From war dance to theater of war moro moro performances in the philippines 1

FROM WAR DANCE TO THEATER OF WAR: MORO-MORO PERFORMANCES IN THE PHILIPPINES NIKKI SERRANILLA BRIONES B. A. in International Studies (De La Salle University) M.A. in Peace and Development Studies (Universitat Jaume I) A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY SOUTHEAST ASIAN STUDIES PROGRAMME NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 2010 ii Acknowledgements Just as Moro-Moro performances are known to take a long time to finish, so too has the writing of this thesis been a lengthy journey, and I have accumulated numerous debts of gratitude along the way, to so many people, some of whom I may fail to mention here. I am most grateful to my supervisor, Prof. Reynaldo Ileto for his inspiring mentorship, his unfailing patience, and infinite generosity in sharing his knowledge and resources. It has been a great honor to have his critical guidance from start to finish. Prof. Rey was not only an inspiring supervisor, he was also very much like a caring godfather who, together with his wife Tita Loolee, opened the doors to his home to his students, providing us with a sense that we had a family in Singapore. He empathized with me when big events in my personal life (marriage, pregnancy, childbirth) prevented me from delivering my thesis chapters on time. And when I had difficulty getting back on track, and lost all confidence and interest in my work, he devoted many hours to conversing with me about my topic, and this rekindled my passion for my studies. With his crucial intervention, I was able to return to thesis writing with vigor and gusto, allowing me to not only complete my dissertation, but to so joyfully! For inspiring me when I needed it most, I owe him a deep utang na loob. I thank my professors in the Southeast Asian Studies Programme, in particular the members of my committee. Early ideas about this thesis were developed in my ISM module with Dr. Goh Benglan, whose reading list on Postcolonial studies was particularly useful. My thinking was likewise influenced greatly by Dr. Jan Mrazek's lectures and writings, most especially his awesome book on Wayang, which I found immensely pleasurable to read. I thank Dr. Julius Bautista for giving me important research leads, lending me a variety of materials, including his own dissertation, and for advising me on the pressures and pleasures of life in the academe. I thank my other teachers in SEASP Dr. Daquila, Dr. Vattana, Dr. Budi, Dr. Pattana, Dr. Lindsay, Dr. Irving, Dr. Natasha and my colleagues in the grad room Karyen, Davisakd, Arafat, Effendy, Idham, Danny, Arthur, Zuraida, Shu, Jun, Alice, Shao Han, Precious, Tiffany, and Soon among others - I benefited greatly from conversations with them, and I enjoyed being part of our SEASP community. Special thanks to Kanami Namiki, iii who taught me a lot on the topic of folk dance, and whose thesis has influenced my thinking about the Moro-Moro; and Trina Pineda Tinio who has been a valuable source of information and constant inspiration, for her friendship, I am deeply grateful. I thank George Radics, Mercedes Planta, and Lou Antolihao for helping me with matters academic and nonacademic; my flat mates Adrian and Daisy Javier who kept me company through many months of thesis writing and creating a warm and comfortable home environment; and Visiting Professors Rolando Tolentino and Joi Barrios for the frequent invitations for dinner at Gillman Heights which made life in Singapore more enjoyable. I am most thankful to Mr. Nemi Pagtakhan of San Dionisio, for his generosity with his time and knowledge; Joseph Gonzales of Baler, for sharing information and photos; The Briones family in Nueva Ecija for hosting me. Ernie and Christie Briones, for facilitating contact with the performers in Sinasajan; I thank Lucy Tan, Rohani Sungib, and Rohani Jantan of the SEASP for helping me with official paperwork; Ronnie Holmes, Shirley Lua, and Charmaine Misalucha for keeping me connected to DLSU; Dr. David Szanton and other participants in the AAS Dissertation Workshop held in Boston in 2007; Wendell Capili and Sir Anril Tiatco of UP, and other friends made at the 2008 Komedya Fiesta in UP. My doctoral studies was made possible by a generous scholarship grant from the National University of Singapore. I am most thankful to this institution for funding my studies, as well as my fieldwork trips, and conference participation in various countries. This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of NUS. Finally, I thank my family for the many sacrifices they endured to help me complete my studies. When my scholarship funding ran out, my husband Oliver Carsi Cruz stepped in and supported me fully so that I could submit my dissertation. And when I needed to focus on writing, and had to take trips to Singapore, he took over the task of caring for our baby Narra so that I could concentrate on my work. Deserving of most special thanks are my parents, Walter Aguilar Briones, and Sonia Serranilla Briones, for the tremendous amount of help they have given me throughout my Ph.D. They accompanied me to watch Moro-Moro performances, bought books I needed iv from Manila, drove me to conferences, and the airport (countless times, and at very odd hours), and very generously gave me material support, and precious company and conversation through the many years it took to complete this journey. My dad was my greatest cheerleader in moments of frustration and despair, and my mom was a source of comfort when I got sick, and felt weak from pregnancy and childbirth. And when I needed help in caring for Narra, they shuttled back and forth from Manila to Batangas so they could babysit and give me time to write. I am overwhelmed and deeply moved by their tireless support, and I am deeply indebted. I also thank extended family, my uncle and ninong, Jessie Serranilla, who gave me a plane ticket to the US which enabled me to attend the AAS Dissertation Workshop in Boston. My in-laws, Mama Rubi, Winnie, Ging, Rina, and Riza, all lent a helping hand in watching Narra while I was in Singapore. My sister Marion also deserves special thanks. She bought me many plane tickets in the last five years so that I could always be with my family and not be too isolated while I was away doing my Ph.D. She was also responsible for bringing me to Costa Rica in 2006, where I was able to some research to compare the moro-moro with related folk performances in Central America. Ate Marion provided me with