“People Power” presented by Teesri Duniya Theatre, in October, put on an emotionally commanding show that took the audience into a time warp back to the Aquino-Marcos elections in 1986. The event was more of a backdrop for the characters that represented the very people that put there lives on the line for such an important cause, not just for themselves, but for the entire country.

             People Power is an important part of the history of the Philippines and how the events have shaped and united a country.  It is important to remind those that have lived through the event as well as awaken those who did not experience at all. The play took place in a very small venue, with the characters interacting with the audience that you could believe you were witnessing People Power happening right in front of you. And the emotions felt were inescapable, especially the heart wrenching tears that had to be expressed for the characters.

             The discussion panel following the play brought up important key words: education, responsibility and communication – the play was a history lesson about our country’s past; our responsibility to harness this important event and communicate it to the rest of our community.

              I encourage our young generation of today and tomorrow to discover what it means to be Filipino. The young generation must be educated and be proud to share it with others. Communicate the beauty, the struggle, the diversity of the Philippines. Continue the tradition before it dissipates. There are already Canadian born Filipinos that have shown signs of disconnection from our culture. We must take responsibility.

            We need advocates like the Carlos Bulosan Theatre and its entire team of “People Power” to tell stories of our country. They are not just learning about it for themselves but want to share it with others. We must support these efforts and give them an audience. Empower our Filipino youth. Plays like “People Power” do not come through Montreal very often, and when they do, we must all unite as a community to show support.

            PAMANA had already travelled as a group to the Philippines in 2008, but this was the first time we would be participating at international festivals, sharing the stage with much older and much more experienced groups from around the world. Although we had prepared for moment many months in advance, the leaders’ were quietly having anxiety attacks, because PAMANA’s reputation and future credibility was hanging in the balance. We had three weeks to travel between three countries and perform in numerous venues from audiences as small as a couple of hundred to as large as 6000.

            Right after our 8-hour direct flight from Montreal to Vienna, Austria, we were greeted by our first tour guide Renata and immediately bussed to our first destination and home for the first four days of the tour: Straznice, Czech Republic. Straznice is a very small town and eerily deserted during the day as we made our first walking tour. In the evening, we had a reception with the mayor of Straznice, President of the festival, and the groups from Easter Island, Mexico and Romania. Then we spent the following three days eating delicious food, meeting the friendly locals and performing for crowds in outdoor amphitheatres where no seat was left unattended.

            Notably, our best performance in Straznice and possibly of the entire tour, was our Muslim suite. While on stage we could sense the audience’s astonishment as they followed the dancers’ feet through the bamboos during Singkil. As soon as the Singkil prince snapped his sword on his shield ending the entire performance, the audience jumped onto their feet and an uproar of applause filled the amphitheatre. Even once the performance was over and we  headed back to our dorms, locals who watched our performance, continued to cheer us on, shake our hands and take a few pictures. We appeared to be celebrities!

            Before we moved on to our next destination of our tour, many of our female dancers became sick. The 6-hour bus ride to Maribor, Slovenia was filled with uncomfortable coughs and noses blowing into tissues. When we arrived in Maribor, we drove by the mall called Europark, which excited the entire group and who could not wait to feed the shopping bug. We also drove by the central stage of the festival which floats on the Drava River.

           We finally arrived at our new home for the next week and we were greeted by our tall, handsome and humourous tour guide George and his partner Urshka. Our schedule for the week was quite hectic: performing in parades, towns outside of Maribor, and three times on the central stage.  We shared the hectic schedule with several over groups from New Zealand, Indonesia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Hungary.

            In Maribor, every night was a party at our dorm. Each group was assigned an evening for animation and to teach everyone a cultural dance or game from their country of origin. PAMANA taught Tinikling and played “Hep Hep Hooray” which caused a laughing riot with the players and members of the crowd. And after the animation, a mini club was set-up with its own DJ and played music for all the night crawlers, sometimes until five in the morning.  This was a great way for the all the groups to make new friends. We bonded very well with the New Zealand group, simply because they spoke English.

             As the week move forward, the coughs and leaky noses continued to spread throughout the group, this time affecting the chaperones. Our dancers were slowly dropping like flies and unable to perform because of injuries, exhaustion or dancers were too sick to perform. But we made it through the week and successfully performed.

