Wednesday, April 18, 2007 Benguet food, trade fair set May 7-11 at BSU
A UNIQUE way of preserving its rich cultural heritage centered on food, the Benguet ethnic food fair would take place from May 7 to 11 at the Benguet State University.
Benguet Coopbank General Manager Gerry Lab-oyan said this is in preparation for the Cordillera ethnic food festival, his brainchild, which would be launched this coming November.
The activity is open to all who are interested in joining the food and trade fair as long as they prepare ethnic food delicacies, Lab-oyan said. All of Benguet’s 13 towns would also be invited to present their respective ethnic menus. A reasonable fee would be collected from interested participants.
Lab-oyan said an added feature to the food and trade fair would be lessons on tayao and sarong dance for a minimal fee. Tayao is usually performed by men while sarong by women but they should have knowledge on both dances as they normally take turn in dancing as the performance progresses, he said. This would be taught by professional groups such as the Historical Society and other groups.
He said the ethnic dance lessons both for children and adults would not be limited to Benguet people but anybody interested to learn could enroll.
Lab-oyan said the idea behind it is to pass on to younger generations the cultural heritage of the Cordillera, particularly Benguet. This would be initially accompanied by a taped cultural dance the tinaktakiad (Kankanaey) using tallak or binanoy (Ibaloi) using batbat and bendian.
The dances would finally perform using the actual instrumental accompaniments on the last day of the food and trade fair.
BSU President Rogelio Colting chairs the executive committee while Gov. Borromeo Melchor is the co-chair. Provincial Tourism Operations Officer Claire Prudencio is the vice chair.
For further details, contact persons are Lab-oyan at tel. no. 422-1849 and Prudencio at 422-1116.
