Bisdak Pride Inc. in the height of PAG-INAM 2021

written by Ren Lausa

Bisdak Pride Inc. participates in PAG-INAM 2021 on May 14-16. In partnership with Tanghalang Pilipino (TP), a resident theater company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Bisdak celebrated the linkages created by TP through performances during the three-day festival.

PAG-INAM 2021 created a mixing pot of knowledge among the regional groups, by means of sharing their own regional identities to the entire Filipino theater community. Themed Theater Arts, Moving Forward, the festival was open to the public.

On the first day, speakers from different theater organizations around the country were highlighted in “Talks with Regional Speakers” including BPI Theater Actor, John Carl Borbon. Each speaker shared inspiring and educational talks to more than 60 participants from different universities, high schools and theater organizations in the country.

Borbon as an LGBTQIA+ member and theater actor of Bisdak from Cebu shared how he and his colleagues succeeded in engaging in community performances as their coping mechanism during the pandemic. He also shared the humanitarian response for the past years of BPI as a humanitarian organization.

Workshop-all-you-can was the second day activity of PAG-INAM 2021. This activity has trained the participants on different theater related performing workshops such as acting workshop, indigenous dances, indigenous cordillera instruments and music improvisations, playwriting and script adaptation.

Karl Alexis Jingco, Sining Kambayoka, Handiong Kapuno, Marco Viaña, Sari Saysay and Dennis Marasigan, were among the prestigious facilitators for the Workshop-all-you-can sessions.

On the last day of the festival, various theater groups submitted a total of twenty two short films to Tanghalang Pilipino for the Regional Performances Activity. Each film showed different stories that amazed the audience and participants of PAG-INAM.

Bisdak Pride's short film entry entitled “PANBEKYA” was directed by Jolaica Amiana. The film explores the life story of John Carl Borbon on how he survived the pandemic despite of the adversities he encountered during that time. John Carl played the main role and Jolaica Amiana as the mother. The other casts were Rickson Demape, Vanroe Laurente and Gilbert Pantonial.

Although COVID-19 pandemic has brought changes to every aspect of our lives that led us to follow the new normal, where face to face is not allowed yet, it didn’t stop Tanghalang Pilipino to continue their advocacy in strengthening the country’s culture and theater arts through online platform.

PAG-INAM participants were equipped with enough knowledge after the 3-day festival, the fact that smiles were pasted on their faces and wisdom was mirrored from their eyes made PAG-INAM 2021 an event brimming with success.