a plane ticket and hotel accommodations for that two-week trip. I could not believe how fortunate I am to have a sister as generous as her. With her graduate training in both Literature and History, she was always able to give me helpful suggestions and informed reactions. What a great comfort it was to have academic conversations with her on my research topic. In addition, her collection of books formed the bulk of my sources for my study. She is a caring ate who gave me crucial emotional, intellectual, and material support. I give her my most heartfelt thanks. To my parents Walter and Sonia, and sister Marion; and my husband Oliver, and our daughter Narra, I lovingly dedicate this thesis. The contributions of the people acknowledged here helped shape my ideas, but the responsibility for the shortcomings and errors in this thesis are mine alone. v Table of Contents Acknowledgement Summary List of Illustrations and Maps Chapter 1: ii vi vii From Colonial Baggage to National Heritage: Changing Attitudes Towards the Moro-Moro Introduction Recent Studies on the Moro-Moro (1976 - 2006) A Choreographic Approach To The Study of the Moro-Moro Performances Analyzed, and Organization of the Study 1 14 19 Chapter 2: The Centrality of Dance: Etymology and History of the Moro-Moro From War Dance to Theater of War On Terminology: Comedia, Komedya, Moro-Moro Examined The Moro-Moro in the American Period The Moro-Moro and Christian Chauvinism The Moro-Moro in the History of the Martial Art Arnis 31 33 38 42 48 52 Chapter 3: Rethinking Repetitiousness Repetition as Distribution: Consumption in Bits and Pieces Repetitious Plots: Moro-Moro Malleability and Elasticity Habits of Orality in Composition and Consumption The Theocratic Literatrure of the Colonial Period The Pleasure in Repetition 57 59 71 75 82 87 Chapter 4: Playing By Ear: The Art of Dictation and Direction by the Diktador The Power of the Diktador The Art of Dictation: the Arakyo performance of Nueva Ecija Province The Death of Dictation in the Komedya of San Dionisio 94 95 102 115 Chapter 5: The Choreographic Logic of Moro-Moro Plays The Arakyo of Peñaranda Town in Nueva Ecija Province Audience Involvement in the Arakyo: The "Panata" The Arakyo Text: The Untold Story Panata, Performance, and Power How the Story Unfolds in Principe Reynaldo of San Dionisio 135 136 138 142 152 158 Chapter 6: Tradition in Motion: The Moro-Moro in New Performance Spaces The Popularization of the Komedya of San Dionisio Prinsipe Rodante Revisited: Versions from 1962, 1992, and 2008 Prinsesa Perlita Revisited: From 1970 to 2006 New Performances Spaces for Comedia de Baler Gantimpala Theater Foundation's Florante at Laura Production 175 176 186 195 210 216 Chapter 7: Choreographic Opposition and the Portrayal of the Moro Revisiting the Moro-Moro's Relationship With the Catholic Church Changing Portrayals of the Moro Choreographic Opposition and the Moro-Moro's Symmetry 224 228 235 244 24 Conclusion 248 Bibliography 252 vi Summary The moro-moro, also known as komedya, is a theater form in the Philippines that was at the height of its popularity in the Spanish colonial period. Its conventional plot material is derived from European chivalric tales of romance and adventure set against a background of Christian and Moorish kingdoms at war. Throughout its history, Moro-Moro theater has been criticized for its perceived "lack" of artistic merits: their anachronisms, their flagrant violations of "Western unities" of time and place, and their poor versification. It was seen by some as an art form that was colonial, leading a group of nationalistic Filipino intellectuals to lobby for the banning of performances at the turn of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Later in the 1960's, another move to ban the Moro-Moro came from the Muslim sector, at issue was the divisive theme of Christian superiority and the demeaning portrayal of Moros who are always the villains and the vanquished. These criticisms serve as inspiration for the main concerns of this study: the first has to with understanding the genre's governing aesthetics on its own terms; the second, faces squarely, the moro-moro's theme of Christian-Muslim conflict. This study explores what the moro-moro means for those who participate in its production and consumption, investigating their motivations for staging, their notions of power, their aesthetic sensibilities, and concept of nation. It also keeps track of the continuities and changes between the moro-moro of the past and the present; and of the "folk moro-moro" as it is produced in the village setting, and the "popularized moro-moro" as it is now being staged for a wider audience. It also examines how this traditional theater form embodies "Filipino-ness" and is now being tapped as a resource for asserting national identiy within a theatrical context. This study introduces a choreographic approach in analyzing the moro-moro. It acknowledges the centrality of the war dance in this theater of war, and zones in on the manner in which choreography, rather than plot or theme, serve as the organizing element of the genre. vii List of Illustrations and Maps Map Areas in the Philippines where the Moro-Moro was being performed in the 19th Century Map Expansion of the Moro-Moro to more parts of the country in the first half of the 20th century Illustration 19th century engraving of a Moro-Moro performance in Bicol province From Voyage aux Philippines by J. Montano Illustration Moro-Moro War Dance at the 1904 World Exposition or Louisiana Purchase Exposition 43 Illustration Photo of a Moro-Moro Performance in Taguig. 1899. 62 Illustration The audience sitting on a stage at a Moro-Moro performance In Gapan, Nueva Ecija Province 68 Illustration A diktador seated downstage center in Gapan (2003) 104 Illustration A diktador seated upstage center in Sinasajan surrounded by children during a performance (2005) 104 Illustration Choreographic Sketch of the Dialogue Between Godimar and Elena 108 Illustration Godimar and Elena while listening closely to the dictation 109 Illustration The Absent Audience in Sinasajan 112 Illustration 10 The Audience in the Shade 112 Illustration 11 Mask-like face and listening pose in Nueva Ecija 123 Illustration 12 Evocative face and dramatic pose in San Dionisio 123 Illustration 13 The "pantot" dance in the Arakyo of Nueva Ecija 141 Illustration 14 Moro-Moro Fighting Patterns 155 Illustration 15 Ladies Dancing to the Tune of Paper Roses 156 Illustration 16 Prince Reynaldo saves Princess Floresinda from Lions 163 Illustration 17 Singkil Dance inserted into the Play 165 Illustration 18 The Paseo Innovation in San Dionisio 167 Illustration 19 Dongalo Elementary School's Prinsipe Rodante. 