Today’s A Journey through Aesthetic Realms will be presented in Tagalog and English, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Tagalog.

Greetings, graceful viewers, and welcome to A Journey through Aesthetic Realms on Supreme Master Television.

In today’s program, we are delighted to have with us Ms. Anamaria Labao Cabato, Executive Director of the Philippine Performing Arts Company based in San Diego, the United States, also known as PASACAT.

She will introduce various Philippine folk dances and share with us how they have become the inspiration for generations of people of Philippine descent. Since the inception of PASACAT in 1970, Ms. Cabato has been with the dance company as a dancer, musician, and vocalist. She witnessed the integration of folk dances from various parts of the Philippines into PASACAT’s offerings. Currently five major groups of dances are regularly performed.

One of the groupings is the dancers from the northern part of the Philippines, the island of Luzon, which reflect those cultures who are very earthy, and these people recite in the rice terraces. So you can imagine that their dances, their movements, they imitate the movements of the bird. Then we do another style of dance, which is very European, very elegant dances, because of the aristocrats of the Spaniards and so it's the waltz steps, the jota steps, and then the sounds of the rondallas; the string instruments are played for those types of dances.

They use bamboo castanets instead of Spanish castanets, fans, and shawls. So again, those are very strong traces of the European influences. And then we do dances from the south, the largest island in the south is Mindanao. One of the dances that has evolved over the years is called Singkil, and originally it started off as a fan-dance for only women, but the Singkil has evolved into a dance where a prince rescues a princess, and there’s fan-dancers and criss-cross bamboos where all the dancers perform in and out of it.

Then the other two groups that we do are indigenous dances from the mountainous terrains of Mindanao as well as the central part, the Visayas region. And the countryside dances from the central part, where life is simple, and you see this Nipa hut which kind of represents that. Dances like the Pandanggo sa Ilaw, which is “Dance of the Lights” where they balance a candle in the glass on their head and on the back of the hands. Then of course, another bamboo dance is just with two sticks, in which the dancers rapidly go through the bamboo poles, imitating the tikling bird.

Next, Ms. Cabato kindly introduces to us some of the dance costumes.

This is a costume that we utilize for dances from Mindanao. It’s got a female skirt that’s used and you can see the design here with the beads that are beautifully kind of enhancing the design here. And then here is one of the blouses also, that’s been utilized. You could see the skirt right here, and then the blouse.

Here is another costume from the Mindanao region. You’ll notice the buttons, that’s specific to one of the provinces there and a grouping of people. And this keyhole type neckline also is very, very typical for the costumes from that region.

We’ve been blessed in that we've gotten some funding and raised the money through performances to purchase some of our costumes from the Philippines. Yes, so we have a 40-year inventory of costumes and props and instruments, some of which we call our “Museum on Wheels,” because we do give workshops on the Philippine culture.

Although four decades have passed, mentioning the beginning of the dance company still brings up a sparkle of joy to Ms. Cabato’s face.

It started back in 1969 when the Philippine American Community Association of San Diego wanted to put on this big event to celebrate San Diego’s 200th anniversary. And the enthusiasm from that was so great because there were about maybe 60 youths that came together to learn Philippine dance. A year later PASACAT was formed. And so we’ve been in existence officially since 1970.

Over the years, the dance troupe has grown into four integral parts based on who the members are and what they do.

We have 4 major performing components. The senior dance company refers to the teenagers and the young adults that learn the traditional Philippine dance, and they are trained in a very strict and disciplined way to get the technique, the skills to be theatrical performers and the presentations of Philippine dance. We also have our junior dancers which are aged 4 to about 18. And this gives the students an exposure to the culture of the Philippines as well as the introduction to theatrical performing. So, it gives them skills on how to be quick on your feet; you just have to kind of keep your composure, and we try to teach them that.

The other two components are musical components, the Rondalla, which is composed of string instruments called the banduria, which originated from Spain, and the octavina guitar and bass are part of that ensemble. Then we also have an indigenous instrumental group which are percussive instruments from the northern part of the Philippines, the highlands of the largest island in the south, Luzon, the Cordillera, the flat gangsas which are made out of brass. And then to the south, Mindanao, where it’s a lot of Islamic cultures; they have gamelan type instruments, with knobbed instruments called agung and kulintang and the native drums.

One more musical group is the singers, because singing is so important to our culture. There’s usually a lot of Filipinos (who) are able to sing, so we infuse that into our performances as well and try to give our members rounded performance skills with dancing and music, singing, and then playing the instruments.

Some of the dancers have been there since the ’80s and they’re still performing, 20 plus years later.

Besides dancing, there is another aspect of this group that helps its members cherish their culture deeply.

It’s about finding your identity and finding out who you are. When I saw my first formal Philippine dance concert, I was just awed. It was because of Philippine dance that I began to understand and embrace my culture as well as the ways that my parents tried to raise us, which was pretty much in the traditions of the Philippines.

Traditional Philippine culture is very community-oriented. This is reflected in the closeness of the members of PASACAT.

PASACAT is truly about family. And I’ve stuck with it for 40 years because through my own personal trials in life, these people have been my family, and they've been family to my daughters who are part of that organization as well. And so because of that connection, it’s so important for us to feel that, because it gives us purpose in life and it also helps us to respect others in a deeper and more profound way, that, you know it’s about humanity, and trying to bring the best in people.

In response to the public’s enthusiasm, PASACAT gives about 50 performances each year.

We do a lot of cultural festivals for the libraries and we do a lot of weddings.

We’ve performed for the conference of mayors at the Convention Center. We’ve also performed for the All-Star Game for baseball. And it was just awesome.

One fantastic annual event is the Parol Festival, a traditional Philippine Christian celebration during the first weekend each December.

The parol is actually the Philippine star lantern, which represents the star of David that supposedly leads the wise men to see the baby Jesus. And during the Christmas season, the parol is very traditional to be hung in front of the homes, like here’s a window, you would see it hung there.

But what we try to do is we bring various types of parols to our festival for display, as well as perform Philippine Christmas dances and music and songs. So our guests get treated to that festival as well as a couple of hours of ongoing entertainment, and not only us, but church groups and other cultural groups that we invite to share the day with us.

The dance group has also been invited to perform at other prestigious events.

We’ve performed in the Philippines, which was truly a privilege because we danced at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila with the premier Philippine dance company of the Philippines Bayanihan, and our choreographer is a former member, 13 years veteran of Bayanihan.

The Philippine Performing Arts Company is truly an inspirational example of promoting a culture’s best through art. We thank Ms. Anamaria Labao Cabato for introducing time-honored Philippine folk dances and your vibrant performance company. May your important work in bridging cultural understanding be graced with evermore success.

For more information on the Philippine Performing Arts Company, please visit www.pasacat.org ENGLISH-SUB

Tender viewers, thank you for your pleasant company on today’s episode of A Journey through Aesthetic Realms. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television for Vegetarianism: The Noble Way of Living, coming up right after Noteworthy News. May we always be graced by the eternal beauty of Heaven.