              Leaving Maribor was difficult for many members of the group, including some of the chaperones. It was difficult to separate ourselves, especially from our tour guides who have made our stay very enjoyable. George even had to fight back his tears as we gave him a group hug and waved good-bye from the bus as it pulled away.

             Karlovac, Croatia was a smaller town than Maribor but bigger than Straznice. Most of us had fallen asleep on the bus and woke up in Karlovac to find the festival’s poster plastered all over the city with a picture of a PAMANA dancer. We were welcomed by Kresimir, our bald but muscular tour guide.  He showed to our new rooms of on the third floor, with no elevators. We had to carry more than 60 luggages up three flights of stairs.  Once we settled in, we were off to rehearsals for the opening ceremony.

              At the opening ceremony, the atmosphere and audience cheers felt like the Olympics.  Once our group’s name was called, the audience joyously applauded and waved at us. We waved back with our Canada and Philippines flag. Along for the ride were groups from Russia, Italy, France and our same friends from New Zealand.

              Our schedule for this festival was too good to be true in comparison to Maribor – we had two free days and all the performances or parades took place in the evening. With so much free time, Karlovac was left for us to discover. A few of us even made some great friends to whom we are still in touch with today.  We were also lucky to visit and tour Zagreb, Croatia’s capital, for a few hours. Our free afternoons allowed us to visit restaurants and bakeries and get a good taste of local foods like pizza, gelatos and crepes.

             After an easy seven days, our days in Karlovac were already over and our European tour as representatives of Canada and the Philippines had come to an end. But before it was time for us to jump on the Montreal bound flight. We still had an extra three days to be tourists.  So before it was back to our daily lives, we spent the next two days in Budapest, Hungary and one day in Vienna.  Then time flew by so fast. It was already July 15 and it was time for us head back home. By the end of the trip, everyone in the group had fallen sick and carried the cough onto the plane.  Everyone pretty much coughed their way back to Canada.

              It was great to be return home and see our PAMANA family that we had left behind, but many of us were on such a high from the entire trip that we could not help but want to jump back on the plane. We couldn’t believe that we had actually finished PAMANA’s first tour and already thinking ahead for the next one in 2012. Our young dancers has now became more united because of a common accomplishment to be proud of. Now that we have returned from Europe, our members have turned over a new leaf, gaining confidence, initiative, motivation and pride for PAMANA and for all that it stands for.

The 2008-2010 officers of PFASQ is headed by Montreal Pinoy Post’s very own Editor in Chief Elenita Belgica; VP-Finance-Hilda Tan-Veloso; VP-Cultural-Jayjay T. Villanueva; Secretary-Christine O. Villanueva; Tresurer- Lily Vasquez; Auditor-Merlita Tambanillo; Director Arts/Culture-May Virola; Director Government Relations-Vilma Kelly; Director Music-Marilou Berlow; Director Communication-John Linden; Director Membership-Remelyn Remigio.

The new board of officers was inducted by CDN/NDG borough councillor Marvin Rotrand on August 3, 2008 at “Le Montrealais” Restaurant located in the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel.

The organization undertakes various activities including an annual Parol making workshop, Philippine language classes, “Paskong Pinoy”. PFSAQ is most notably known for the formation of the Kalinangan Dance Troupe in 1996, an initiative by Alvin Veloso, advisor and former president of PFASQ. KDT has had the privilege of travelling abroad to Spain in 1998, representing Canada and the Philippines,  to participate in the World Folklore Festival with other international folk dance groups.

The PFASQ Terno Ball and Silver Jubilee will be held on Saturday, October 10, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Montreal. The celebration will includes dinner and dance and special entertainment by the Philippine community’s three folk dance groups: Kalinangan Dance Troup, Salinggawi Philippine Arts Organization and PAMANA ng LuzViMinda. Tickets are $80 and available at the door.

