Tuesday, November 27, 2007 Tan-Te: The winning view By Jeanne Tan-Te
IT'S Prisaa season, so to speak. That means killing time for artists and public speakers - student protégées and coaches alike - in the private schools for extra-creative outputs, extra hours in trainings, extra sore throat, muscle pain and backache.
I can actually feel my calf muscles rotting just thinking about it. Ranking 4th out of 26 contestants is already a great achievement, what's more if you make it as the champion!
I was able to watch the high school level Prisaa competitions being the coach to four of our school's cultural contestants. Grabe! One category took an average of 2 hours.
I wonder how it must be like to be a judge. I mean sitting just a few meters from the foot of the stage would force you to raise your head most of the time. That's literally one heck of a pain in the neck. You won't have that much choice, either expect to endure the lengthy performances - how much more with the boring ones - and manage to focus on making a fair judgment.
What if you suddenly had a migraine attack? Or worse, you needed to go to the comfort room - desperately! If only for that, I highly respect and admire the judges' patience and integrity.
The view from afar
Being seated among the audience would give one a clear assessment of the current trends in stage performance. I was hoping to be able to get an honest view of our youth's concerns and preoccupations nowadays.
Maybe I did. Maybe not. It was quite obvious that adults - either by the teachers, or the coaches - wrote most of the pieces in binalaybay, oration and declamation.
They did speak of the influence of media entertainment: action figures - and therefore, violence - like robots, soldiers, spies; of Marimar; of a young girl or boy's ambition to become an actor, a beauty titlist or simply being beautiful and popular.
Who would discard the comic functions of the third sex, too? Our happy acceptance -like it or not - of this sector in our society was very pronounced.
I'd say around 5 pieces in the Filipino declamation were about gays and around half of the contestants had a gay character in their stories. As for the binalaybay and oration categories, however, I hardly heard of a piece that truly voiced out the youth's views on unifying our country. The fatalistic perspective of the Filipino was common.
The line "With God, everything is possible" was like a broken record being played over and over. There's really nothing wrong with that except that no well-defined solution was ever presented; or that, at least, the role of the youth or the education sector should have been discussed in the pieces.
I must say, however, that majority of the contestants did very well. Particularly, most of them spoke English better than average. Most of them were obviously trained and faithful protégées of their trainers. Sometimes, though, it looked like a contest between trainers rather than between contestants. Well, sometimes. And therefore, it was always refreshing to see real raw talents from among the contestants.
The view from above
I remember being a Prisaa contestant myself way back in high school - twice. I won 2nd place the first time and 3rd place in the succeeding year, both in the English declamation then. I know it's probably an eon ago. But, I remember writing my own piece. I did show it to my teachers for editing and some coaching. I didn't have a professional trainer or coach though.
To this day, I don't exactly understand how I was able to land in the top 3 among an average of 20 contenders. All I know is that I simply portrayed my honest sentiments and opinions of the characters in my piece. So, I guess that's it.
Declamation, oration, binalaybay and even musical contests are actually all about expressing one's honest and sincere emotions and views.
Of course, pronunciation and diction come to play and any student can learn them with constant practice. What sets the winners apart, however, is their ability to deliver their lines from the heart. It also takes great self-confidence and belief in God. Yes, "with God, everything is (indeed) possible". As long as you do something and work hard.
Being a coach now, I want my students to first of all, be able to find it in their hearts to thank God for the gifts that they have been entrusted with. Most of the time, I would want them to work closely with me in drafting their different pieces so that they'd be able to present them as truthfully as they can.
Most importantly, when they are out there on stage, I want them to shine on their own as beautiful creations of God. In doing so, they'd be able to inspire others to nourish and treasure their own respective talents.
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I would like to congratulate Ernie Torre and Kara Joyce Monteclaro of South Coast International School for winning in the Prisaa English Oration and English Declamation contests respectively. They both got the 4th place out of 26 and 24 contestants respectively. For Jun Caesar Maprangala, Jezzamine Pardilla, Johanna Garganera and Danya Ballesteros, you are all winners in your own rights. (Email: brain_faery@yahoo.com)
