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a play by STEVEN
PATRICK C. FERNANDEZ
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REVIEW
Adin Danao
A celebration of Mindanao arts at the CCP
Daily Briefs
Monday
l
23 February 2004
The day after
SEE you in Bongao—or
Pikit!
Already, Adin Danao coordinator Carlo Ebeo is toying with the idea of holding the Adin Danao reunion
next year in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi, saying, “Maganda doon, kakaiba, bongga talaga!” But Richard Belar of Kaliwat Theatre Collective prefers another
site: Pikit, North Cotabato. “That should be our statement,” he said. “In Mindanao we make art, not war.”
And so it was that a celebration of cultural work in Mindanao ended at the Folk Arts Theater last
night with yet another ritual performed by the Talaandig contingent. Cultural Center of the Philippines artistic director Fernando C. Josef, whose
idea this all was, partook of the “communion” of betel nut, and was visibly giddy from watching Earth Music Foundation’s “Salima,” which was the last
performance of the festival, and a smashing success at that.
Dennis Marasigan, CCP’s marketing whiz, was pleased with the audience turnout for “Salima.” When we
told him that earlier in the afternoon, the front-of-house was turning away walk-in audience eager to watch IPAG’s “Ming-Ming” at the Huseng Batute,
he grinned in triumph.
A triumphant grin, indeed, is what we bring with us when we go home after such a wondrous festival
as this. - MP
Review: Ming-Ming
By Mozart
Pastrano
ENOUGH of ethnic fetish. No more war cries. Forget exploiting issues
to cover up lack of aesthetics or ideas.
These must have been what went on in the mind of Steven Patrick C. Fernandez, artistic director of Iligan City’s Integrated Performing Arts Guild
(Ipag), when he conceived, wrote, and directed “Ming-Ming,” shown at 3 p.m. yesterday at the studio theater Huseng Batute.
The play took me by surprise. I had been used to Ipag’s usual rehash
from its celebrated repertoire, and was expecting more of the same: the whirl of colorful exotica in all its permutations. But no—here, finally, was a
postmodern theater piece from Mindanao that tackles Mindanao experience in no-nonsense intellectual sophistication.
In a spartan set—three chairs around a small breakfast table, a bed,
a side table (all in white)—flanked by gauzy scrims, three women actors and a man actor throw lines to each other. But they hardly are in “dialogue.”
They instead deliver chopped monologues about each of their malaise, which all boils down to their inability to pursue love as they saw fit. Which
sums up the dilemma of many Muslims in Mindanao today: while they fight for political sovereignty to the death, they do not allow freedom in the
crucial battleground of home. Culture is not a breathing space that liberates; it instead walls you in, foreclosing avenues of escape except death.
Let us wage war, then, by confronting cultures, by confronting
selves.
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ARTISTS
Elaine Macamay, Jean Graciela Peñola, Venus Tan, Hobart Savior, Al Fay Vintola, Leilani Monterola, Amado Guinto, Wenna Balaido MUSIC DIRECTOR Steven Patrick C.
Fernandez MUSICIANS Steven Patrick C. Fernandez, Jose Ma. Tolentino, Ronald Salazar, Lorraine Antiquina, COSTUME DESIGNER Amado Guinto DIGITAL
PHOTOGRAPHER Ronald Salazar STAGE MANAGER Jhanis Saceda ASST. STAGE MANAGER Vicmar Paloma PRODUCTION MANAGER Arlem M. Abanes SECRETARIAT Glengyl Umali
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR Arvin Solis TECHNICAL ASSISTANT Albert Manosa
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