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Documenting Theatrical and Performative Philippines: Possibilities of a Task and a Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2019

OSCAR TANTOCO SERQUIÑA JR
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Extract

The writing of theatre history has been a challenging intellectual commitment in the Philippines. This mode of inquiry and inscription largely manifests more as a strand of general historiography than as a systematized and specialized critical practice in Philippine academe. No wonder, then, that Philippine theatre histories primarily come from academics whose disciplinary backgrounds are not solely in theatre arts per se but in a range of different but intersecting disciplines, such as film, literature, dance, anthropology, history and music. These historians have accounted for the medium's forms, geographies of production and performance, material aspects, lead practitioners, groups or organizations, and historical periods. They have thus far yielded a congeries of print materials: from the encyclopedia to the anthology or reader, the survey, up to the full-length book manuscript. More recently, theatre histories have also appeared in online catalogues or digital repositories.

Type
Dossier: The Theatre Historian Today
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , July 2019 , pp. 196 - 199
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2019 

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References

Notes

1 Tiongson, Nicanor G., Kasaysayan at Estetika ng Sinakulo at Ibang Dulang Panrelihoyon sa Malolos (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1975)Google Scholar; Fernandez, Doreen G., The Iloilo Zarzuela: 1903–1930 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1978)Google Scholar; Tiongson, Nicanor G., Philippine Theater: A History and Anthology, Vol. 2: Komedya (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1999)Google Scholar; Tiongson, , Philippine Theater: A History and Anthology, Vol. 3: Sinakulo (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

2 Ramas, Wilhelmina Q., Sugbuanon Theatre from Sotto to Rodriguez and Kabahar: An Introduction to Pre-war Sugbuanon Drama (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Mojares, Resil B., Theater in Society, Society in Theater: Social History of a Cebuano Village, 1840–1940 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

3 Buenaventura, Cristina Laconico, The Theater in Manila 1846–1946 (Manila: De La Salle University Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Gavino, Pacita C., ‘A History of Scene Design for Philippine Theater, 1846-1969’, in Chua, Jonathan and Lucero, Rosario Cruz, eds., A Reader in Philippine Theater: History and Criticism (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2014), pp. 3–25Google Scholar; yamomo, meLê, Sounding Modernities: Theatre and Music in Manila and the Asia Pacific, 1869–1946 (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Tiongson, Nicanor G., Salvador F. Bernal: Designing the Stage (Manila: National Commission for Culture and the Arts, 2007)Google Scholar; Avellana, Daisy Hontiveros, The Drama of It: A Life on Film and Theater (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, 2009)Google Scholar.

5 Bernad, Miguel A., Dramatics at the Ateneo de Manila: A History of Three Decades, 1921–1952 (Manila: Ateneo Alumni Association, 1997)Google Scholar; Casanova, Arthur P., The Kambayoka Book: The First Thirty Years of the Sining Kambayoka of the Mindanao State University, Marawi City (Manila: University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2004)Google Scholar; Samson, Laura, Fajardo, Brenda V., Garrucho, Cecilia B., Labad, Lutgardo L. and Cabangon, Ma. Gloriosa Santos, A Continuing Narrative in Philippine Theater: The Story of PETA (Philippine Educational Theatre Association) (Quezon City: Philippine Educational Theater Association, 2008)Google Scholar.

6 Lapeña-Bonifacio, Amelia, The ‘Seditious’ Tagalog Playwrights: Early American Occupation (Manila: Zarzuela Foundation of the Philippines, Inc., 1972)Google Scholar; Fernandez, Doreen, ‘Philippine Theatre after Martial Law’, Asian Theatre Journal, 4, 1 (1987), pp. 108–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Patajo-Legasto, Priscelina, ‘The Impact of American Colonial Rule on Philippine Theater’, in Legasto, Priscelina Patajo, ed., The Filipiniana Reader (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1998), pp. 44–61Google Scholar.

7 See CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art, Vol. 7: Philippine Theater (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1994)Google Scholar.

8 Chua, Jonathan and Cruz-Lucero, Rosario, eds., A Reader in Philippine Theater: History and Criticism (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2014)Google Scholar.

9 Isagani R. Cruz, ed., A Short History of Theater in the Philippines (n.p., 1971); Tiongson, Nicanor G., Dulaan: An Essay on Philippine Theater (Manila: Cultural Center of the Philippines, 1989)Google Scholar; Fernandez, Doreen G., Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

10 See the University of the Philippines-funded Philippine Performance Archive, http://philippineperformance-repository.upd.edu.ph/information.html and http://blog.palabas.org, accessed 27 January 2019.

11 Founded in 1997, the Philippine Legitimate Stage Artists Group Inc. or PHILSTAGE introduces itself as ‘the country's only organization of professional performing arts companies’. The organization aims to ‘propagate, protect, and unite the professional Philippine performing arts industry’. In 2008, it established Gawad Buhay, an annual awards ceremony that recognizes outstanding productions of member companies. This is the much-vaunted local equivalent of Broadway's Tony Awards or the West End's Olivier Awards. See the Facebook page of PHILSTAGE for the group's mission and vision: www.facebook.com/pg/gawadbuhay/about. Also see Audie Gemora, ‘10 years of the Philstage Gawad Buhay: Come Celebrate with us on April 12’ (7 April 2018), Lifestyle.Inq, at https://lifestyle.inquirer.net/290946/10-years-philstage-gawad-buhay-come-celebrate-us-april-12, accessed 22 March 2018.