THE National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) is celebrating the National Arts Month (NAM) with lectures and a conversation with National Artist Resil B. Mojares.
As the Philippines’ leading government agency for arts and culture, the NCCA spearheads this year’s celebration under the theme “Ani ng Sining (Harvest of Art),” a phrase that highlights the richness and bountiful harvest of art in the Philippines.
NAM is annually celebrated, by virtue of Presidential Proclamation 683, in February.
The month-long “Ani ng Sining” will showcase events and activities as well as flagship projects of the seven national committees of the NCCA’s Subcommission on the Arts, which will be held in different venues all over the country.
The National Committee on Literary Arts, headed by Dr. Hope S. Yu, offers “NAMnamin,” a convergence of food and literature. It will be held at the Orchid Gardens in San Fernando, Pampanga on Feb. 25-27.
Yu and delegates Haidee Emmie K. Palapar, Cindy Velasquez and Joanalyn P. Gabales will be presenting papers on four separate sessions within the first two days.
On Feb. 26, Dr. Victor Sugbo will moderate conversations with Mojares, a scholar and author of several groundbreaking books, including “Brains of the Nation,” “Isabelo’s Archive” and “House of Memories.”
On the same day, Liean Jane Haney Rama, Cindy Velasquez and Raphael Dean Polinar, together with the other delegates, will present “Tagay Ta (Let’s Drink): Cebuano Poetry and Performance.”
The NAM celebration will close with “Ani ng Dangal (Harvest of Honors)” awarding ceremonies, which will be held in the Manila Diamond Hotel on Feb. 27.
The award recognizes artists who have earned international accolades in 2018.
One of the recipients of this year’s Ani ng Dangal is Cebuano poet-essayist Lawrence Lacambra Ypil, who is a co-winner of the first Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize for his collection “The Experiment of the Tropics: Poems.”