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Pioneering Culture-Arts Program takes off with forum series

Pioneering Culture-Arts Program takes off with forum series

by | Mar 15, 2017 | Culture & Arts

by (contributed news)

MSU-IIT’s contribution to Culture, Art, and Performance Studies has taken off with three successive events in four days. Participating were over 300 teachers, practitioners, and students conversing on “evolving a Philippine School-of-Thought”.

Three colloquiums that marked the auspicious progress of our Culture and Arts Studies, the only one in the country today, gauge the state of disciplines envisioned by the Program.

First was the seminar on “Arts Administration in the Philippine Context” opening the series last March 8. Arts Manager Carmencita Jasareno-Bernardo of the Cultural Exchange Department, Cultural Center of the Philippines, lectured and facilitated a workshop on strategies on how art and cultural resources may be managed.

In the second day on March 9, seven graduate students presented papers using their innovative methodologies that described the form and directions the pedagogy and their productions will take. Performance specialist Dr. Jazmin Llana, Ph.D, Associate Professor of De La Salle University and alumna of the Aberystwyth University keynoted the forum discussing the possibility of a Philippine school-of-thought.

Both Bernardo and Llana are with the faculty of the Studies.


U.P. Diliman through its Office for Initiatives for Culture and the Arts (OICA) co-hosted the third event on March 10 and 11. Titled “Theatre and Cultural Performances in the Philippines (Focus on Mindanao), the UP team also presented its large-scale project “Digital Humanities” to involve the MSU-IIT in gathering all possible information through digital media in these disciplines.

The third forum had theatre specialist Dr. S. Anril P. Tiatco, Ph.D (“Performance in the Philippines”), UP Dean Amihan B. Ramolete, Ph.D (“Puppetry in the Philippines”), Dr. Christine Godinez-Ortega, DFA (“Mindanao Epics”), Prof. Hobart P. Savior, MA (“Dramaturgy in Contemporary Mindanao Theatre”), and the Studies Founder Dr. Steven P.C. Fernandez, DFA (“Performing Arts in Mindanao”).

Distinguished panel members who critiqued the proposals were Dr. Nelia Balgoa, DHS, and Dr. Victor Sugbo, Ph.D.

Since its launch in August 2015 (with endowment from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts), the program has taken the first steps in establishing an inter-discipline taking off from paradigms of European and American academic and performance studies centers. It sets directions for Philippine scholarship, production, and the management of cultural-performance resources.

Last year, the MSU-IIT Board of Regents approved the establishment of the Culture and Arts Studies Center with Fernandez as Founding Director. The Center’s goal is to establish a hub for Culture, Performance, and Arts Studies situating such initiatives in locations where intersecting cultures make these studies dynamic.

Contributing resources for the establishment of this program are the Integrated Performing Arts Guild – Artists Resource Management, Inc., Dept. of English, School of Graduate Studies, Cultural Development Office, and the NCCA. – Contributed news

Topics : culture-arts  program  pioneering  forum  series  culture and arts studies

NCCA grants P1M for Culture and Arts

NCCA grants P1M for Culture and Arts

by | Mar 22, 2016 | Arts & Social Sciences

The pioneering MSU-IIT Culture and Arts Studies (CAS) Program is the recipient of a One Million-and-Forty-four-Thousand-Peso Grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) coursed through the MSU-IIT as conduit of the grant.

The NCCA under the Office of the President (OP) is the lead institution in the country’s policy implementation for cultural and heritage development. It manages the government’s endowment for the arts. The grant for the MSU-IIT CAS Program supports scholarships and partly subsidizes the operations of the program covering the period January to December 2016.

The CAS Program is the first and one of its kind in the country introduced as a “ladderized” diploma and Master’s degree graduate course which opened classes in August last year.

Fourteen students compose the first batch completing inter-disciplinary tracks in Performance Studies, Arts Administration, and Literature and Creative Writing. Scholars are accepted based on their proposed research and/or creative production requirement.

The NCCA has provided grants since 2009 for the study and subsequent conduct of a viable CAS program, a discipline that was conceived in 2005. A discipline such as the CAS program was implemented after passing through a long-winded route of layers of bureaucracy. The CAS program was finally approved by the MSU Board of Regents in 2015.

Founder of the program is College of Arts & Social Sciences (CASS) Professor and Performance Studies scholar Prof. Dr. Steven P.C. Fernandez.

Topics : Culture and Art Studies  CAS  NCCA