2008 176 Illustration 20 Prinsipe Rodante 2008 presented by San Dionisio Veterans 192 Illustration 21 A Child Performer from Dongalo Elementary School 192 viii Illustration 22 Leaders of Komedya San Dionisio seated in the front row 205 Illustration 23 Tommy Abuel Dressed as Jose Rizal 207 Illustration 24 Prince Bayani Resurrected as Andres Bonifacio 207 Illustration 25 Dance Demonstrations of Comedia de Baler 211 Illustration 26 Costumes in Prinsesa Perlita Inspired by Malay Clothing 243 Chapter 1: From "Colonial Baggage" to "National Heritage": Changing Attitudes Towards the Moro-Moro Illustration 1: 19th century print of a Moro-Moro performance in Bicol province. Introduction "The moro-moro translates, with the most fidelity, the instincts, inclinations, desires, and customs, and in a certain way, the fanaticism of the indigenous population" -- so wrote a Spanish observer in 1894, in reference to the theater much loved by the natives in the Philippine colony.1 Ten years later, this was echoed by an American scholar studying the dramatic traditions of the territory just acquired by the US from Spain: “the moro-moro plays afford the most interesting study of the drama, and the character of the Filipino”. These comments were written at the turn of the 20th century when the moro-moro was at its height of popularity. To foreign Antonio Chápuli Navarro. Siluetas y Matices Galería Filipina Madrid: Impr. De la Viuda de M. Minuesa de los Ríos, 1894. p. 168-169. Arthur Stanley Riggs. “The Drama of the Filipinos”. The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 17, No. 67 (OctDec 1904), p. 281. observers, the appeal of this peculiar type of drama was not immediately apparent, and the fact that it was so loved by the natives invited inquiry into their nature. Not just foreigners but Filipinos, too, especially those among the intellectual elite, or the ilustrado class, were baffled by the moro-moro's appeal. In the Noli Me Tangere written by the national hero Jose Rizal, the philosopher Tasio, remarks: But now, I am reminded, does it [the moro-moro] not call attention to the character of our people? Peaceful, they like bellicose spectacles, bloody battles; democratic, they adore emperors, kings and princes; . Our women are sweet of character yet they go wild when a princess brandishes a sword…do you know why that is?3 Speaking through Tasio, Rizal points to the contrast between the violent world constructed by the moro-moro and the lived experience or even the very nature of the otherwise peaceful Filipinos. It is as though Rizal questions his fellowmen's love for a theater that does not reflect who they truly are. Filipinos seem to be mired in a crisis of identity, and their love for the fantastic moro-moro that deals with foreign matters seems to emphasize this crisis even further. Writing in 1909, the Spanish journalist and historian Wenceslao Retana asks, "to what must we attribute the fact that in the artistic productions of Filipinos, there exists hardly a note that is genuinely Filipino? Retana was referring to the conventional plot material of moro-moro plays that was derived from European chivalric tales of romance and adventure set against a background of Christian and Moorish kingdoms at war. Retana wondered why native playwrights did not write about the battles between the Moros and the Christians in the Philippine islands. He asked: "Why this "tendency to emigrate", why this "systematic exoticism in the artistic conception of Filipinos"?"4 The moro-moro, also known as komedya is a style of theater that was once the most popular form of entertainment in the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines. Rizal, Jose. Noli Me Tangere: Novela Tagala. Translated by Maria Soledad Lacson-Locsin. Manila: Bookmark, 1996. p. Retana, Noticias Historicas-bibliograficos del teatro en Filipinas. p. 122. 15 provinces all over the Philippines. He also provides detailed descriptions of the key elements and defining features of the genre. In Tiongson's view, the moro-moro has been used as a tool of the establishment to preserve the social order - first, a colonial order (for Spanish colonizers) and later, a feudal order (for the elite land-owning class). Using the canons of critical realism, Tiongson sees the moro-moro as escapist, as something that numbed the masses from the harsh realities of their oppressed condition. He also sees the moro-moro 's theme of Christian-Moro conflict as divisive. In view of all these negative traits, Tiongson advocates updating the moro-moro to infuse it with relevant content that will allow it to contribute to nation-building. Other researches on the moro-moro include the study of this dramatic art as part of a larger scope of study. For instance, the emergence of moro-moro as dramatic poetry was included in Bienvenido Lumbera's Tagalog Poetry 1570-189817, a pioneering study of the development and influences in Tagalog poetry from the sixteenth to nineteenth century. To Lumbera we owe our understanding of the transition from oral to written poetry and how folk oral tradition figures in the poetic design and verse structure of the moro-moro through the utilization of folk stanzas and folk rhyming patterns. We also learn about the socio-literary conditions in which the moro-moro emerged and developed. Lumbera's study of moro-moro versification is anchored on the analysis of samples of the works of two great moro-moro playwrights, the poets Jose De la Cruz and Francisco Balagtas. Of the plays written by these playwrights only a few fragments and excerpts are available to the contemporary researcher. However, a complete copy of a moro-moro play written by Francisco Balagtas entitled Orosman at Zafira was discovered in 1977 and published 17 Bienvenido Lumbera. 1986. Tagalog Poetry 1570-1898: Tradition and Influence in Its Development. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. 