Tag: Cultural Center Of The Phlippines

Moving Forward with CCP Pasinaya: Sulong

Two decades of bringing arts closer to Filipino people, and the Pasinaya: The CCP Open House Festival just keeps getting better and bolder in 2024.

For the first time, Pasinaya goes beyond the capital city and spreads its wings to Visayas and Mindanao. The multi-arts festival will be simultaneously happening at the CCP Complex and its partner museums, the Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Arts in Iloilo City, and Tagum City, Davao del Norte on February 3 and 4, 2004.

Following the theme “Sulong,” the country’s largest multi-arts festival returns on a grander scale with more artistic and cultural offerings in its 20^th years.

“After escaping the confines of the pandemic in last year’s Pasinaya: Piglas, the new partnership with ILOMOCA and Tagum City pushes the boundaries. The CCP will always find ways to provide spaces for our artists and cultural groups where they can showcase their talents and create new audiences who will participate in artmaking and appreciate the best that the Philippines has to offer,” said CCP artistic director Dennis N. Marasigan.

A wide variety of exciting activities await the public in Pasinaya 2024. Happening in various venues at the CCP Complex such as CCP Front Lawn, Liwasang Kalikasan, Tanghalang Ignacio B. Gimenez and its surroundings, and parade ground of Vicente Sotto Street, and in partner museums and galleries, the festival boasts over a hundred shows, workshops, and other activities in music, theater, dance, visual arts, film, and literature to choose from.

With its experience-all-you-can, pay-what-you-can scheme, participants may go in and out of the different CCP venues to join 30-minute workshops in various art disciplines conducted by leading artists, resource persons, and teachers, or watch as many shows, screenings, and activities as they can.

Pasinaya kick starts on February 3, 7 am, with an opening salvo and special program, followed by the flash mob dance featuring the festival jingle, Sulong Pasinaya, which has become a tradition of the art festival through the years.

Festival components include Palihan where audiences can join the different workshops; and Palabas where they can watch unlimited shows, featuring more than 3,000 artists from different art fields. Festival programmers and art groups will meet in Palitan to do some business-to-business meetings.

Paseo Museo shuttles audiences to various partner galleries, museums, and art spaces around the metro with the hop-on, hop-off tour scheme. Pagtitipon, meanwhile, gathers the Kaisa sa Sining partners from different regions of the countries to participate in the annual art festival. Finally, Pamilihan features the sale of goods from all over the country.

Registration starts as early as 6:30 am at the Bukaneg side of the CCP Front Lawn and at Vicente Sotto Street.

In 2023, audience counts reached 37,888 – 12,055 participated in 43 Palihan workshops, 24,482 watched 101 Palabas shows (58 at the CCP Complex, and 43 in partner museums/galleries), and 1,236 enjoyed the Paseo Museo tours in 13 museums and galleries. Total donations amounted to Php 253,514.

With the partnership with ILOMOCA and Tagum City, CCP plans to exceed its target audience counts, collaborate with more artists, stagehands, technical crew, and other cultural workers from various places in the country, and create partnerships with more local government units.

“Breaking free from the common notion that CCP is just the building in 2023, we have continuously proved that we can be anywhere. This year, we are reaching farther and wider into different performing spaces, and into the regions. Year 2024 will be the year we, at the CCP, continue to move forward, despite the challenges that will come our way,” said CCP president Michelle Nikki Junia.

Established in 2005, Pasinaya was conceived as a jump start to the National Arts Month celebration; hence it is scheduled every first week of February. Originally, it was created as a preview for the CCP’s artistic programming for the year. But through the years, the festival has grown bigger and become a venue for art appreciation and education, networking, and collaborations.

Follow the official CCP social media accounts on Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok for the latest updates.

Photo credits: CCP/ATHENA FONTAMILLAS

January 18, 2024
Puccini’s La Boheme Returns to The Philippine Stage

The Cultural Center of the Philippines, in partnership with Viva Voce Voice Lab and the Embassy of Italy in the Philippines, present a re-staging of Giacomo Puccini’s well-loved opera La Boheme on November 11 and 12, 7:30pm at the Tanghalang Ignacio B. Gimenez (CCP Blackbox Theater).

Based on French writer Henri Murger’s novel Scenes de la vie de Bohème, a collection of vignettes portraying the lives of young Bohemians living in the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 1840s, La Boheme revolves around the unconventional lives of four young friends – a poet, a painter, a musician, and a philosopher – and how their lives change one freezing winter’s eve after a girl named Mimi comes knocking on their door.

The four-act opera by Puccini first premiered at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy, in 1896. The tragic love story is one of the most frequently staged operas and has been an inspiration to various cinematic and artistic interpretations such as Jonathan Larson’s Broadway rock-musical Rent.

