MAARAM, Isla ng Panay to launch on Feb. 22

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In celebration of the National Arts Month, MAARAM, Isla ng Panay, a series of documentaries on the intangible cultural heritage of Panay island, will be formally launched on February 22, 2023, 3:00 p.m., at the Cinematheque, University of the Philippines Visayas, Iloilo City Campus, General Luna St., Iloilo City.

The Maaram anthology of video documentaries features the lives and communities of this heritage-rich region of the country. The documentaries tackle the performative traditions of the komedya and the taltal, the Visayan counterpart of the Tagalog senakulo; the exquisite craft of weaving, including the procurement and circulation of raw materials; the Hudas-Hudas ritual, a tradition unique to the province of Antique as it exists alongside the intense veneration of saints during the Semana Santa; and the binanog, the ritual dance of the Panay Bukidnon.

This is a project of the Philippine Studies Association, in partnership with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), and with the support of Senate Pro Tempore Loren B. Legarda.

Philippine Studies Association President and UP Visayas Chancellor Clement Camposano hosts the event, ably assisted by the Center for West Visayan Studies-UPV.

The project’s outputs, which include the USBs of the documentaries and the Maaram Teachers’ Resource Manual, will be formally turned over to Dr. Ramir Uytico, Regional Director of the Department of Education. The documentaries and teachers’ resources are expected to complement the teaching of core subjects in the senior high school program, particularly the subjects Contemporary Philippine Arts in the Region (CPAR), Understanding Culture, Society and Politics, and Media and Information Literacy.