Dinagyang '07 to feature international ice show
Ilonggos will now have the chance to see at close range an international ice show with performers from other countries as it will be one of the main features of the Dinagyang Festival next year.
Businessman Lee Chuan, president of the Dinagyang Foundation, said the festival will bring for the first time, an international holiday on ice show to this city.
"This will add color to the Dinagyang celebration on January 2007 as Ilonggos will see the ice spectacle brought by the promoters here for the first time to perform outside Metro Manila," Chuan said.
Early reports said the P21-million ice show will perform first at the Araneta Center in Quezon City before going to Iloilo City for the Visayas performance one week before the Dinagyang culminating events.
Chuan said the Visayans, especially Ilonggos in Panay and Negros, are dying to see the ice show rated as the most spectacular and grandest show on earth.
Dinagyang executive director Ben Jimena said official mascot 'Dagoy' will be going around the country promoting the Dinagyang in several Philippine cities starting December.
Other activities include the fluvial procession to be made into a more extensive major Dinagyang event and the promotion of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of the United National Development Programme.
Dinagyang Festival was selected recently by the Association of Tourism Officers of the Philippines (ATOP) as the top tourism event in the country.
"The event has evolved through the years as a living festival that takes new things in strides as it invents, rather blends tradition with the contemporary and evolving into something different, something new, yet maintaining its inner soul and real essence," Jimena said.
(PNA)