Taboan Turns Five
An estimated 100 seasoned and 50 emerging writers from all over the country converged in Dumaguete City for the Taboan 2013, the Philippine Writers Festival for literature of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) from February 7 to 9, 2013.
This year’s Taboan Festival, bearing the theme “Celebrating Icons,” focused on “Katitikang Bisaya” that embraces all forms of literary arts in the Visayas.
Parallel sessions will also be held on such topics as “Your Place at the Writers’ Table;” “Gender Factor;” “Imagining the Indigene;” “Inscribing the Past;” “Experimenting with Genres;” “Chinoy Writing, Writing Chinoy;” “Translating Texts, Texts in Translation;” “Chronicling Disasters;” and “Bypassing the Center.” The Center’s director, Dr. Hope Yu, was a reactor to two panels namely, “Chinoy Writing, Writing Chinoy” and “Translating Texts, Texts in Translation.”
A unique feature of this year’s writers festival was the hosting of special events among Dumaguete’s five universities and colleges where works of their alumni will be read and discussed. These are the works of Edilberto and Edith Tiempo of Silliman University; Elsa Victoria Martinez Coscolluela and Bobby Flores Villasis of Saint Paul University Dumaguete; and ArtemioTadena of Foundation University. Other topics will likewise be taken up at the Colegio de Santa Catalina de Alejandria on “Publishing Modern Catholic Writing” with priest-writers as panelists as well as performance poetry at the Negros Oriental State University.
Music and dance theater presentations by cultural groups from these universities, as well as those of the Tanjay City Symphony Orchestra from Tanjay City and the award-winning rondalla group of the municipality of Dauin, with performances of “siday,” “balitao,” and “balak” by writers from the Visayas region will be staged for free to the public in the evenings of February 7-9 at the Rizal Boulevard’s boardwalk.
Other activities are a book fair, food festival, and culture and arts exhibits to be held similarly at the Rizal Boulevard. Capping the three-day festival was an awards night for Visayan writers who have made significant contributions to the growth of Visayan literature, as well as a dance-concert interpreting the works of poets from the Visayas and Mindanao, “Crossing Poetry: Sugat-Tula” by the Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology’s Integrated Performing Arts Guild.
Taboan 2013 Writers Festival is part of the country’s celebration of National Arts Month.
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Category: Events