Tawi-Tawi’s Agal-Agal Festival lures tourists

A “PANGALAY” dancer dressed in a traditional “biyatawi” (fitted blouse) and “sawwal” (loose trousers) leads the street dancing of the Bongao delegation during the 41st Kamahardikaan Festival in Tawi-Tawi province. The backdrop is the “sambulayang,” or colorful flags that traditionally decorate native boats, like the lepa.

Kamahardikaan is the celebration of the birth of Tawi-Tawi province, which was separated from Sulu province on Sept. 27, 1973. Thus, every September, the air in Bongao town, the capital, is filled with a palpable excitement akin to the Christmas rush familiar to many of us.

This year, the weeklong celebration of Kamahardikaan included a photo exhibit competition, the Miss Tawi-Tawi beauty contest, motocross and the annual fluvial parade, but one of the main highlights was the Agal-Agal Festival on Sept. 25.

Since Tawi-Tawi is the country’s major producer of “agal-agal,” or powdered seaweed extract, the festival aimed to promote Tawi-Tawi as the “Seaweed Capital of the Philippines” since the tourism-generating activity was first implemented in 1988.

Tawi-Tawi Gov. Nurbert Sahali underscored the importance of the seaweed industry in his message to hundreds of people at the Department of Education compound in the heart of Bongao: “No place in the Philippines can equal the high production volume and the high-quality seaweeds of Tawi-Tawi. We dedicate this Agal-Agal Festival to the Tawi-Tawi seaweeds farmers.”

The event also sought to preserve and “showcase the culture of the Sama, Badjao, Jama Mapun and Tausug of southern Philippines through a colorful street-dancing contest and the parade of floats using the Badjao ‘lepa,’ or houseboat, as the main structural design.”

Participants from the 11 municipalities must utilize the traditional dances of Tawi-Tawi and Sulu, namely the dominant dance form known as “pangalay/igal”; martial dance forms, like the “langka silat” and “langka kuntaw,” and the intricate song dance called “lunsay.”

(The three major dance forms of the Sulu Archipelago were laboriously documented by Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa in the award-winning book “Pangalay” [1983].)

The contestants should also employ traditional music using the “kulintangan,” “agung,” “gandang,” “biula” (native violin) and other musical instruments. They must promote visual arts by wearing traditional costumes innovated using local materials.

The caveat

Despite its professed goals, the Agal-Agal Festival is modeled after the “mother of all festivals”—the touristic Ati-Atihan—which features street dancing and parade of floats that lead to the final “showdown” or competition among performing groups representing localities.

This is more or less the same template used by major festivals, such as the Sinulog of Cebu City, the Dinagyang of Iloilo City, the Masskara of Bacolod City and the Panagbenga of Baguio City. Unfortunately, the pomp and pageantry of many tourism-driven festivals have reached the point of canned predictability and kitsch.

The Agal-Agal Festival’s goal to marry traditional dance with street dancing is admirable, but it is a tough undertaking.

Street dancing is alien to the dancing styles of the local peoples. The nearest to it is the lunsay, which is communal singing and dancing that allows the participation of the whole community.

Moreover, the fluvial parade, not street parade, is the tradition among the Sama, Badjaw, Jama Mapun and Tausug.

When cultural conservationist Amilbangsa, a resident of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi from 1964 to the 1980s, returned to Tawi-Tawi to receive the most outstanding artist of Tawi-Tawi award in 2011, she saw the grave deterioration of traditional dance, music and costumes:

“When you transform traditional dance into street dance, many are lost. The performance space is very important in the development of a dance form. Where did pangalay develop? This has been danced only in a lepa or a limited space, like the ‘pantan’ (porch), over a laid-out ‘banig,’ or carpet,” Amilbangsa said.

“When you bring it to the streets, so much will be lost. Then there are many TV shows that have influenced the dancers,” she said.

She added: “But this is not only happening in Tawi-Tawi. In all parts of the Philippines, we can see festivals being held as if they are in basketball courts, continuous dancing and costumes like candy wrappers. True, they exert so much effort and we appreciate that. But for someone like me, it is so disgusting because we have more to show which is our very own.”

The lack of disciplined training in traditional dance and music had contributed to the deterioration of the dancing and music-making in the Agal-Agal Festival. Invented dance steps bordering on cheer dancing became the dominant choreography in the festival.

Indeed, the Ati-Atihan template has created a uniform choreography alien to the local rhythm. This homogeneous choreography now predominates festival dancing in the Philippines. It undermines the preservation and development of unique dance forms in every place.

Pioneers

The head of the festival, Dr. Filemon Romero, is also an oceanographer who was given the Geny Lopez Jr. Gawad Bayaning Pilipino and the most outstanding environmentalist of Tawi-Tawi awards.

Forty years ago, Romero and Amilbangsa were together to blaze the trail in forming the first dance group in Tawi-Tawi, the Tambuli Cultural Troupe, in 1974, with a repertoire of dances from the Sulu Archipelago based on Amilbangsa’s field researches.

