Following their third-place finish in the recently concluded Pasigarbo sa Sugbo 2024 Grand Ritual Showdown, the Lapu-Lapu City Government plans to establish a theater club to help contestants prepare for future events like the 50th Golden Anniversary of the Kasanggayahan Festival, which is scheduled for October 15 in the province of Sorsogon in northern Luzon.
City Tourism Office (CTO) head Garry Lao announced this in an interview with reporters on Tuesday, August 27.
The Lapu-Lapu City Government has been invited by the Sorsogon Provincial Government to join the festival.
“We will be joining the Kasanggayahan Festival in the Province of Sorsogon to advance and show off our pride. We are grateful because the Pasigarbo sa Sugbo demonstrated to the Cebuanos that Lapu-Lapu City has something to be proud of,” said Lao in Cebuano.
Lao added that the theater club will also serve as an extension of the city’s own Lapu-Lapu Performing Arts, which will focus on mentoring at the community level to maintain the city’s pride and culture.
“The mayor agreed that the performers in the Pasigarbo will not stop there. We will be creating a theater club to level up performances in the future,” said Lao in a mix of Cebuano and English.
“We already have the Lapu-Lapu Performing Arts with 25 existing members. We will just include a theater club or dance troupe that will hold training,” he added.
In a separate phone call on August 26, Mayor Junard “Ahong” Chan reaffirmed earlier plans to establish a club to carry on regular practices from the team they formed.
Chan added that these individuals will be the ones who will perform on special occasions, including welcoming and entertaining the city’s visitors.
The City intends to open the theater club inside the Lapu-Lapu City Art Gallery in Barangay Gun-ob, which was shut down during the pandemic, to conduct the training.
Practices will mostly concentrate on different dance forms, especially national routines, so that they will be ready to perform should they receive an invitation to compete, said Lao.
Lao also stated that the initiative aims to teach the dancers in acting. / DPC