The entire production was written and directed by yours truly, followed by a great team of young leaders who dedicated much of their time (and summer) to make this show successful. Sherling was assisted by Jorge and Jezah Antonio, Anthony-Virgil Bermejo, and Eva Friedrich. Live music was directed by John Tuvida and assisted by Marie Nolasco. MOst of the folk dances and music are adaptations by Edwin C. Duero of the ECD Dance Company, Philippines and PAMANA’s international advisor Cecille Hernandez, former Artistic Director of PAMANA.

PAMANA is also blessed to have a devoted team of dancers, parents and supporters. Thank you to all that were involved and who attended the show. Next on PAMANA,s agenda foe 2010-PAMANA will be fundraising to cover expenses to participate in the international festivals with CIOFF in Europe.

In the Montreal Filipino community, there are plenty of events to attend – pageants, dinner parties and concerts.  You’ve been to so many that you see the same familiar faces over and over again but you can’t seem to point your finger as to where you’ve seen them before? One of those faces may has hosted various events such as Binibining Pilipinas Montreal, Little Miss Philbecan and Fil-Can Idol;  you’ve probably caught him dancing Tinikling or balance on a bench a few feet off the ground;  or open for the Piolo Pascual, Sam Milby and Pokwang concert with the Philippine National Anthem.  That familiar face could very well be Neil Yapp. His appearance and name has circulated around the Filipino community over the last two to three years.  So who is Neil Yapp?

Neil was born in Kingston, Jamaica, with a background of Chinese-Jamaican with German.  He and his family moved to Toronto when he was 2 years old. He attended Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School in Scarborough and was a full active student – volleyball, dragon boat, year book, jazz choir and the president of student council. After attending York University, Neil moved to Montreal in October 2000 to attend Concordia University in Theological Studies and recently graduated with a Masters degree.

Not only was Neil active in school, he was also active with CFC-Youth for Chris and CFC- Singles for Christ. He was the head of special events for Gawad Kalinga and executive director for productions that headlined Filipino celebrities such as Louie Reyes and Joey Albert, whom he is now good friends with and by her request sang a duet for a Christmas concert that benefitted the Filipino Catholic Mission.

Neil started training in Philippine folk dance with Folklorico in Toronto.  He was first introduced to Philippine folk dance by his grade 4 teacher who ran a lunch time cultural club.  The first dance he learned was Binasuan and today, is notably one of Neil’s speciality dances.  His training was short-lived because of conflicts in schedule and decided to focus on his leadership in YFC.  In 2005, he regained his interest in folk dancing while looking for a group to participate in a GK concert in Montreal. He stumbled upon Salinggawi Philippine Arts Organization.  It was Leticia Bulotano Wheeler, founder of Salinggawi, whom convinced him to join. He was inspired by the well trained dancers displaying their culture and was motivated to dance as well as them.

Through that awakening and studying Philippine folk dance – watching videos of other groups, researching and networking, Neil became a founding member of PAMANA ng LuzViMinda Folkloric Dance Company in 2005 and became the president in 2007.  Unfortunately, he was unable to finish his 2 year term to move back to Toronto and work as the manager of Consumer Affairs at Maple Leaf’s Head Office. But he still keeps his relationship with PAMANA and continues his endeavour in Filipino folk dance with Fiesta Filipina Dance Troupe of Canada.

With a dynamic background, how did Neil ever find the time for acting? In PAMANA, Neil performed duo roles as dancer and actor in two of the company’s theatre incorporated productions.

Harana is a genre of Philippine music dating back to the country’s Spanish era.  Its lyrics portray a romantic theme with some sub categories depicting a love story.  Harana is also traditionally known as a serenade to woman outside her bedroom window at night. Florante Aguilar is well known amongst today’s Filipino-Americans. He plays traditional western classics, contemporary music and other genres, but he cannot deny his true love for harana.

 Florante, born in Manila and raised in Cavite, learned to play the octavina in a rondalla group led by his neighbour’s gardener; a fond memory from his childhood. Thanks to rock and roll, he learned to play the guitar and later, by the age of 16, was enrolled in the University of the Philippines College of Music. In 1985, he toured for 6 and half months, around Europe, the US and Asia, playing in major cities as a soloist and ensemble player. After seeing the world at a young age, Florante moved to New York with a scholarship studying at the Manhattan School of Music with Grammy award winner Sharon Isbin, also a classical guitarist and founder of the guitar department in Julliard.

