'Ranaw' premieres


Cheering audiences have filled the MSU-IIT Mini Theatre to watch IPAG’s latest theatre favorite, "Ranaw: Isang Alamat" (Ranaw: A Legend). The first 17-run series of this dance-musical opened Sept. 13 and closed Sept. 25.

A second 10-run series has been set November 10, also at the Mini Theatre, to accommodate demand for more shows.

Drawing from its "matinee" appeal with its "general patronage" content, "Ranaw" attracted the audiences for its compelling music, dance, story, and visuals. (The play won in the 1985 Playwriting Contest of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. It has been endowed with grants from national bodies and has received a number of acclamations since its first major tour in the 1980's.

"Ranaw's" audience yielded a high seat attendance average of 88%.

As is the practice, discussions through conversations with the artists were conducted after each show.

Acknowledged a landmark production by the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the production celebrates the Ruby Jubilees of both the CCP and the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology.

The dance-music play presents our pre-colonial tribes in turmoil. Their conditions prophesy our fragmented state today. Dug from the research of the late Dionisio Orellana, the play chronicles the journey of a lesser known Mindanao epic hero Bato Lakungan who traverses triumphs and painful reversals of fortunes in his attempts to unite the North-Central Mindanao tribes. The hero’s existence as a real historical personage links these peoples to a common lineage: the Maguindanaon, Maranao, Higa-unun, and Iliganun.

"Ranaw" was produced under an NCCA subsidy. It is set to go on tour in Davao City in the third week of January, 2009.