Romero is determined to fulfill the vision of preserving the indigenous, cultural heritage of the people of Tawi-Tawi and Sulu, especially their dance and music, through the Agal-Agal Festival. But he is the first to admit the festival’s weaknesses.

“In the participants’ effort to be more attractive or lively, the event looked like the Ati-Atihan. We deviated from the character of our traditional dances. In the effort to come up with best in costume, best in adornment, sometimes, items were added to look like Mexican costumes!” he said.

Romero appreciated the initiative of Amilbangsa to give constructive criticism and to conduct traditional dance workshops in Tawi-Tawi to correct basic dance postures that define the character of indigenous dance styles. Sustained training is important because street dancing in throngs, using the slow and undulating movements of pangalay, requires skill and stamina to achieve grace amid the difficulties of dancing for many hours under the scorching sun.

True to native culture

In 2014, a new set of rules on the conduct of the Agal-Agal was implemented to ensure fidelity to the character of native music and dance. It raised the standard in dance, music and production design.

THE FLOAT of Sitangkai town, a municipality built on low seawater and dubbed the “Venice of Southern Philippines.” INQSnap this page (not just the logo) to view more photos. PHOTOS BY JOE A. BARRERA/CONTRIBUTOR

According to the rules, the performance must be able to show “sustained artistic and authentic execution of indigenous dance steps and movement,” and the execution must be masterful, well-coordinated, graceful and with proper timing and musicality. The latter is difficult because in pangalay, as the beat goes faster, the movement becomes slower.

Part of the new criteria is the artistic use of agal-agal and indigenous materials for costume and adornment. Costumes must exhibit traditional patterns, colors and designs. For music, participants must perform live and skillful playing of ethnic or indigenous instruments throughout the parade and the showdown.

“Performers now try to maintain the authenticity of our dances, music and beat in the street parade and showdown, true to the character of our native culture,” Romero said.

The Top 3 winners in the street dancing and showdown competitions were Sapa-Sapa, first prize; Panglima Sugala, second, and Bongao, third. Their efforts to exclusively integrate indigenous dance styles in their performances were commendable.

The winners used variants in the pangalay dance style, such as “tauti” (catching fish), “linggisan” (bird dance), “pamansak” (pangalay on bamboo pole), “tariray” (dance with bamboo clappers) and “eringan” (courtship dance).

They also incorporated ritual dances, such as “magjinn,” the song-dance “lunsay” and the martial dances “langka lima” using bladed weapons, “langka silat” and “langka kuntaw.”

Moreover, the winners employed only the traditional rhythms in the pentatonic scale using native percussion instruments complemented by the biula.

Local gov’t support

Maria Theresa Sakkalahul, ARMM Tourism Council assistant secretary based in Basilan province, was a member of the festival board of judges. Sakkalahul admired the warm support given by the local government to the Agal-Agal. This was a good practice that should be emulated in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and in other regions, she said.

Local leaders were also active participants rallying their constituents and cheering with the crowd. Prominent in their local costumes while riding the lepa-inspired floats were Mayors Hadji Kuyoh Pajiji, Serbin Ahaja, Kennedy Muksin and Jasper Que. More courageous was Mayor Rejie Sahali-Generale, who danced the pangalay continuously on the lepa float during the parade.

One lesson from the 2014 Agal-Agal Festival is about how to revive traditional dance and music with government support so that these could be powerful instruments of cultural tourism.

Cultural heritage

A new form of cultural tourism is called “creative tourism,” a business model developed by Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 2006 based on “creating, participating and learning about cultural heritage.”

Creative tourism is a sustainable model grounded on the phenomenon of “creative tourists.” This new breed of tourists wants to have authentic experiences on the arts and culture of the places they are visiting.

The recent trend underscores the need to revive, preserve and develop ancient and authentic music, dance, crafts, architecture, rituals and customs, and to transmit authentic performing arts, such as the teaching of the slow and meditative pangalay, which is lately being eclipsed by pop dances from Malaysia and given the misnomer “modern pangalay.”

Local identity is very important: No other place but Tawi-Tawi exhibits how intricately designed mats are made from thorny pandan leaves, and demonstrates how to build a lepa with magnificent carvings called “ukkil” and how the communal lunsay can strengthen camaraderie in the community.

No other place conducts full moon rituals, such as the “magjinn” to appease angry or malevolent spirits. It is only in Tawi-Tawi that we hear variants of the kulintangan beat unique to the Sama, Badjao and Tausug.

Tawi-Tawi should harness its rich cultural heritage and the creativity of its ethnic groups to achieve sustainable and profitable tourism. The revival of indigenous artistic expressions will renew the peoples’ love and pride in the unique character of their cultural heritage.

(The author was a member of the board of judges in the Agal-Agal Festival held on Sept. 25 in Bongao, Tawi-Tawi. She is the managing director of AlunAlun Dance Circle and writer-director of “Ang Pagbabalik sa Tawi-Tawi” (2014), a full-length documentary film about the saga of Amilbangsa in documenting pangalay and other artistic expressions of the Sulu Archipelago. )