Original music to accompany MassKara dancers

The city’s world-famous festival is flashing more smiles this year.

For the first time in 32 years, live original music will accompany street dancers competing in the MassKara Festival on October 15-16. According to festival director Eli Tajanlangit, the music will be composed, scored, arranged and performed by barangay-based (village-based) musicians and choreographers in Bacolod City.

“The use of live music is the final chapter of our search for the MassKara beat,” Tajanlangit said. “Our own people are defining what that music will be.”

He said he had secretly met with the barangay (village) musicians “and I am amazed by the immense talent we have at the grassroots.”

The MassKara started in 1980, using foreign music in the two-day street dancing contest. Eight years ago, it used original Ilonggo music to avoid charges of unauthorized use of music.

This year’s street dancing competition will include best music, to be chosen by a panel of judges involved in local festivals.

Tajanlangit expected that any music sounding like that used in the judges’ own festivals could be shot down immediately.

Out of gloom

Perhaps the happiest festival in the country, the MassKara rose from the gloom that swept the city as prices of sugar dropped to an all-time low, aggravated by the sinking of a passenger ship on April 22, 1980, that resulted in the deaths of about 700 Negrenses.

The city’s artists, local government and civic groups decided to hold a festival of smiles because Bacolod was then known as the City of Smiles.

“They reasoned that a festival was a good opportunity to pull the residents out of the pervasive gloomy atmosphere. The initial festival was therefore, a declaration by the people of the city that no matter how tough and bad the times were, Bacolod is going to pull through, survive and, in the end, triumph,” Tajanlangit said.

The MassKara is coined from two words—“mass,” which means “many, or multitude,” and “kara,” Spanish for “face.” Thus, the festival means multitude of smiling faces.

During the celebration, people wearing smiling masks dance in the streets.

For residents today, the MassKara is also an expression of thanks for the abundance of blessings.

On October 1, the kickoff phase, the public plaza was turned into a virtual MassKara park. The bandstand was alit with 19 giant mask-lanterns representing 19 jails in Negros Occidental which are participating in the 1st Priso Mask-Lantern Making Competition. A fireworks display capped the event.

The Electric MassKara on October 14 will feature 45 giant MassKara puppets as tall as 12 feet and parading in a 2-kilometer route along the city’s Tourism Strip. These have been created by students of La Consolacion College’s School of Architecture, Fine Arts and Interior Design.

The dancers will wear costumes embedded with LED lights and perform on brightly illuminated floats.

Three “landmarks” have also been mounted where tourists can take photos as souvenirs. These are the “Billboard of Lights” on Araneta and Gonzaga streets; the plaza bandstand and an art installation by Charlie Co dubbed “Dreamers Floating Carousel” at the fountain area of the Bacolod Government Center, which was unveiled on October 7.