Komedya sa Antique Festival gets boosts from NCCA
San Jose, Antique -- At least four comedia troupes are now preparing for their respective stage presentations as another wave of this centuries old theater form storms the province of Antique in what is dubbed as "Komedya sa Antique Festival." Now imbedded in its annual Binirayan festival, the komedya festival here continues to go mainstream after a successful attempt to re-introduce it to the people during last year's binirayan festival.
The first to be organized in Western Visayas , "Komedya sa Antique" is jointly sponsored by the Binirayan Foundation Inc (BFI), the Provincial Government of Antique and National Commission for Culture and Arts (NCCA).
To sustain the momentum, the NCCA gave fresh grants to the BFI for this year's activities. According to Dr Glecy Atienza, Committee Chair for Dramatic Arts of the NCCA, Cultural undertakings like Antique's "Komedya festival" are indeed very important endeavors and the support of local government units are really needed in such cultural programs. "It is a good start and maybe in the future more should be involved such as schools and non-government organizations. These undertakings, she said should likewise be given proper orientation as to how cultural work helps in community development.
Atienza says the NCCA encourages such programs and provides support through trainings, documentation, festivals, and linkage building with other cultural institutions.
For her part, Antique Governor Salvacion Zaldivar -Perez says the re-birth of komedya in the province is a continuation of the cultural revival that she had been advocating since she became governor of the province. "Giving full support to activities of the Binirayan festival is to provide the much needed venue for local artists so they can express their creativity in various forms including age-old theater forms like the komedya, thus enhacing cultural awareness amongst Antiquenos."Perez said.
Much like last year's komedya festival, this year's presentations were also reduced from their original 10 hour run to only three hours each, reviewed and re-rewritten from memory by old timers who had been part and parcel of the plays in their time.
According to BFI Executive Director, Alex delos Santos, " the interest spawned by last year's komedya saw a resurgence among komedya troupes here so that now we have "new" scripts coming out as memories are refreshed and existing scripts are modified.We will not have a re-run of last year's presentation as what the troupes are practicing now are all new in a sense." he said.
Coming on stage along with this year's binirayan festival are:
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"Villarba" produced by the komedya San Antonio troupe of Barbaza town to be shown on April 27at the EBJ Freedom Park in Antique's capital town;
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"Generio Rogera" produced by komeday Madrangca troupe of San Jose town to be shown on May 1, also at the EBJ Freedom Park ;
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"Lucivar Filomeno" produced by Komedya Hamtic troupe to be shown at the Hamtic Plazuela on May 2, and;
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"Amazona" also of Komedya San Antonio to be shown at San Antonio , Barbaza on May 8.
Better know then as "moro-moro", this ancient theater form lies in the heart of Antique as it is in its capital town of San Jose where the first documented Comedia in Western Visayas was staged, as recorded by the newspaper El Eco de Panay. The Comedia is the theater version of the Corrido or metrical romances, a literary form popular in Europe at the time of the Spanish colonization of the Philippines . The Spaniards brought the comedia or corrido's theater form into the country when they saw this as a powerful medium but instead of the simple romantic themes, these were slanted on the fights between moros and christians with the later always winning.
Last year's festival saw four Comedias on stage. The first three are traditional comedia: "Gugma kag Corona ni Gracia" of brgy Guinbangaan, Lauaan , "Leonario" of Brgy Madaranga, San Jose and "Ludovico" of brgy San Antonio, Barbaza while the forth is contemporary.
Plucking out the best elements from this theater form, brgy San Antonio used Comedia to educate farmers on Integrated Pest Management and the benefits of organic farming, thus the title " Ang mga peste sa parayan."
Delos Santos also announced that they will give an award to Mr Genaro Encarnacion, one of the oldest living komedya practitioners in the province during the festival.