Monday, October 13, 2008 Absent stage, faceless writers
NO OTHER place in Mindanao is there a greater pool of creative writers than in Davao, and yet very few know of them.
"There is no lack of creative writers. Davao City is where the most of creative writers are," award-winning poet and Davao Writers Guild president Ricardo de Ungria told Sun.Star.
Among the illustrious writers aside from de Ungria are Visayan poet and Ateneo de Davao University professor Don Pagusara, Ford Academy of the Arts owner Aida Rivera Ford, poet Tita Lacambra Ayala, Palanca awardees Macario Tiu and Arnel Mardoquio. They're just a few of a host of writers who are quietly working in the background, all of them barely recognized outside their circle of friends and colleagues.
It's the same for those in the performing arts, theater guru Nestor Horfilla said.
Despite the rich harvest of performers and writers here, they remain in the background, without a stage, lacking in recall, or worse, not even mentioned in passing.
De Ungria says the lack of literary activities in Davao and the other regions perpetuates the lack of awareness about the literary figures that abound in Mindanao and the lack of appreciation for creative writing.
For one, only University of the Philippines in Mindanao offers a creative writing program although the oldest writing group is in the Ateneo de Davao University and a national writing workshop is hosted annually by the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology.
Like dance, there's lethargy of late, the activities between regions and universities have seemingly died down.
"Yung network ko with teachers is not working anymore," de Ungria admits. "In the past, we held workshops in these universities and I also get to meet campus writers."
The DWG has thus taken on the task of developing creative writers in its own way.
Through a partnership with Sun.Star, DWG has been coming out with a Sunday literary page, the only one in such a medium.
De Ungria, coming from the national capital himself, observes a different attitude towards the literary arts in the regions; an attitude that can be likened to lethargy as well.
For one creative writers are not given much recognition here, if ever they are recognized at that.
"They (people in the regions) don't see the value of writing pa," he said. "Kulang pa ang literary activities here."
But it isn't even for lack of appreciation for this art because the appreciation and interest was there before as manifested by theater productions.
"Davao had a very illustrious industry in theater but it died down in the later 1980s. The DWG wants to help revive that but we don't know how," he said.
Horfilla, who has contributed loads for Mindanao theater movement in the past two decades, agrees that there has been a slump, a lack of activity as compared to the past two decades.
In fact, the decade of the 1980s and 1990s was Mindanao theater's most active years.
"In 1984 was the First Mindanao Theater Festival and this has been brought around Mindanao until the last one held in Davao City in 1997," he said.
The proposal to create the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) played a role here, he said.
"Early 1990s, kasisimula pa lang ng NCCA, so it was an advocacy of all people that formed the network among regional initiatives," Horfilla said.
There was even the Mindulani, then, which Horfilla headed, which served as the netowrk institution. It was so active, it received the Gawad CCP (Cultural Center of the Philippines) in 2004.
What crippled the movement was when NCCA shifted its directions and let go of networkingas among its priorities.
"Without support for networking, you can't pool resources together," he said. Mindulani likewise disappeared.
At that time, he said, there was a seeming assumption that people in theater wanted to specialize, such that every region was trying to focus on their festivals and all other activities with regards performing arts were focused on these activities.
The network, the cooperation was lost amid all the drumbeats.
Without networking and cooperative, the link between schools, semi-professional groups, and communities are cut.
"The schools can provide the people and support to the semi-professional groups, and the communities can give the support and technical resources," he said.
Today the schools and communities are more into festivals and events.
"Dumami ang festival, bawa't city, munisipyo, such that some of the theater groups also opted for events because real theater works demands more funds," he said.
The result, "not much new plays but maraming events".
It may be fun, but it's a sad reality for the artist.
"Wala kang mahigop from events (You can't derive artistic growth from events). Yes there are festivals, but the activism is lost, the art activism," he said.
Events, he said, are theme specific, and tends to clutter up the art.
De Ungria too has his take on festivals, even if Kadayawan sa Dabaw has evolved to be more meaningful in this year's celeberation.
"Festivals like Kadayawan, yes, it's a cultural thing, but it's not the way to develop the arts. Like those street-dancing festivals na wala naman roots sa beliefs," de Ungria said.
With everyone focused on events and festivals, the playwright, the primary brain behind the whole artistic production is also lost.
"Kaunti na lang ang praywrights from Mindanao. Medyo nawala na ang mga new works," Horfilla said.
Horfilla would rather attribute this to the more complex scenario aspiring playwrights have to contend with nowadays, rather than the disappearance of playwrighting as an art altogether.
"Siguro dahil complex na ang mga issues. Aesthetics should look into the diversity of context and issues. The analysis of aesthetics should be shaped, hindi na ngayon basta na lang allegorical plays," he said.
But of greater impact is the disappearance of cultural institutions that support the arts.
"Cultural institutions help a lot in audience mobilization, solicitation, selling of tickets. Without these, the artists will have to do these themselves on top of creating and performing," he said.
Horfilla sees developments, however, that may lead to a renewed interest as universities are already evolving academic programs for theater and performing arts in Cagayan de Oro City, for one. There is also the creative writing program in UP-Mindanao.
Local government units are also starting to put in a little fund for culture and the arts and there is a seeming trend towards revival of community traditions.
What's lacking is the documentation, the publication of the decades of theater in Davao.
This is among de Ungria's concern. The obvious absence of publications, plus with the absence of a critics' circle, creative writing cannot grow.
"Walang translations and criticism programs so bara-bara ang development," de Ungria said. "Without criticisms, walang standards."
Like for poetics, he said, there are principles of construction involved, the principles of beauty. But there has not been such standards ever created, just anthologies of poems.
"That's the sad situation of literature in the country. All are artists," he said. There has to be some organized development if the arts are to be nurtured and the heritage of arts is to be preserved for future artists to learn from. The Davao Writers Guild, he said, is working on a research for all these, while Horfilla and his motley crew are working towards reaching out to the regions once more.
Both men are pushing, they're still pushing. Here's to hoping that they get more "pushers" along the way.
