Featured performances as Philippine representative in the Changhua International Arts Festival and the Taipei International Hand Drum Concert capped the 2001 season of the MSU-IIT Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG). The festivals were held December 8 to 18, and appropriately highlighted a prodigious year of tours and productions that brought the IPAG Theater to more campuses nationwide.

With the invitation of IPAG to the Taiwan festivals, Mindanaoan dance and music cultures took center stage (although Hispanic and rondalla-accompanied dances were also performed). IPAG highlighted the festival after being selected to perform the finale during the closing gala and ceremonies. Donning exuberant panika headdresses, it premiered its “kaliga” suite, a mosaic of Tala-andig dances that brought the house down; the dance was accompanied only by the precision stomping of the feet. (The Changhua festival, held every two years, had Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar as its featured artist in its last outing in 1998. Both festivals featured Asian cultures. The Taipei concert focused on Asian hand drums and their music traditions. The show had live national TV coverage. (A 2-hour special will be premiered on international cable in February 11, 2002 – eve of the Chinese New Year - in CTV Taiwan.) IPAG presented Maranao and Bukidnon hand drums playing with its gong ensemble in the major concert held in the square of the historic Cheung Shan Hall. Participating with IPAG were the national dance company of Uzbekistan, artists of the South Korean national dance academy, national representatives from Nepal, India, and dance-music artists of Taiwan.

Playing rhythms with the Indian tabla, Nepalese navabaja and dhimay, and the Uzbek daira, were the Philippine gandingan, gimbal, and tambul beat by the IPAG music ensemble that presented a suite of Mindanao music. 

IPAG prepared a repertoire based on the folk and ethnic dance-music of Central, North, and South Mindanao, particularly that of the Muslim Maranao, TauSug, and the lumad Tala-andig and T’boli. The climax of the concert was the collective bravura playing of drummers of all the countries’ representatives, a symbolic gesture of unity among Asian peoples that signified the theme of “vibrations that tracked the historic earth.” This produced a standing ovation.

The Taiwan Internationale Organization fur Volkskunst (IOV) hosted the festivals in collaboration with the cultural bureaus. The Vienna-based IOV, in working collaboration with UNESCO, serves to promote intercultural learning and mutual understanding among peoples in the world. The IOV subsidized airfare and provided all in-land transport and accommodations plus a daily honorarium. To fully compensate for the expenses of this tour, IPAG generated funds from its repertory projects and corporate sponsorships including assistance from the MSU-IIT. Visa, travel tax, and Taiwan airport fees were waived owing to the official nature of the project and the official capacity of the IPAG as Philippine representatives. The Cultural Center of the Philippines endorsed the IPAG participation.

IPAG performed in various townships around the Changhua County before its major televised Taipei concert. Besides the usual animacion and protocol courtesy calls cum exchange-of-souvenirs, IPAG performed in 10 other occasions and was taped for another TV interview.

To the festival organizers, audiences, and the TV producers, the IPAG was to their opinion the best of the groups. The producer himself, the organizers, and Ms. Caroline Kuo, the festival Chairperson and President of the Taiwan IOV, expressed this view to IPAG. These sectors confirmed this bias by placing the IPAG as finale in the penultimate and the closing ceremonies (the guild performed in-between segments during the initial shows). It was also during the final concert televised nationwide that the TV producer insisted on making the IPAG the only group to dance again for taping for the TV Special.

IPAG is internationally recognized for its work that transforms indigenous and folk Philippine cultures into theater. Many of the Guild’s works are presented through dance narratives built from ethnic dances, music and folklore. IPAG’s signature dance-theater format has brought it wide acclaim. Its participation in the Taiwan festivals has opened more invitations from organizers and impresarios who scouted the events. The IOV holds chapters in 3,000 countries, accordingly.

International organizers have been impressed by the IPAG show. Ms. Kuo has already expressed her intention to invite IPAG in its next outing next year. The IOV of Korea through its Founder and Asia Secretary General Moon Hyung Suk has invited the IPAG to be part of the festival related to the World Cup games in Daejeon from May 1 to May 5. Other CIOFF events in Europe and Central Asia have signified their intention of including the IPAG in their future events. Through the invitation of Philippine Honorary Consul Dr. Stephen Zuellig, IPAG performs for Monaco dignitaries in Monte Carlo in July 5. IPAG goes on its 4th International tour of Europe thereafter. IPAG was represented through its Artistic Director in the Asia Europe Foundation Dance Forum in Singapore last January 9-11.

This 5th International outing of the IPAG prepared a repertoire conceptualized and directed by Steven P.C. Fernandez, artistic director, and choreographed by Nolly Caballos in collaboration with IPAG Creative Collective. Other delegates were: (performers) Melvin Pescubillo, Eleanor Judith-Lila, Leilani Monterola, Lilybeth Maraoan, Reynan Ravillas, Arlem Abanes, Wenna Balaido, Lara Fatima Maglinao, Julius Hechanova, (musicians) Ronald Salazar, Enrique Batara, Jenalyn Morales, and Stanley Perry Fernandez, Marketing Director.

IPAG is run as a professional company with a paid staff and a secretariat of volunteers. Total company force run to about 50 with half of this being resident artists. The rest are either apprentices or Artists-on-Call. The resident artists take care of the aesthetic requirements guided by stringent quality control principles. A Resident Artistic Director plots the Vision directions of the Guild. He is assisted by a Resident Choreographer, technical and production staff, a full-time Administrator, a full-time Marketing Manager, and a pool of writers, musicians, dancers, and actors. Twenty-five of these performing artists are resident, apprentice, or applicant artists who receive monthly stipends and other benefits from the MSU-IIT.

To date IPAG can claim to be the most well traveled Philippine theater company with its over 40 full-length productions finding audiences in Singapore, Taiwan, France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Austria, United Kingdom, and in most parts of the Philippines. Outside of Metro Manila, it is perhaps the only professionally run performing arts company. It has the claim also of being the first Philippine cultural group to have a Web page.