16 by B.S. Medina.18 Meanwhile, Fred Sevilla devoted one chapter of his book on Balagtas to a discussion of the poet's moro-moro plays.19 We learn of a different kind of moro-moro, the commercial variety, produced in Manila's theater district, in Cristina Laconico-Buenaventura's The Theater In Manila 1846-1946 (1994). Here we get the sense of the moro-moro as a theater of the masses, when viewed alongside the other forms of theater patronized by Manila's Spanish peninsular and Philippine-born elite, which are also discussed at length in the study. We learn of itinerant troupes, theater impresarios, the commercial success of the Moro-Moro, and its eventual demise as it was displaced by newer forms of entertainment. We also get a glimpse of the linambay or the Cebuano version of the moro-moro in Wilhelmina Q. Ramas' Sugbuanon Theatre from Sotto to Rodriguez And Kabahar (1982), which documents a vast array of theatric activity of which the linambay was but one type, in many towns and villages in pre-war Cebu. The translation of moro-moro plays into movies, and the conventions and practices derived by such films from the conventions of the village moro-moro are the themes explored by Clodualdo del Mundo in "Moro-Moro Movies: Revisioning Ibon Adarna," a chapter of his book Native Resistance: Philippine Cinema and Colonialism 1898-1941 (1998). Another approach to the study of the moro-moro focuses on the embeddedness of the moro-moro in village life. In these types of investigations, the moro-moro is used as a window into the history and culture of the locality being studied. The argument is that the culture, social structure and hierarchy, and socioeconomic conditions of a village are reflected in the moro-moro that the inhabitants themselves produce and consume. Nicanor Tiongson's study of the Komedya in Parañaque for his 18 19 Medina, B.S. 1990. Orosman at Zafira ni Balagtas. Manila: De La Salle University Press. Poet of the People: Francisco Balagtas and the Roots of Filipino Nationalism , 1997. 17 dissertation in 1979, and his 1985 study of the Arakyo, or Nueva Ecija's local version of the moro-moro, are early examples of this, and are included in his Komedya published in 1999. Resil Mojares' Theater in Society/Society in Theater (1985) frames his local history of the barrio of Valladolid in Carcar in Southern Cebu, through the rise and decline of its linambay theater tradition. Doreen Fernandez’s analysis of the play Prinsesa Mirmar at Prinsipe Leandro, performed in Parañaque in 1982, was published as a chapter in Palabas: Essays on Philippine Theater History (1994). And Raul Pertierra's early 1990's study of Ilokano Komedya in the Northern Philippines appeared in his Explorations in Social Theory and Philippine Ethnography (1997). Many other studies on regional moro-moro in different languages remain as unpublished theses and dissertations. Revival efforts in the 1960's and 1970's are documented in Felicidad Mendoza's The Comedia (Moro-Moro) Re-Discovered (1976). This book is somewhat of a memoir of a moro-moro enthusiast. Mendoza was herself actively involved in popularizing the art, and her book gives an insider's account into her own recollections of her involvement in moro-moro productions both in her village of San Dionisio, and later all over the country where she organized festivals, school tours, workshops, exhibitions and demonstrations of the moro-moro. Brief accounts of revival efforts in the 1990's are also included in Doreen Fernandez' Palabas (1994), in the chapter entitled "Tradition and Revitalization in the Komedya"; as well as in the general essay in Tiongson's Komedya (1999). A different kind of study of the moro-moro has been undertaken by National Artist for Dance, Ramon Obusan, and his dance company called the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group or ROFG. They have approached the moro-moro from the angle of dance research, including moro-moro choreography in their Unpublished Dances of 18 the Philippines Series volume 3, and (1995, 1999, and 2006 respectively), which are dance productions that evolved from documenting, rediscovering, and reviving folk dances. Among the moro-moro dances included in their Unpublished Dances series is the dance they called "Gran Batalla", which is taken from the only version of the moro-moro that is performed over a rice field. The Gran Batalla is a rare tradition, performed only by an extended family of Nabuans and Santiagos from Isabela province. Another is the "Palo-Palo" from Batanes in the Philippine north. Yet another is the unique Moro-Moro dance called "Kinabayo" from Dapitan, Zamboanga in the Philippine South. The dance research by Obusan brings to the fore the rich diversity of performance styles of the moro-moro. The peculiar power of the foreign elements of moro-moro, such as the recurrence of untranslatable phrases in Castillian and Latin, the costumes, and reference to unknown regions, the transfer of foreign words into the local idiom, are examined by Vicente Rafael in his recent book The Promise of the Foreign: Nationalism and the technics of translation in Spanish Philippines (2006). Rafael's perspective is a refreshing departure from the dominant view that confines the moromoro 's role in Philippine history as being a "tool of the establishment" to promote Spanish and Catholic superiority. In contrast, Rafael alerts us to the moro-moro 's role in creating the conditions that helped shaped a national consciousness. Rafael proposes that the "Castillanization" of the vernacular, that is the estrangement of the latter and the assimilation of the former - characterizes the moro-moro, and this Castillanization served as a sort of lingua franca that enabled the theater form to cross geographic, linguistic, and class boundaries. As the earliest form of mass entertainment in the colony, the moro-moro provided a point of convergence between elite and mass interests in the power they sensed was at work in Castillian. Thus, the 19 "moro-moro broached the possibility of intermittently imagined communities founded on the recognition of the foreign lodged in the familiar."20 A Choreographic Approach to the Study of the Moro-Moro The brief survey above shows how the moro-moro has already been investigated in a variety of ways. This thesis, by describing the moro-moro in a variety of contexts in which it can be found today, from rural and urban village productions to professionally staged revivals, hopes to provide new insights on Filipino culture by asking such questions as: What does the moro-moro mean to those who participate in its production and consumption? What motivates their staging it with considerable effort and even expense? What are the notions of power and the aesthetic sensibilities underlying the performances? This study also seeks to identify the continuities and changes between the moro-moro of the past and the present, and between the traditional moro-moro produced in the