In 1996, Florante received a Bachelor of Music degree at San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1996 mentored by David Tenenbaum. He is the half of the Barbary Coast Guitar Duo along with guitarist Micheal Walsh .

In 1997, Montreal was fortunate to have Florante serenade his audience at a benefit concert called “Tipanan” at Lower Canada College through Voice Productions and Pinoy Post’s very own Chief Editor Elenita Belgica. Florante’s recent works are hailed in a stage production in San Francisco. “Lalawigan: A Contempoary Tagalog Song Cycle.  Lalawigan, means province in Tagalog. Florante’s credit as writer, composer and guitarist was created through a grant by the San Francisco Arts Commission.

The story takes places in 1898 in Cavite during the uprising against Spain. The characters are inspired by the unsung heroes of this era in Philippine history, including the legendary rebel of the revolution Macario Sakay played by award-winning Philippine actor Raymond Bagatsing. Remaining loyal to the musical genre of this era, Florante composed harana and kundiman music.

Up next, Florante will be performing on July 1^st at Intramuros Restaurant in San Francisco. And for the first time in nearly 20 years, he will be performing with his teacher from New York Michael Dadap. Proceeds of the event will go towards the completion of a documentary by award winning Benito Bautista called “Harana”, a film that romanticizes the culture of Harana through the eyes of Florante himself.  The documentary reveals a long lost tradition that once was part of Philippine custom that only survives through a very few and hopefully has a chance to blossom once more.

On February 7, PAMANA ng LuzViMinda celebrated a successful 3rd anniversary at Chateau Royal in Chomedy, Laval. The evening was spent honouring former members of PAMANA’s Executive Board – Mr. & Mrs. Leo Tuvida and Joaquina Tino and special plaques of appreciation to former PAMANA presidents – John Tuvida and Neil Yapp. PAMANA end their evening showcasing a 40-minute set of dances that they learned during their one week in the Philippines last summer.

 PAMANA was formed in 2005 with only 15 dancers. With Leticia Bulotano Wheeler as the group’s leading inspiration, parents of the dancers and other supporters invested their money and their backyards to get the group off the ground.  PAMANA has wowed audiences all over Montreal, Drummondville, New Jersey, Vancouver and Ottawa.

            In July 2008, 30 dancers and 20 parents of PAMANA travelled to the Philippines to meet and receive formal training from Edwin Duero of ECD Dance Company and Victor Flor of the Philippine High School of the Arts in Los Banos, Laguna.   PAMANA spent four 10-hour days training and learning new dances at the National Arts Center on Mount Makiling and returned to Montreal enriched in new folk dance material.  To bring a taste of Canada to the Philippines, PAMANA performed two shows in one day at the Christian School International to help raise money for the Philippine High School of the Arts Employees Association to cover expenses food, transportation and lodging expenses.   And by special request, Cora Inigo, CIOFF delegate for the Philippines, arranged a performance at Diliman Preparatory School. The group performed “Pinagkalooban,” a dance/theatre production from 2007 that tells the story of a father and son relationship and finding the connection through the common heritage that they share.  All three shows had a full house of spectators. 

             At the gala, the group presented their new dances from all five categories of Philippine folk dance as well as some traditional favourites like Pandanggo sa Ilaw and Tinikling. The event was attended by specials guests of numerous Philippine associations in Montreal, as well as the Philippine Ambassador to Canada, Mr. José S. Brilliantes.  PAMANA’s showcase was well praised by the guests, not only for their flawless performance but also for their collection of the authentic Cordillera, Muslim and Southern Tribal costumes that were acquired in the Philippines. That evening was the first time the group performed these new dances with even more to share in 2009.

PAMANA has proven to have a bright future ahead of them and no sign of backing down from continuing their venture to promote and share an essential part of the Philippine culture. In 2009, PAMANA will participate for the 2^nd year in a row at the Ottawa Tulip Festival in May and join forces with the Karilagan Dance Society of Edmonton this summer as part of an exchange program with SEVEC. PAMANA will satge ther 3^rd grand production at the end of the August. In 2010, PAMANA will represent Canada and the Philippines in a CIOFF festival in Europe.