When in Manila, and when it is the month of February, the nation celebrates not only the “love month,” but most-importantly, the National Arts Month. De La Salle-College of St. Benilde, in Taft Ave., Malate, Manila, annually celebrates National Arts Month with its own institutionalized set of programs encapsulated in the Lasallian Arts Month (LAM). Part of LAM is its annual theatre festival dubbed as Crossroads: Benilde Theatre Festival, where selections of various theatre productions are showcased by students, faculty, staff and alumni for both the Benildean Community and the general public.
Crossroads, presently on its 11th season, chooses “of sons and daughters” as the general theme of this year’s theatre festival. One of the more-than-a-handful official theatre-production selections is EWES DI KATAGUAN, an Igorot dialect which means the Blanket of Life.
“As you grow, your blanket of life grows with you.”
Written and directed by Tsard Chua, Ewes Di Kataguan embarks upon the story of a great fabric-weaving heritage of natives in the Northern highlands. It is about woman, in limbo from losing all her loved ones, who arose from a whitewashed commune, and drives to seek her lost son and culture. Starting from an almost unfamiliar soil, long after its devastation, she devotes her lifetime to pass on a dying legacy, in the hopes that one day, at the right time, the blankets she crafts with sweat and blood will reach his lost son, and turn things for him and the lineage he belongs to.
What sets Ewes Di Kataguan differently is its overall advocacy about the preservation and enrichment of diminishing Filipino traditions, and the pride of owning such rich cultural roots. Moreover, it bravely takes on the challenge to be the only season’s selection to utilize dance, animation and live music as media for theatrical story-telling.
EWES DI KATAGUAN (Blanket of Life)
Showing only for one (1) day at the Augusto-Rosario Gonzalez Theatre in De La Salle-College of St. Benilde
February 24, Monday, with 1PM and 7PM time slots
For tickets and reservations, you may contact Carl Chavez at 0917-816-1894 or Kim Clemencio at 0906-430-0726