village setting and the modernized versions staged for a wider audience. Each community has its own standards of excellence and its own yardstick for measuring its theater. It is important to emphasize that in different places and at different times, different aspects of theater are treasured. In the moro-moro, the war dances, the battles scenes and fighting choreography are central. So much time is devoted to them during a play, and so much attention is given to them by performers and audiences and yet studies on the moro-moro seem to give this scant attention, disproportionate to its importance in the actual performance. Or if dance is given attention, as National Artist for Dance, Ramon Obusan, has, it is plucked from its dramatic context, and divorced from other component parts of the moro-moro and 20 Vicente Rafael. The Promise of the Foreign. p. 177 20 treated and studied as folk dance. In other studies where dance is mentioned, it is usually limited to a descriptive account. A main focus of this thesis is what we might call the moro-moro 's "choreographic logic." It highlights the centrality of dance and movement in the genre, and argues that choreography, rather than plot or theme, serves as the organizing element of performances. Only through an understanding of this choreographic logic can sense be made out of the seemingly superfluous elements that abound in moro-moro plays. For instance, an idea that is repeated over and over in twelve stanzas of verse may seem like mere verbiage from a literary standpoint. If, however, we take into consideration the fact that an actor moves, even dances, from one part of the stage to another in between stanzas, and faces a different section of the crowd each time, with the intention of distributing access to the unfolding story to an audience that flocks to all corners of the stage, the repetition becomes justified. Had we looked only at the performance text, and ignored the choreographic treatment it receives, we would only see excess - and weakness -- on the part of the playwright. This is not an exercise in choreology, or the notation of dance steps, nor is it a reading of the symbolism embedded in movement, or an analysis of the design of the dances performed in the moro-moro. Rather, the thesis looks into how choreographic considerations relate to, or influence, other aspects of performance. In the example just given we looked at how the playwright's composition was influenced by the kind of choreographic treatment his verses would receive, which in turn was influenced by the physical arrangement of the audience in relation to the playing space. This study approaches the performance as a whole; it attempts to see the unity of its component parts and the way they relate with one another in complex ways. In a moro-moro performance, the choreographic elements -- dance, blocking, and gestural repertoire -- 21 are deeply integrated with the dictation and delivery of dialogue, and with music that not only accompanies dance, but also punctuates spoken dialogue. The utterance of words is accompanied by percussions and movement and is not merely recited or declaimed, but bodily performed in a choreographed and stylized manner. The various components of performance not simply coexist on stage, but interact in very complex ways. Previous studies of the moro-moro have enumerated components in a rather fragmented manner, as an enumeration of features, but it is not sufficient to simply describe the existence of any such component, or to state that they coexist with other components. Rather, it is in the process of interaction among the various components that traditional performances derive much of their meaning, value, and even beauty. To understand any of the component parts, they must be studied in relation to each other, and in relation to the whole. Equally important is an examination of how this complex coming together of various components of the performance is made sense of by performers and audiences alike. It is my hope to show in this study the “what’s”, the “how's”, and the “why's” of actual performance. This study pays attention to "choreographic phenomena", which includes the dances and gestural repertoire in the performances themselves, as well as the "choreography of the crowd" or the habits of gathering and modes of consumption of the audience. Anthropologists who study movement and choreographic phenomena offer conceptual tools for understanding how traditional performances can inform researchers about the culture of the society being studied. Drawing on this growing body of scholarship, this study revolves around the notion that "patterning" and "principles of continuity" exist across domains of movement, space, material objects, music, and verbal play. The theater space is grafted onto the local community space which isn't "merely an inert backdrop for performances but is integral to it, often 22 providing fundamental orientation and meaning". As Reed explains, "the relationship between everyday movements and movements in performance are continuous, though not identical", and these movements (both the quotidian and artistic) reflect what anthropologists call a "cultural style" which links everyday life with art. A community's "cultural style" is often embedded in physical habits; they are embodied, and are rarely articulated. 21 To uncover a community's "cultural style", therefore, depends on the keen eye of the observer. The assumption of continuity between movements on stage, and everyday movements requires one to look not only at the choreography of performances of gestures and dances on stage, but also, at the broader body of "choreographic phenomena" - a wider array of patterned body movements that may include commonplace movements among the audience. In her study of the sinulog in Cebu, Sally Ann Ness provided detailed descriptions not only of the dance moves of the sinulog troupe, but also of the bodily movements of the spectators watching the procession of dancers, describing how they stood, held hands, walked, and so forth, in making inferences about Cebuano society. For Ness, choreographic phenomena "present both mental and physical patterns that may signify the dynamic reality of social life and make visible both collective and individual, and public and private experiences of reality" making a dimension of human experience "vividly accessible" and "available for study".22 21 See a review of the various works and approaches to study dance and movement in Susan A. Reed. "The Politics and Poetics of Dance" Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998) pp. 503-32. See specifically ideas presented on pages 523-524; Reed's discussion of Ness and Lewis. The discussion on how a "cultural style" is embedded in physical habits that link everyday life with art was developed by JL Lewis in a study of the Brazilian capoeira, a complex cultural genre that includes elements of martial art, dance, music, ritual and theater. See Lewis JL. 1995. Ring of Liberation: Deceptive Discourse in Brazilian Capoeira. Chicago University Press. and Lewis JL 1994. "Genre and embodiement: from Brazilian capoeira to the ethnology of human movement. Cultural Anthropology. 