Saturday, October 17, 2015

Traditional Folk Dances of the Philippines

The Philippines enjoys a rich cultural heritage which includes a diverse collection of traditional dances. From the well-known national dance the Tinikling, which pays homage to the movements of a much-loved bird, to dances that reflect elements of daily Philippine life, these folk dances all offer a glimpse into the history of the country.



The Philippines has many popular folk dances which have evolved and changed as they have been passed down from generation to generation. Although a particular dance might be performed slightly differently from one region to the next, its remains true to its roots. Here are some of the most popular dances from the region.

As varied are the people of the Philippines, so too are the dances. There are many dances performed in the Philippine Islands such as the popular "Tinikling", to the exoticized "Pangalay", to the skill-based interpretation of the "Bangka" and Spanish-tinged "Jota". Dance categorizations range from geographic localization, to socialization functions, to dance influences, and to time traveling.

Singkil

The Singkíl originated from the Maranao people who inhabit the shores of Lake Lanao. It is derived from a story in the Darangen, the Maranao interpretation of the ancient Indian epic, the Ramayana. The name of the dance itself means "to entangle the feet with disturbing objects such as vines or anything in your path". It is a popular dance performed during celebrations and other festive entertainment. Originally only women, particularly royalty, danced the Singkíl, which serves as either a conscious or unconscious advertisement to potential suitors.

The lead dancer, in the role of Putri Gandingan (the Darangen name for Sita), graciously step in and out of closing bamboos poles arranged in either a parallel, rectangular, or criss-cross fashion while manipulating either apir (fans), mosala (scarves), or even just their bare hands. A kulintang and agung ensemble always accompanies the dance.

While often erroneously referred to by non-Maranaos as a "Muslim dance", the Singkíl is in fact secular in nature, performed by the Ummah communities of the Maranao and Maguindanao. Initially, the dance was performed with just one pair of bamboo poles, eventually adopting the use of two criss-crossing pairs.


Adaptations

Bayanihan

When the Bayanihan Dance Company began performing the Singkíl, the traditional dance was adapted to convey Western aesthetics. The Bayanihan portrayal, branded as the Princess Dance or the Royal Maranao Fan Dance, became so popular that it is often mistaken for the authentic version of the dance.
A notable variation from the original is its inclusion of male dancers, as pole clappers and in the role of the Prince, Rajah Bantugan (the Darangen adaptation of Rama). Additional sets of criss-crossing bamboo poles were also added.
Further adaptation divided the dance into four movements:
  • First movement- "Asik", where the slave with umbrella is introduced.
  • Second movement- entrance of Putri Gandingan, the entourage of female fan or scarf dancers, and the arrival of Rajah Bantugan.
  • Third movement- Patay, which is a slow section, and is a structural dance convention often found in Western performances.
  • Fourth movement- the climax in which all dancers dance to the crescendo of music.

Storytelling

The Bayanihan version attempts to blatantly exposit the story as per Western conventions, and re-tells the Darangen. The dance itself narrates a scene where Putri Gandingan escapes her abductor, the demon king Lawana, and is lost in the forests of Alangka. She is finally found by another person, but the Darangen and the Ramayana differ as to the identity of this person: the former recounts that Rajah Bantugan found her, while the latter states that it was the god Hanuman who found Sita on Rama's behest. The modification of this detail possibly suggests acculturation, where the monistic Hindu, aspects of the narrative were edited to conform with the monotheistic beliefs of Islam.

Performers would therefore gracefully step in and out of bamboo poles, arranged in a criss-cross fashion while manipulating either fans or simply their bare hands.
The dance is said to have been named after either the leg bracelets or anklets of silver, nickel or brass with chiming bells of the same name or the act of voluntarily or accidentally entangling one’s feet in either vines or tall grass.

Cariñosa

Cariñosa (Spanish pronunciation: [kaɾiˈɲosa], meaning the loving or affectionate one) is a Philippine dance of Hispanic origin from the Maria Clara suite of Philippine folk dances, where the fan or handkerchief plays an instrumental role as it places the couple in romance scenario.


History and Emergence

The dance originated in Panay Island in the Visayan Islands and was introduced by the Spaniards during their colonization of the Philippines. It is related to some of the Spanish dances like the bolero and the mexican dance Jarabe Tapatio or the Mexican Hat Dance.

Bicolano Cariñosa

According to the book of Francisca Reyes-Aquino, Philippine Folk Dances, Volume 2, there is a different version of the dance in the region of Bicol. In the Bicol Region Carinosa, hide and seek movement is different. In the original version, the dancers used the Fan and handkerchief as the way to do the hide and seek movement, in Bicol they used two handkerchiefs holding the two corners of the handkerchief and doing the hide and seek movement as they point their foot forward and their hands go upward together with their handkerchiefs following the movement. It is a complicated step however it is still used in Bicol Region during festivals and social gatherings.