La Boheme has been hailed by critics, marking “Puccini’s emergence as a fully mature and original composer.” The opera is known for some of the most memorable arias and musical scenes in opera, such as “Che gelida manina,” which is one of the best-known tenor arias, and “Quando m’en vo,” also known as “Musetta’s Waltz” and performed in the second act.

For the re-staging this November at CCP, Viva Voce Voice Lab classically-trained singers perform their minimalist interpretation of La Boheme, under the direction of Nelsito Gomez, musical direction by soprano Camille Lopez-Molina, and with Dr. Oliver Salonga on piano.

The latest production features the full opera, without the chorus numbers and with piano as the sole musical accompaniment. It will be staged in an intimate setting without the grandiose “trappings” of the opera, highlighting what really matters – the drama, the music, the singing.

“Our goal was to move away from the potentially inaccessible 1840s setting and find a more relatable period in which to set this story. Upon researching, we decided on 1960s Paris, the Post-war France when the country was booming with a newfound sense of optimism and energy. It was the time of New Wave cinema, existentialism, Yé-Yé music, and streets filled with youth – a very apt backdrop for the Bohemians of this opera,” said Gomez.

Bringing to life the characters are some of the familiar names in opera and musical theater in the Philippines: Nomher Nival stars as Rodolfo, Anna Migallos as Mimi, Carlo Falcis as Marcello, Iona Ventocilla-Borja as Musetta, Roby Malubay as Colline, Fritz Rivera as Schaunard, and Raymond Yadao as Alcindoro.

Through this simple production, the CCP hopes to further ignite an appreciation for opera in the country and attract not only the usual opera-goers but also those whose hearts and spirits may resonate with the ideals of Puccini’s young and brave bohemians, while nurturing the Filipino opera artists.

Follow the CCP’s official social media accounts on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube for the latest happenings.

November 10, 2023
CCP Features Two Living National Artists in Pulso Pilipinas II: Alay nina Alice at Agnes

MAKE a way and move to the beat as the Cultural Center of the Philippines presents Pulso Pilipinas II: Alay Nina Alice at Agnes as the second part of the CCP Dance Series (LIVE!) 2022, happening on September 30 at 8:00 PM (Gala Night), October 1, 2022 at 3:00 PM and 8:00 PM, and October 2, 2022 at 3:00 PM at the CCP Main Theater.

This time, it will showcase jewels in the Filipino dance repertoire in a mixed program proudly presenting the selected classic iconic works of our two living National Artists for Dance – Alice Reyes and Agnes Locsin. This production will feature Agnes Locsin’s “Igorot”, “Moriones” and “Elias at Salome”, as well as Alice Reyes’ “Carmina Burana”.

Alice Reyes is recognized to have developed a distinctly Filipino modern dance idiom. She is one of the pillars of Philippine Dance as her works and contributions were key in the development of the art in the country. She became the first in the Philippines to introduce Modern Dance and professionalize dance as a career. Reyes started workshops and dance recitals in the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) forming the CCP Dance Workshop together with Eddie Elejar. With the professionalization of dance in the country, the group became a resident company known as the CCP Dance Company producing many dancers, teachers and choreographers. They were a flagship company that represented Philippine arts and culture. Audiences were taken by the choreographic works brought and remarked how Reyes’ choreographic works are powerful expressions of our country’s unique history and cultural heritage.

Reyes was declared a National Artist for Dance by President Benigno S. Aquino III through Proclamation No. 807 and was conferred at the Malacañang Palace on April 14, 2016. She is now the artistic consultant to the newly formed Alice Reyes Dance Philippines (ARDP) mentoring and nurturing the current generation of artists and young choreographers.

Recognized as the pioneer of neo-ethnic style of dance, Agnes Locsin is a force in Philippine dance, and her contribution spans beyond the genius choreography she has produced. A former Artistic Director and chief choreographer, Locsin is all at once a teacher, mentor, storyteller, and trailblazer. Drawing inspiration from Philippine tribal dances, practices, beliefs, and stories, Locsin reworked and reinterpreted these into the framework of existing classical ballet and modern dance techniques, resulting in a unique dance form suited for the Filipino’s physical frame, temperament, and culture. Some of her most notable works include Igorot, Bagobo, Babaylan, Taong Talangka, Encantada, Elias, and La Revolucion Filipina, which have been performed around the Philippines and the world.

Locsin was recently declared National Artist for Dance by President Rodrigo Duterte through Proclamation No. 1390 and was conferred at the Malacañang Palace on June 10, 2022.

Please contact the CCP Box Office at 8832-3704, the CCP Production Management Services Division at 8832-2314, the CCP Arts Education Department at 8832-1125 loc. 1605, or visit www.culturalcenter.gov.ph for more information and ticket inquiries.

September 27, 2022