10(2):221-43. 22 Sally Ann Ness. 1992. Body, Movement, and Culture: Kinesthetic and Visual Symbolism in a Philippine Community. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. On Choreographic phenomena, see: pp. 4, 235, 241 23 Performance practices seem to have been undervalued in the study of the moro-moro's history for there has been too much emphasis on the literary text and on descriptions of individual elements of the theater, or on the politics behind the production process. In focusing on the dynamics of performance and its influence on the modes of composition, presentation and consumption, this study employs a tactic that differs from what is customarily done in the study of the moro-moro: It decenters the script as the starting point of analysis. There is a widespread practice of centering the study on specific plays, and subjecting them to literary analysis. It is sometimes the case that what is written in the performance text is privileged over what goes on during the actual performance. Perhaps for other types of theater, where directors attempt a faithful interpretation of the script, and actors stick to the lines they are given, a close reading of the performance script is a worthy undertaking. This is, however, only of limited applicability in the study of moro-moro plays in the context of contemporary village productions where, as shall be shown in succeeding chapters, the telling of the story does not seem to be the primary objective of staging a performance. This thesis relates the performance practices observed in the present to those of the moro-moro of the past, offering a reconsideration of previously held notions about the genre. It shows how present-day trends anticipate the genre's future. It also takes an in-depth look at how moro-moro performers today sustain age-old conventions or develop new ones, noting recent trends and departures from standard performance practices. This study touches on various aspects of theatric activity such as modes of composition, presentation, and consumption, with a specific emphasis on how choreographic phenomena come into play. 24 Performances Analyzed and Organization of the Study The contemporary performances included in this study took place within a three year period, from 2005 to 2008. The analyses are based on six performances, all performed by different groups and in differing contexts. The performances observed fall under two general categories: "folk performances" staged by villagers, and "professional" performances staged by theater companies. The "folk" performances are of two kinds. One is a panata, or a performance meant as an offering to the local patron saint on the occasion of the annual feast day, or local fiesta. As a panata, a performance will tend to be staged longer (for several hours over a period of two days), and villagers will derive profound religious meaning from the event. The other kind of "folk" performance is what can loosely be described as an "exhibition". It can be staged as a cultural number for a touristic event, or a demonstration for an arts festival. These exhibition performances are abbreviated and take place outside the village perimeter. The dynamics of performance change considerably between the panata and "exhibition" versions, even if it is the same play being performed by the same cast, wearing the same costumes, and using the same music and choreography. The length of the play, the audience to whom it is performed, and the purpose for the staging, differs considerably between these two contexts, and by contrasting the two, we can better appreciate the multifaceted nature of Moro-Moro performances in the village setting. Two village performances in the context of a panata during a fiesta are analyzed in this study. The first performance took place in the rural village of Sinasajan in Peñaranda town, in Nueva Ecija Province, which is located in the Central Plains of Luzon, where the Arakyo is performed each year. My observation of the Arakyo took place on May 21 and 22, 2005, twenty years after Nicanor Tiongson's 25 study of the Arakyo. Although Tiongson's work documents the experiences of nearby San Jose village, and my investigation was conducted in neighboring Sinasajan, both villages are in the same municipality of Peñaranda. Tiongson’s study thus offers a basis for comparison for how the performance conventions have changed in Peñaranda. The other panata performance studied here is that of San Dionisio, Parañaque, which was also the subject of research by Tiongson in the 1970's. In the mid 1980's, Doreen Fernandez also published a study of the performance in San Dionisio. I was able to observe the performance staged in May 2006, entitled Prinsipe Reynaldo. It has been twenty years since Fernandez conducted her study on San Dionisio, and using her work, and Tiongson's, as a basis, I am able to track some of the key changes that have taken place in San Dionisio. These two villages, one in a rural region and the other in Metro Manila, offer an excellent opportunity for fruitful comparisons of how the moro-moro continues to be produced and consumed in the context of a village fiesta. The fact that studies about them were made two decades ago by leading theater scholars, allows me to gauge how things have changed in the post-Marcos years. In addition to my research on the Arakyo of Nueva Ecija in 2005, and on San Dionisio's Prinsipe Reynaldo in 2006, I have included in this study folk performances outside the context of a village fiesta. These "exhibition" performances were staged by villagers at arts festivals. One group that is included in this study is Komedya ng Baler, from the coastal province of Aurora. I visited Baler in 2006 to attend the fiesta of Aurora, only to find out that the traditional full-length performance takes place only during the small