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PH bags Americas’ ‘first folk dance champion’ title
“We won! (The) overall winner of the Festival Internacional de Folclore de Nova Prata! Showcasing the best of Philippine culture through music and dance,” the group announced Monday. “This is Bayanihan’s 13th World Prize Title.”
The FIDAF competition was a feature of Nova Prata’s International Folklore Festival, an annual affair held from September 11 to September 15 that drew outstanding performing arts group from different nations.
Competing against the Philippines were Mexico, Romania, Slovakia, Russia, and Bulgaria. Bayanihan bagged the first place followed by Mexico with the second place while Russia was picked as People’s Choice awardee and Slovakia as Special Jury Prize recipient.
In its victory over other world-class dance groups, Bayanihan was led by its Executive Director Suzie Moya-Benitez, Dance Director and Choreographer Ferdinand Jose, and Musical Director Melito Vale Cruz.
“The dance companies had more than 35 dancers but Bayanihan only had 10 dancers and 5 musicians. But the organizers insisted we be in the competition,” Moya-Benitez told the Philippine News Agency.
At the festival, Bayanihan performed the “Pandango sa Ilaw” and Tinikling, which “the audience loved,” according to Moya-Benitez, but what made a mark to the audience was their piece “Muslim Mosaic” that garnered a standing ovation from the crowd on top of their presentations titled “People Under the Sun” and “Call of Lumads”.
Winning over state dance companies from Europe and Latin America, Moya-Benitez said this win makes Bayanihan “the first folk dance champion” in the Americas.
Bayanihan, the National Dance Company of the Philippines was organized under the Bayanihan Folk Arts Center with a focus on indigenous Philippine art forms in music, dance, costumes, and folklore.
Since its formal organization, the company has mounted 14 major tours to Asia, Australia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Americas and over a hundred short tours to foreign countries.
Bayanihan has performed in six continents, sixty-six countries and 700 cities worldwide since it was organized in 1957. In 1998, Bayanihan was formally designated as the country’s national folk-dance company.
