body paint gleaming under the sun.

Every Dinagyang, the streets of Iloilo come alive with the vibrant colors of the Kasadyahan and Ati Dance competitions, and the creative costumes our dancers wear, in all their over-the-top glory, play a big role in the beauty of our city’s spectacle. With 10 tribes competing for top prize this year, we expect even richer hues in Dinagyang’s kaleidoscopic spectacular.

Celso Guion, production manager and creative director of TribuPaghidaet shares that they are very excited to unveil this year’s performances.

Garnering the Best in Costume award and finishing 1st runner-up for Dinagyang 2015, they have a lot to prove this year. They dazzled last year’s audience with a performance that told the epic battle of Tribu Paghidaet’s archers against a giant centipede. Now they’re ready once more to amaze crowds with a new spectacle.

“Sa Tribu Paghidaet, we are not aiming for the championship, we just want to put on a great performance that the Ilonggos and tourists alike will enjoy,” said Guion.

With this year’s Paghidaet performance inspired by the classic Filipino horror Halimaw sa Banga, and another epic battle in the works, Tribu Paghidaet is excited to thrill for another year.

Guion shares that it literally takes a village to put together performances each year, especially when it comes to the making of costumes for the festival. With the tribe’s total of over 80 warriors and dancers this year, several people had to be involved in the designing and making of headdresses, attires, and props.

Twenty-two year-old Ron Matthews Espinosa is one of the new additions to the tribe’s team. A recent graduate of the University of San Agustin, he has designed costumes before for the USA Little Theater.

Espinosa will be crafting the costumes of three of the tribe’s special characters – the Babaylan, Magbabatok and Halimaw.

He shares that this year’s performance will not be about the height of risers and mobiles stages, but focus more on pure dance and the creation of beautiful costumes. About the symbolism in the colors of this year’s costumes, “Red that stands for Strength and Domination, blue for Peace and yellow for Elegance,” said Espinosa.

A first-timer in the Dinagyang stage, Espinosa is proud of the opportunity to be part of the annual celebration.

“I am humbled to work with the Paghidaet artistic team who has a brilliant vision of innovation, pushing the boundaries of Dinagyang for the last decades,” shares Espinosa.

“Dinagyang is a time for coming together, working together, reawakening in the hearts of everyone the virtues of cooperation, leadership and the willingness to commit to work. Mabudlay pero masadya,” shares Guion.

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, by Rhick Lars Vladimer Albay

#nofilter

If We Lit Up the Youth

FUEL TO FIRE

There are three necessary components to start a fire – heat, oxygen, and fuel.

A material, if exposed close enough to a source of heat, especially if there is fuel to serve as a catalyst, will undergo a chemical reaction called combustion. The sustained visible portion of this chain reaction is called the flame. Altogether, this burning substance would then be able in itself, to release heat, light, and even have the potential to cause other combustible material in proximity to erupt into flames.

The youth is a good example of a highly combustible material, but of course not in the literal sense. We all have the potential to ignite a spark within us, to light a fire against adversity, to blaze a trail towards empowerment. But some of us lack fuel – a drive to make a change, some lack heat – an urgent calling, and the harsh reality is that most of our country’s young lack oxygen – the bare necessities to survive.

Heat, oxygen, and fuel - all three elements are vital to start a fire. How can you light up the youth when even just its components are so hard achieve?

SPARKS AND EMBERS

The Philippines has one of the youngest populations in Southeast Asia, a large majority of our country’s citizens falling between the ages 5 to 24 years old. This has been equated as a major economic advantage moving forward, with a growing young labor force, the Philippines has great potential for economic growth and development. Rizal’s famous words – “the youth is the hope of the fatherland” – seems almost like a prophesy waiting to be fulfilled, except that the latest statistics point the other direction. An increased unemployment rate for fresh graduates has been reported for 2015, and a significant rise in the incidence of poverty in our country leads you to question if we truly are progressing.

Though we, the youth, make up more than half of the Philippine population, labelled the hope our country and the supposed driving force that will lead our nation forward, we have very little say in the affairs and endeavours of our country. Our politicians have done very little to represent the youth sector in the government, with a select few lobbying for bills that truly benefit us students and the underprivileged out of school youth.

Education, a right of all Filipino citizens as mandated by the 1987 Constitution, has become a privilege. Marred by corruption, commercialization and an underfunded Department of Education, many are deprived of the right to enrol and learn. The international UNESCO standard is that at least 6% of a country’s Gross Domestic Product should be allotted for Education. The Philippines fall short of this, at 2.9%, barely amounting to half of what is ideal to subsidize public education for all.

It’s estimated that 1 in every 8 Filipino youth is deprived of schooling. With 36.23% of Filipino’s aged 6 to 24 declaring themselves as out of school youth, most citing insufficient family income as a barrier to education. It’s not difficult to deduce why the power of the Filipino youth remains largely untapped, when even their basic right to education is denied.

How can the youth spark change when they are weighed down by poverty, a lack of education, and a lack of involvement?

BLAZE THE TRAIL

The collective fire of the Filipino youth is weak. We’ve been sidelined and relegated to the outskirts of nation building for so long that it almost seems like we’ve all but lost the potential to be the hope of our fatherland.

Rizal once compared our freedom to fire, saying “The divine flame of thought is inextinguishable in the Filipino people.” We have somewhat proven our hero’s words true - as a nation, overcoming years of struggle and emerging even stronger from the ashes every time. But the fire that burns within us all has been stifled by decades of corruption, oppression, and poverty.

It’s in times like this one should remember - a light that goes out can be rekindled by a spark from another person. Much like how a single burning candle can spread embers like wildfire if given a chance, even a lone youth can make a difference in this world, advocating greater progress, urging his peers stand for their rights, blazing a trail for generations to come.

One should be vigilant when lighting up the youth, watchful of the elements that are being forged together to raise them. At first, with great care, like shielding a candle’s flame with one’s hand to protect it from the occasional gust of wind, but then gradually fanning the flames encouraging them spread. After all, the youth is the hope that will bring light to the world, holding our country’s greatest potential to achieve its goals. It’s high time we take matters into our own hands and begin the change ourselves.

Hope and change can be likened to a growing fire – first a feeble spark, next a flickering flame, then a mighty blaze, ever increasing intensity and power as more feed its blaze. Let’s light up the youth and start the chain reaction.