Valley street dancing features culture

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – Valley culture and graceful dance showcased the streets highlighting the Monday Street dancing parade here.

Eight groups participated in the annual street dancing celebration during the Strawberry Festival giving visitors a taste of local artistry.

The Tallebeng Cultural Group portrayed the practice of helping with their interpretation of the “nanpa-abuyog”, the person who asks for help, when informed, will return the favor of helping to the “ummabuyug”, the person who rendered help.

The practice originated from the municipality of Lubuagan and is the most popular of all Kalinga dances.

King’s College of the Philippines portrayed a farming ritual offered to kabunian depicting people sowing seeds.

The Panglakayen ritual leads the town for prayer and begs for rain so that the crops will live and the town people will also live.

The Tawang Cultural Dancers, meanwhile, portrayed farmers using the native costumes of the six provinces of the region.

Groups paraded the stretch of the Halsema Highway including groups from Bebsat cultural group, Living stream ministries, Benguet State university cultural dance group, Katribu Indigenous peoples group and the Mantuwijan performing arts group.

Initial plans of making the street dancing parade divided into two categories were scrapped due to constraints in preparation and registration making the municipality creates a lone open category for all competing entries.

Last year, the Kamura National High School dancers of Kabayan, together with the sixteen barangays of the town, paraded the streets wearing authentic costumes dancing to original unaltered music as they proceed from the provincial capitol grounds to the municipal hall.

This year, competing entries and exhibition pieces gathered groups from nearby areas as well as local schools and colleges with the theme rooted on the thriving strawberry industry of the Valley. (Ma. Elena Catajan)