fiesta of the village of Buhangin, where most of the moro-moro performers come from. At the bigger provincial fiesta, only an exhibition or brief 26 dance demonstration is presented due to time constraints, since many dance and drama performances from various schools share the stage during Aurora Day celebrations. In February 2008, the University of the Philippines (UP) sponsored the first Komedya Festival, which brought together performers and scholars of the Komedya. Fortunately, the Komedya de Baler was one of the participating groups, so it was at UP, and not in Baler, that I was able to catch a full play and not just an abbreviated dance demonstration. Two groups from Parañaque also participated in the Komedya Festival in UP, namely, San Dionisio, and their neighboring village of Don Galo. Both groups decided to present their own versions of the same play, the classic Prinsipe Rodante. San Dionisio's version was presented by adults, by the village's veteran actors. Don Galo's version involved schoolchildren from Dongalo Elementary School who were just recently taught the proper delivery of dialogue and conventional choreography by moro-moro enthusiasts (some of whom were from San Dionisio). What makes for an interesting study is the history of the play Prinsipe Rodante itself. First written in 1962 as a "modern" moro-moro that was meant to address some of the key criticisms against the genre, Rodante was again re-written in 1991, in a workshop sponsored by the CCP. It has been 46 years since the original version, and 17 years since the CCP version, and the 2008 rendition being taught to schoolchildren of Dongalo makes for an interesting study on how the play has been updated. Professional Moro-Moro Beyond the folk performances mentioned above, there were also new kinds of moro-moro produced by "professional" theater groups. In 2006, two exciting developments took place, which made the moro-moro more accessible to the public. 27 Two kinds of "professional" productions were staged. One production involved the Gantimpala Theater Foundation (GTF), a well established theater company that has a large student constituency. GTF's bread and butter are its curriculum-based plays, which stage Filipino literary classics, which are required reading for high school students. Each year, thousands of high school students are sent by their teachers to watch GTF's plays. In July 2006, they decided to render in moro-moro style the classic entitled Florante at Laura by the great Tagalog poet Francisco Balagtas. GTF's directors and actors are trained in modern theater arts and stagecraft, and are not well versed in moro-moro conventions. To incorporate traditional moro-moro music and dance choreography into the play, they elicited the help of the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group (ROFG), mentioned earlier as a national folk dance company with a wealth of research on folk dances. Using the moro-moro choreography researched by Obusan from villages in three diverse regions in the Philippines, namely Parañaque, Isabela, and Batanes, new dances were created for the play. Also in July 2006, the Komedya ng Pilipinas Foundation (KPF) was created. At the helm of KPF are performers from San Dionisio, Parañaque, who have banded together to popularize the moro-moro beyond the village, similar to the efforts made by Dr. Felicidad Mendoza in the 1970's. Just like Mendoza, the KPF leaders reached out to other professional actors, from television, film, and theater, as well as to the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group. Their first production was a collaboration among various kinds of artists and locals from San Dionisio. Entitled Perlita ng Silangan, the play is a revival of Dr. Felicidad Mendoza's 1970 play Prinsesa Perlita. In fact, some of the actors involved in the 2006 revival were part of Dr. Mendoza's projects decades ago. In her 1976 book mentioned earlier, Mendoza relays in detail her experiences in 28 popularizing the moro-moro in the 70's, including her production notes for her play Prinsesa Perlita. It is worth examining whether the thirty years separating Mendoza's and KPF's productions brought significant changes in the content and form of the play. The plays analyzed in this study are limited to performances conducted in the Tagalog language, which is my mother tongue. There are regional accents that distinguish the Tagalog spoken in Baler, Nueva Ecija and Parañaque. The differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar are slight enough to still make various Tagalog dialects mutually intelligible. This study is by no means meant to provide a comprehensive picture of the current state of Tagolog moro-moro performances. Not included here are a number of places in the Tagalog region where the moro-moro is alive and well -- areas in the Laguna region, such as Pakil, Lumban, Cavinti, and Kalayaan, as well as some parts of Bulacan and Bataan, among others. I chose to focus on Nueva Ecija and Parañaque because both areas had been studied extensively in the 1970's and 1980's, and this offered me the best opportunity to track changes over time. Tagalog performances were targeted also because of the great variety of contexts in which the moro-moro can be found. Despite being confined to performances delivered in the Tagalog language, the focus on performance principles and choreographic phenomena, rather than literary elements, allows for the insights arrived at in this study to potentially be applied to variants of the moro-moro from other regions in the Philippines where comparable performance practices are in use, even if their local versions of the moromoro are delivered in other languages. 