U.P. FILIPINIANA DANCE GROUP
This archipelago in the Pacific is an enchanting country but its complicated destiny has made it a coveted place due to its geographical position, its resources and the quality of the populations who live there. The Spanish conquerors left intact memories to bourgeois minorities, who learned from Catholic missionaries the virtues of the reserve. The Japanese gave up their soldiery in this country, then the Americans ignited dollar fever there. Through these adventures, this country resembles its own volcanoes in perpetual boiling. Economic crises leave more dross in the populations than fortunes in the pockets. In short, it is not easy to be Filipino.
The group you are going to meet depends on Diliman University - Quezon City. It is made up of professors and students who have lost none of their love for their land, nor for the traditions that the ballet wanted to keep faithfully intact as relics, because the Philippines was divided into fourteen regions into seventy-two provinces. A huge mosaic of popular arts and traditions.
It is also one of the oldest lands in the world, having been inhabited by humans since twenty-two centuries before Jesus Christ. The waves of population followed one another: Chinese, Japanese, and even Caucasian. The Spanish conquerors brought their influence there. The navigator MAGELLAN died there. But the Spanish language and the Catholic religion had to give way before the return in force of Islam through its merchants and its sailors. On the cultural level, this archipelago is as spongy as the forest of its coasts and absorbs with flexibility these successive changes. It is no longer enough to speak Spanish or Chinese for us to understand you. Tagal, which is the official language, and some seventy additional dialects must be added in order to penetrate this complex culture.
The troupe is the fruit and summary of these mixtures. She carries in her songs, music and dances, in the extraordinary variety of costumes, the mixed beauty of her daughters as an illustration of this very confluence. It is not uncommon for dancers to shelter behind Andalusian mantillas. Elsewhere, men dance to the tune of jotas. But we also come back to almost uninterrupted Muslim ceremonies, or to aboriginal tribes lost in the jungle. There is nothing shocking, quite the contrary, in these variations of style. And when the guitars lead the dance, the shock of the bamboo beating responds to them. The costumes are dazzling with silk and colors. The men wear white shirts enhanced with embroidery and sometimes court clothes of the Arab lords.
The show has the beauty of a pink coral beach on the edge of the Pacific. It was said that the Philippines were the charm of the Pacific. We are certain that you will taste it as a rare moment of pleasure for lovers of exoticism and beauty.
