Dance festival at CCP

BY JOELLE JACINTO

They call it a Wi-fi Body Festival because around three years ago, dancing outside the CCP was still quite unheard of and the baby steps that these small independent dance groups took did seem like looking for a wireless connection to their art.

This year, the third Wi-Fi Body Independent Contemporary Dance Festival is celebrated again at the CCP from June 12 to 15, and the signal of independent contemporary dance is getting even stronger than ever, growing with more dancers and groups, not only from Manila and Quezon City, but reaching as far as Bacolod and Koronadal.

Festival director Myra Beltran looks more spirited this year, despite not featuring her Dance Forum in any of the main showcases except in the culminating gala on June 15. She shares that she's happy that there are more venues to house other independent companies, such as exploring the Tanghalang Huseng Batute as Blackbox with the UP Dance Company, Chameleon Dance Theater, Koronadal's Kahayag Dance and Theater Company and Bacolod's Dance Pull, under Dwight Rodrigazo.

To celebrate Independence Day, Rodrigazo's Indios Bravos, a tribute to Jose Rizal and our new heroes, the OFWs, will also be restaged this year by Airdance, to be performed at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino. Airdance shares the evening with Japan's Shigemi Kitamura. Kitamura is not the only international artist invited to perform at this year's festival.

Other festival events include the daily contemporary dance workshop facilitated by Villanueva, Raul Alcoseba, Herbert Alvarez and Georgette Sanchez, the Dance On Film: Uncensored Bodies screening, and a special Dance Journalism seminar, with guest speakers Rosita Boisseau, who is the dance critic of France's Le Monde, and our own local dance scholar, Basilio Esteban Villaruz.

There are also the site specific performances, called Dance On Site, where Rudolph Segundo, Robbie Hayden, Horhe Amparado and Yvonne Torres experiment in the non-theatrical spaces of the CCP, as well as the Emerging Talent Showcase, featuring today's young dance students moving into the contemporary.

Most of these performances have tickets, but you do save more if you plan to come and see more than one event. The CCP is offering day passes at P500 with a student price at P300 and full festival passes at P1,800 with a student price at P1000.