Pangalay

Pangalay (also known as Daling-Daling or Mengalai in Sabah is the traditional "fingernail" dance of the Tausug people of the Sulu Archipelago and Sabah.
The dance is the most distinctively Asian of all the southern Philippine dances because dancers must have dexterity and flexibility of the shoulders, elbows, and wrists – movements that strongly resemble those of "kontaw silat,” a martial art common in Maritime South East Asia. The Pangalay is predominantly performed during weddings or other festive events. The male equivalent of the Pangalay is the Pangasik and features more martial movements, while a pangalay that features both a male and female dancer is called Pangiluk.

The original concept of the Pangalay is based on the pre-Islamic Buddhist concept of male and female celestial angels common as characters in other Southeast Asian dances.
Neighboring samal and Bajau peoples call this type of dance, Umaral or Igal, and they sometimes use bamboo castanets as substitutes for long fingernails.


Modern-day Bongao, the capital of Tawi-Tawi province, has trappings of contemporary living: regular air transport, Internet access, cellular phones, television and various modes of sea and land transportation.

But some four decades ago when I arrived in the Sulu Archipelago, Tawi-Tawi still had no electricity and concrete roads.  That’s why amid the flurry of modern living in Bongao at present, scenes from a bygone era haunt my memory: the call to prayer at daybreak from a distant mosque; the tantalizing cadence of “kulintangan” music that wafted unexpectedly anytime from somewhere; the engaging lilt of “lelleng” (extemporaneous ballad) sung passionately after sundown by a neighborhood boy with a captivating voice; the hypnotic sound of “lugo” (chant) earnestly intoned from afar; the lullaby hummed by a solicitous mother to pacify a baby in a makeshift cradle on a house boat or “lepa.”

Time was when the geographically isolated inhabitants of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi satisfy the acute need for a mode of dramatic expression and entertainment through dance. Dancing not only allows them to release kept energy, but also to assert their creativity in a community of strongly held traditions and customs.

Intricate movements

The people in the Sulu Archipelago may have several names for the “pangalay” dance style which has a distinct movement vocabulary. The Badjaw use the generic term “igal” to name the dance which is “paunjalay” among the Yakan of Basilan province.
The dance may look quite simple at first glance but upon closer scrutiny, its intricacy becomes obvious. Even more apparent is the similarity of pangalay to other Southeast Asian modes of classical dancing: the Cambodian, Burmese, Thai, Javanese and Balinese. In Sanskrit or the holy language of much of India, pangalay means “temple of dance” or “temple dancing.”

Captivated by the beauty of the pangalay, I became passionate in recording and learning it from innumerable dancers in the Sulu Archipelago. In order to preserve the dance, I devised a practical way of remembering postures and gestures, aided by my own silhouette reflected on the wall by a lighted candle.

The habit irritated my husband because even way past bedtime, I would still dance and analyze my silhouettes on the wall  and figure out if my shadow matched what was recorded in my mind. This became my routine every time I would see new postures and gestures from new dancers whom I chance upon in serendipitous situations.
My shadow silhouettes became the most reliable learning guide since there was no electricity all over Tawi-Tawi province at the time. Electricity came only in the 1980s.

Instruction method

In the absence of any formal method of instruction, modifications and elaboration by countless pangalay performers are inevitable. Also, owing to the limitless possibilities of improvisation depending upon the performer’s artistry and skill, it would be a mistake to regard a particular variant of the pangalay as the correct or authentic form or style.
To preserve and conserve the abundant pangalay movement vocabulary, a method of instruction has been developed based on more than four decades of experience, study, documentation and performance. This is the Amilbangsa Instruction Method (AIM), which gives equal emphasis on technique and creativity.


The method of instruction is the key to the preservation of intangible cultural heritage like the pangalay. Through the AIM, those who are already dancing the pangalay should be able to distinguish between the good and the bad manners of dancing (the pangalay), and to correct whatever may be aesthetically inferior. Flawed techniques that may even cause injury can be avoided, and the standard of pangalay training may be elevated.
Lastly, the AIM training program is designed for all ages, for amateurs, for dancers in other disciplines, for native pangalay dancers interested to learn effective rehearsal techniques, in order to enrich their vocabulary of traditional movements already half-forgotten.
The story of how I codified two dances, the “linggisan” and the “igal kabkab,” demonstrates the painstaking process of preserving and conserving traditional dance.

Working on ‘linggisan’

To amplify hand movements, the use of “janggay” or metal claws is popular in the Sulu Archipelago. The janggay magnifies the intricate hand movements in linggisan (bird dance).
My first glimpse of linggisan was in Jolo, Sulu, in 1969. Gay dancers performed the “dallingdalling” at Plaza Tulay on Sundays after supper. The comic song-dance has a serious portion about a bird. This is the linggisan.

I was impressed upon seeing the sophistication and richness of its postures and gestures. When danced as a solo number, the Samal and Tausug used kulintangan accompaniment with a distinct melodic pattern. The most impressive rendition of linggisan that I witnessed in Jolo was danced by a woman whose gestures were exceptionally beautiful.

