IPAG opens 31st season with landmark productions

The Iligan City-based Integrated Performing Arts Guild (IPAG), acknowledged a leading region-based theatre in the country, highlights its 31st Season with landmark productions in and out of its base at the MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology.

Ranaw: Isang Alamat, a winner in the playwriting contest of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, premieres this month celebrating the Ruby Jubilees of the CCP and the MSU-IIT. This dance-music play about epic hero Bato Lakungan presents our pre-colonial tribes in turmoil, a condition that prophesies our fragmented state today.

IPAG’s long-running Tales From Mindanao is on its 1st leg this season of a national tour of Manila schools which road shows shall run until March next year. In the last 17 years, Tales has played to full houses captivating large audiences here and in over a hundred cities worldwide. This leg includes performances at the Crossroads Theatre, Xavier School, La Salle Zobel, Southville, and the University of Asia and the Pacific. It hits Davao and Cagayan de Oro Cities next.

Celebrating the National Arts Month in February 2009, Pop and Poetry transcreates and popularizes the poems of Southern Philippine writers using the pop mediums of dance and music. Included are the works of Christine Godinez-Ortega, Ralph Galan, Henry Opulencia, Anthony Tan, German Gervacio, and Marge Evasco. “Origami,” a transcreation of the eponymous Marjorie Evasco poem, previewed at the opening of the 15th Iligan National Writers Workshop last May 26.

Ranaw goes onstage starting Sept. 12 until the 20th (three shows: 10:00 a.m., 2:30 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.) at the MSU-IIT Mini-Theatre, Iligan City. Steven P.C. Fernandez directs from his script and original music. Choreography is by Melvin Pascubillo and Leilani M. Fernandez.

Other on-the-road productions Tatlo sa Isa, MingMing, and Bak2Bak will continue performing here and abroad this season. Tales is also set for performances in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in October 2 before flying to the U.S. for a series of shows until November.

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts, MSU-IIT, Pioneer Insurance and Surety Corporation, and Super Ferry supports the IPAG season.