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San Sebastian College Arts Month Performance
March 4, 2005

It smells home, and it feels home.

For years I had denied myself the chance to go back to my Alma Mater, San Sebastian. But the February Art Month gave me the opportunity to go back to my roots.

We were invited to take part in the San Sebastian College Arts Month. First, we were asked to give a playback theater workshop for the students from different arts group; Sebastinian Theater Arts Guild, ARMACOM and Sebastinian Arts Society. The second invite was last night, the Arts Month's closing ceremony. Two great opportunities to promote Playback theater in my former school.

Since we have to run our regular first Friday of the month performance at the Playback Studio, we decided to bring the show outside our usual venue. We took part at the “Sulyap Sining” (Glimpse at Arts) program of the Sebastinian. The organizers placed us at the latter part of the program to serve as a 'synthesis' performance for the night's show and the whole Arts Month festivity.

For the performance, we were brought at the college's arcade and there were more than 40 audiences. After some acoustic numbers and poetry reading, we were then introduced to the anticipating audience. There were only four of us from the Company so we asked some of the workshop participants to playback with us.

We opened the playback performance with four of us from Manila Playback shouting and acting out what we feel that night. Afterwards, I asked the workshop participants to join us on stage. I mixed them with the actors from MPT. The result was beautiful and fun.

I asked the audience how they feel that it was Friday, the almost end of the look weekday. Somebody shouted that it's a nice Friday, a great time to drink and relax. For the first form, we used fluid sculptures. They saw and heard the actors merry-making and thanking heavens its Friday. It was followed by a fluid sculpture of tension. It came from the organizer of the program. He said he was so tensed that the whole month's celebration is on it’s closing day and he was wondering if people would come and see the last program. The actors portrayed the tension and the teller experienced released just by looking at the performance. Then, I asked for a pair. One member of the audience raised his hand and told his pair of happiness and sadness. He was happy because his on-the-job training has just finished, but sad because his graduation from college is coming near. The teller and the audience applauded after the pair.

I then decided that it was time to ask for a story. An elementary teacher told a story of his experience of being a winner in a YMCA camp. He, together with his students came to Baguio ( a province in the Northern Philippines) to join a camp. They went there anticipating that there would be a writing competition. They didn’t know that they also need to present candidates for Mr. and Ms. Camp, with talent presentations. They came up with a good pair of contestants and even won 1st place in the contest. They went home happy from the camp and brought honor to their school. After the teller chose the character who will play his role and actors who will play the students, the performance begun.

The actors opened the free form very strong. They were riding on a bus using a brown cloth. Then, they all went down for a break and took some snack. Then one actor shouted and danced the YMCA theme to signal that they finally arrived at the site of the camp. One actor played the role of the organizer and approached the teacher and asked him to come up with a representative for the Mr. and Ms. Camp. He then asked his students to prepare for the talent portion. The girl sang lines from 'the greatest love of all' and the boy did a monologue about his lost dog while the teacher was there shouting and clapping to show his support. I saw the teller smiling and with teary eyes, specially when the other characters announced that both his students won first place. We all clapped our hands to honor the teller for the support he gave his students and for sharing his story.

I then called in the second set of actors from our workshoppers. This time, it was purely the workshop participants who went up to playback the audiences' story. We resumed with a fluid sculpture of one of the audience’s feeling of pride to be part of the San Sebastian Community. One actor did a cheer about San Sebastian college, the other actors followed raising their hands and voices in praise of our school. We continued with a pair, another audience shared his amazement in seeing playback but not wanting to try it since acting impromptu is a hard task. We came near the end of the show but we gave a chance for another story. We heard a wonderful story about friendship. It started with a typical conversation about life and the arts. It went on to flashes of his memories coming back to life like a movie. It ended when both of them decided that they need some sleep. According to the teller, that conversation was the last thing he wanted to see before he closes his eyes. The audience laughed and applauded during the performance since they are all familiar with the story. After the performance, I asked the actors to come up again on stage. I asked them to make a tableau of the conversation, for that was the most important scene that the teller wanted to see in his story.

We closed the night with a sneak preview of the stories we heard and feelings we felt that evening. Fluid sculptures were done by the actors individually--story of friendship, love for the arts, winning, a good break from a long week, amazement with playback and with life.

Many stories came to life that night after the magical words "Let’s Watch!"
Panoorin natin!

Performers from Manila Playback: Fabi, Charm Jayson and Edward
Guest Performers from Sebastinian Theater Arts Guild (STAG): Aiton, Aiza, Jenstein, Leo, Diway, Bryan, Rodge