When I arrived in Bongao in 1973, I often saw students and ordinary people dancing some linggisan movements during school programs and celebratory gatherings. Learning the linggisan vocabulary involved serious memory work. Thanks to my reliable candle-and-shadow method, I pieced together postures and gestures from numerous dancers through more than two decades of research and experience in the Sulu Archipelago.

This was the long and tedious process of how I created the cohesive movement vocabulary specific to linggisan alone, which I codified in stick figures, and later were superseded by my own silhouette figures that first appeared in my book titled “Pangalay,” published in 1983.
To date, my linggisan choreography is the most complex version that is a complete dance in itself—with a beginning, middle and ending—that combines complex postures and gestures distilled from observing many native dancers.

Original choreography
 
The fan is a favorite prop in Asian dance. However, the igal kabkab (literally, fan dance) is not popular among native dancers who obviously did not treat it as a serious dance, but only for merriment.

I was excited the first time I saw a dancer use the fan in dancing basic pangalay movements in 1973. This proved to be a rare encounter because it took another three years, in 1976, before I chanced upon another dancer who performed the pangalay with a fan, at a moonlight picnic or “lamburuk” by the beach on Sibutu Island.
Imagining the beauty of pangalay movements with the use of a fan, I created my original choreography of igal kabkab in 1993—a far cry from the simple fan dance I witnessed in 1973 and 1976—by fusing more complex pangalay postures and gestures which I codified.
I was inspired to develop the simple fan dance for a global audience: My choreography of igal kabkab was intended for the International Dance Festival in Seoul, South Korea, sponsored by big media institutions like KBS and Chungang Daily newspaper, and the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation.

For that occasion, I used the beautiful fan given to me as a present by the president of Asian Dance Association, Madam Oh Hwa-jin, during the Asian Dance Festival held in conjunction with the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

This original igal kabkab choreography is now part of the repertoire of the dance groups which I co-established, namely Tambuli Cultural Troupe and AlunAlun Dance Circle. Hopefully, igal kabkab will gain more prominence in the Sulu Archipelago to demonstrate the rich possibilities of transforming a simple dance without sacrificing the authentic character of pangalay.

Tinikling

Tinikling is a traditional Philippine dance which originated during the Spanish colonial era. The dance involves two people beating, tapping, and sliding bamboo poles on the ground and against each other in coordination with one or more dancers who step over and in between the poles in a dance. It is traditionally danced to rondalla music, a sort of serenade played by an ensemble of stringed instruments which originated in Spain during the Middle Ages.



HISTORY

The name "tinikling" is a reference to birds locally known as tikling, which can be any of a number of rail species; the term tinikling literally means "tikling-like."
The dance originated in Leyte, an island in the Visayas in the central Philippines. It imitates the movement of the tikling birds as they walk between grass stems, run over tree branches, or dodge bamboo traps set by rice farmers. Dancers imitate the tikling bird's legendary grace and speed by skilfully maneuvering between large bamboo poles.


Legend has it that tinikling originated during the Spanish rule of the Philippines, when natives worked on large plantations under the control of the King of Spain. Those who didn't work productively were punished by standing between two bamboo poles.This however, is a mere legend and has no historical basis.

Today tinikling is taught throughout the United States. In grades K-12 the dance is used as an aerobic exercise for physical education classes, to help expand physical movements such as hand coordination, foot speed, and also rhythm. Tinikling is commonly performed on special occasions such as the Filipino Independence Day as a celebration of Filipino culture and Filipino pride.

The DANCE

Tinikling involves five steps; during the first four steps, the dancers dance opposite each other, and during the last step, they start from the same side of the poles. The bamboo is used as a percussive instrument as it is banged against the ground (or a piece of wood to make it easier to hold) and each other in a pattern. The bamboo has to be closed hard enough to make a sound, and the dancers must be quick enough to not get their foot (or feet) caught. As the dance continues, the banging of the bamboo becomes faster and harder, the sound of the clashing bamboo and the quickness of feet demonstrated by the dancers thrilling the crowd.

In the United States, this dance has been altered into a four-beat rhythm to adjust to popular music. In some cases, it has been used in conjunction with traditional Filipino martial arts to demonstrate fleetness of foot and flow of movement.


For this traditional folk dance, females wear a dress called balintawak or patadyong, and males wear an untucked embroidered shirt called the barong tagalog. The balintawak are colorful dresses with wide arched sleeves and the patadyong is a pineapple fiber blouse paired with checkered skirts. The barong tagalog uniform is usually lightweight long sleeved shirts and worn with red trousers. Dancers wear no footwear while performing.


Similar dances are found throughout Asia, such as the Cheraw dance from India, Múa Sạp from Vietnam, Lao Kra Top Mai from Thailand, Robam Kom Araek from Cambodia, Karen or Chin Bamboo Dance from Myanmar, Alai Sekap in Brunei, Ami Bamboo Dance from Taiwan, and Magunatip from Sabah, East Malaysia.