Top Stories...
28th SEASON OPENS, GUARANTEES MORE
New works and road tours ensure exciting season


The funny and irreverent, IPAG's showmark reveals why it is loved by thousands.

IPAG joins two international events
Tokyo hosts the 2005 Asia Meets Asia festival and the Hawaii Commission invites IPAG to highlight the 2006 Centennial

IPAG in National Choreographers Workshop
Choreographers learn from the masters in one week workshop in Koronadal

RECENT EVENTS
Bohol show caps prodigious 27th Season
Over 60 performances of 5 productions enthrall Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao

New Work premieres in Taipei, performs in Tokyo
Taipei premiere opens to international acclaim

National recognitions for IPAG and Fernandez
Fernandez awarded Pilak by CCP and cited Defender of Heritage in 2004 Philippine Yearbook

IPAG presents 'Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water'
Audiences thrill to dance-music production that bridges culture and science

EVENTS SCHEDULE

recent news

28th Season guarantees exciting fare
IPAG's 28th Theater Season opens in June with new and remounted productions that promises to thrill theater and dance habitués nationwide. IPAG continues to tour in and out of the country its two signature dance-theater productions Tales From Mindanao and Tatlo sa Isa, and the play Ming Ming. A new comedy Babuyan Island by Palanca winner German Gervacio topbills IPAG's September schedule (double-billed by Fernandez's Kawing) at the MSU-IIT CASS Rooftop Theater in Iligan. New experimental dance-music pieces that highlight the images of Man in Mindanao in an intimate production premieres in February 2006. These dance pieces will merge the poetry of today’s important poets, and will involve the collaboration of visual artists, puppeteers, and musicians. IPAG's road tours will take its dance-theater productions to more sites in Luzon, the Visayas, and Mindanao. Check this site for regular updates and schedules.
top

IPAG in Tokyo in October and Hawaii in July 2006
Asia Meets Asia Theater Festival features "Reviving Subalternity," the IPAG collaborative work with other Asian Artists, joining other contemporary Asian theaters in Tokyo from October 17 to 23. This bi-annual festival promotes the exchange of culture and theater practices. IPAG also highlights the Philippine Centennial celebration in Hawaii with a 5-island tour of its acclaimed Tales  From Mindanao in July 2006 upon the invitation of the Hawaii Centennial Commission. Updates will be posted.
top
 

IPAG choreographers learn from the masters
Melvin Pascubillo, Amado Guinto, and Leilani Monterola, members of IPAG's choreographers pool, joined nineteen other choreographers in a week-long national workshop at the Pro-Tech Center in Koronadal, South Cotabato. The workshop was conducted by former Ballet Philippines Artistic Director Denisa Reyes and dance scholar Steve 'Basilio' Villaruz. The program is funded by the Dance Committee of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts. It upgrades the skills of region-based choreographers. Iligan expects to host the next workshop in November. IPAG dancers have recently undergone intensive workshops in the Vaganova, classical, and modern techniques to enhance their craft in the indigenous idioms.
top
 

27th Season closes curtains to prodigious work
Acclamations, full house attendances, standing ovations, an international premiere, national recognitions, and tens of thousands of audiences of over 70 performances of 5 productions cap IPAG's prodigious 27th Season. The season ended in a road show of Tales From Mindanao last March 3 at the Holy Name University in Tagbilaran, Bohol. For this season alone, Tales and its sequel Tatlo Sa Isa have wowed over 70,000 audiences in Manila, Quezon City, Batangas, Laguna, Baguio, Nueva Viscaya, Bicol, Quezon, Pampanga, Tarlac, Pangasinan, La Union, Cebu, Bohol, Davao, and Iligan. Receiving more critical acclaim, Ming Ming performed in Iligan, Cagayan de Oro, and Davao. Another post modern work Reviving Subalternity premiered at the Hua San Art District last December 2004 in Taipei, Taiwan. IPAG represented Lanao Norte in a culture-oriented fashion revue in the WOW PHILIPPINES event in historic Intramuros last August 2004. IPAG also performed for the silver anniversary of the CCP Outreach in Manila and in Pilak Mindanao presenting excerpts of its acclaimed Datu Matu.
top

 
New Work premieres in Taipei
The IPAG with Sovanna Phum Theater of Cambodia, Waterfield aboriginal Theater of Taiwan, and theater and dance artists from Hongkong, Japan, and Taipei premiered the collaborative "Reviving Subalternity" at the Hua Shan Art District in Taipei City last December 29 (7:30 p.m.). Theme of this modern theater produced by Asia Meets Asia is: Resisting Assimilation and the Destruction of Civilization." The premiere kicks off this production's Asian tour which will be next seen in October 21-23 in Tokyo, Japan. Indigenous movements and cultural expressions are given new meanings as these are reinvented to express the growing global concerns on genocide and the destructions of regional cultures. 

Co-directing the production is Steven Patrick C. Fernandez with Sovanna Phum Artistic Director Mann Kosal. Dramaturgy is by King C. Lok, and produced by Watan Wuman of Waterfield Theater. Melvin Pascubillo of IPAG facilitates the choreography. Performing are Leilani Monterola, Wenna Balaido, Sam Pysak, Chumvan Sodhachivy, Pascubillo, Fernandez, Kosal, Lok, and various other performing artists from Hong Kong and Taiwan.
top

"Earth, Wind, Fire and Water" thrills audiences
Two full-house audiences thrilled to IPAG's Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water at the MSU-IIT gym last February 11. Bridging Culture and Science. the IPAG show links the objective world with the evocative. The production traces Man’s place in his physical world. Produced by the Samahang Pisika ng Visayas at Mindanao (SPVM), Southern Philippines’ lead Physics organization headed by TOYM awardee Dr. Angelina Bacala, Earth, Wind focuses on the metaphors of our world and suggests that Science invariably relates to culture. Dances, stories, music, and the visual arts are the cultural expressions in the production that represent these “elements” of life. Metaphorically, the respect to these elements means the survival in life.
top

Fookien Times and CCP honor Fernandez
Steven Fernandez has received two prestigious recognitions this Season. Last September, the CCP Outreach recognized him with a Pilak award for his outstanding cultural work. The internationally-prestigious Philippine yearbook (published by the Fookien Times) also honored him with the epithet “Defenders of our Heritage” in its 2004 issue. Fernandez joins 73 other cultural giants including our national artists and other cultural heroes “whose burning sense of mission to protect and even resuscitate aspects of our culture has occupied much of their life and scorched the whole world’s imagination for the better.” Publisher Vernon Go declares: “The profiles (in this Yearbook) represent our arbitrary view of some of the outstanding individuals that are currently working to preserve and protect and nourish some aspect of our country’s rich and vibrant heritage. We chose to honor these individuals not as posthumous footnotes, but as living testaments.” The Fookien Times since its establishment in 1936 has always been regarded as the country’s chronicler of economic and social progress.

related site:
The IPAG Director

top

photo credits: Saki Binudin/IPAG/Robert Booc/IOV Taiwan/Ronald Salazar/Arvin Solis