29 Organization of the Study In chapter 2, the centrality of war dance in the origins, emergence, and history of moro-moro theater is revisited. The Spanish colonizers' original usage of the word Moro-moro referred to the indigenous war dances they found in the Philippine archipelago. The chapter traces the transition of the word’s meaning from war dance to theater of war, and how this figures in colonial and nationalist discourses. Chapter focuses on one of the more baffling features of the moro-moro, its repetitiousness. I analyze the choreographic phenomena involved in the consumption of the moromoro, such as the habits of gathering and the temporal and spatial aspects of the audience's attendance, and how these influence the composition and mode of presentation of the moro-moro. Chapter examines the art of dictation and the directorial functionality of the prompter, and brings to light the choreographic interplay between text and movement as cued by dictation. It also highlights the kinesthetic transformations that occur when dictation is eliminated and memorization of dialogue is used in its place. Chapter takes a look at how the plot is arranged to best showcase choreography using the performances observed in two village fiestas as a basis for analysis. Chapter examines continuities and changes in the form and content of the moro-moro as it is recontextualized - taken out of its village and fiesta context and presented in new performance spaces. It shows how the moro-moro retains its choreographic logic as it is re-formatted for new audiences. Chapter addresses the issue of the moro-moro's being a "Catholic" tradition and how this may disqualify it as a suitable basis for the formation of a national theater. It anchors the discussion on the changing portrayal of the "Moro" in the post 9-11 setting. Traditionally, it is seen as a defining feature of the genre that Christians always emerge victorious over Muslims, who are conventionally defeated and 30 converted to Catholicism at the end of the play. This chapter suggests a counterintuitive notion: that this theater premised on war and conflict, is being re-fashioned to send a message of peaceful coexistence; that this theater that was once associated with colonialism, is being infused with nationalistic messages. Through strategies such as deletion (offensive scenes are removed), inversion (Christians are turned into villains), substitution (supernatural creatures become the villains), and appropriation (characters are equated to local heroes), the role of "Moro" has acquired complex new meanings and is no longer confined to the role of villain and vanquished. [...]... Mundo in "Moro- Moro Movies: Revisioning Ibon Adarna," a chapter of his book Native Resistance: Philippine Cinema and Colonialism 18 98 -19 41 (19 98) Another approach to the study of the moro- moro focuses on the embeddedness of the moro- moro in village life In these types of investigations, the moro- moro is used as a window into the history and culture of the locality being studied The argument is that the. .. the region .11 In that same year, 19 67, the Board of Travel and Tourist Industry (BTTI) in the Philippines sponsored moro- moro performances in connection with its celebration of International Tourism Year The BTTI saw it fitting to support efforts to revive or "save from extinction" the age-old theater tradition, stating in its press release how the 10 11 James R Brandon 19 67 Theater in Southeast Asia... University Press 16 by B.S Medina .18 Meanwhile, Fred Sevilla devoted one chapter of his book on Balagtas to a discussion of the poet's moro- moro plays .19 We learn of a different kind of moro- moro, the commercial variety, produced in Manila's theater district, in Cristina Laconico-Buenaventura's The Theater In Manila 18 46 -19 46 (19 94) Here we get the sense of the moro- moro as a theater of the masses, when... of the moro- moro, are early examples of this, and are included in his Komedya published in 19 99 Resil Mojares' Theater in Society/Society in Theater (19 85) frames his local history of the barrio of Valladolid in Carcar in Southern Cebu, through the rise and decline of its linambay theater tradition Doreen Fernandez’s analysis of the play Prinsesa Mirmar at Prinsipe Leandro, performed in Parañaque in. .. his dance company called the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group or ROFG They have approached the moro- moro from the angle of dance research, including moro- moro choreography in their Unpublished Dances of 18 the Philippines Series volume 3, 4 and 5 (19 95, 19 99, and 2006 respectively), which are dance productions that evolved from documenting, rediscovering, and reviving folk dances Among the moro- moro dances... prominently in the theater of neighboring countries, but was relatively lacking in the Philippines In the chapter discussing dance and music, the Philippines was conspicuously absent, for its theater did not have the indigenous musical ensembles and classical dance traditions of its neighbors Brandon explains that the "long contact with Western culture" and the "dearth of indigenous theater in the. .. earliest form of mass entertainment in the colony, the moro- moro provided a point of convergence between elite and mass interests in the power they sensed was at work in Castillian Thus, the 19 "moro- moro broached the possibility of intermittently imagined communities founded on the recognition of the foreign lodged in the familiar."20 A Choreographic Approach to the Study of the Moro- Moro The brief survey... undertaking This is, however, only of limited applicability in the study of moro- moro plays in the context of contemporary village productions where, as shall be shown in succeeding chapters, the telling of the story does not seem to be the primary objective of staging a performance This thesis relates the performance practices observed in the present to those of the moro- moro of the past, offering a... dance called "Kinabayo" from Dapitan, Zamboanga in the Philippine South The dance research by Obusan brings to the fore the rich diversity of performance styles of the moro- moro The peculiar power of the foreign elements of moro- moro, such as the recurrence of untranslatable phrases in Castillian and Latin, the costumes, and reference to unknown regions, the transfer of foreign words into the local idiom,... and bloody war And finally, there is the issue of the moro- moro’s perceived artistic shortcomings, and its supposed irrelevance to the needs of society in the oppressive years of martial law In the mid -19 80's, when the Philippines had just emerged triumphant from overthrowing the Marcos dictatorship through the EDSA Revolution of 19 86, otherwise known as People Power, the moro- moro, despite the many . of the Moro- Moro 19 Performances Analyzed, and Organization of the Study 24 Chapter 2: The Centrality of Dance: Etymology and History of the Moro- Moro 31 From War Dance to Theater of War. 33 On Terminology: Comedia, Komedya, Moro- Moro Examined 38 The Moro- Moro in the American Period 42 The Moro- Moro and Christian Chauvinism 48 The Moro- Moro in the History of the Martial. and financed by investors who were motivated by the prospect of economic gain. These commercial moro- moro proliferated in theater houses in 19 th century Manila. The other kind of moro- moro