by (contributed news)
THE INTEGRATED Performing Arts Guild (IPAG), resident company of the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology, joins 25 other major universities in the Asia-Pacific in a Drama Festival in Hanoi, Vietnam from Sept, 23 to 29.
The Asia-Pacific Bond (APB) of Drama Schools is an annual event that gathers some of the more prestigious universities including Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), Shanghai Theatre Academy (China), Victoria College of the Arts (Australia), National School of Drama (India), among others. The Philippines is represented by Ateneo de Manila University and the MSU-IIT. Membership to this exclusive network is through nomination and election. (IPAG was nominated in 2012 in Taipei and accepted in 2013 in Shanghai.) This will be IPAG’s third performance appearance in Vietnam and its second for the APB.
This year’s edition is hosted by the Vietnam International Performance Academy (VIPA).
Besides performances, the week-long APB will also hold workshops and facilitate a directors’ forum where the IPAG will present its pedagogy and production process.
For the Vietnam festival, IPAG showcases a devised production Tighod: Tide of Times using contemporary dance as its medium. The experimental production was written and conceptualized by Asst. Prof. Neil Arkhe P. Azcuna and Jan Christian A. Pagarigan, both alumni of the Department of History. Using elements from Performance and Installation Art, Tighod (ebb and flow) explores man’s inescapable entanglement with history through a bleak and fragmented perspective. Strewn all over the performance are metaphors of audience and performance and references to Art and History’s cyclical diorama in pre-colonial nations.
Tighod is part of the laboratory pieces that reinforce IPAG’s dramaturgy innovating production through contemporary mediums. Dramaturg is Prof. Steven Patrick C. Fernandez and the choreography is by Kenn Erwin A. Velasquez, collaborated with the IPAG Creative Collective.
Tighod celebrates its Philippine Premiere at the MSU-IIT campus in Iligan City in February for the 2020 National Arts Month.