The Cultural Center of the Philippines unveils its 2018 performance season.
CCP welcomed the new year with forthcoming productions from the CCP resident companies – the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, Ballet Philippines, Philippine Ballet Theatre, Tanghalang Pilipino, Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group, Bayanihan Philippine National Folk Dance Company, UST Symphony Orchestra, National Music Competitions for Young Artists (NAMCYA), and the Philippine Madrigal Singers.
Marking its 49th anniversary, 2018 will be a year of celebrations. The Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, the center’s resident orchestra company, will celebrate its 45th anniversary with a concert featuring classical masterpieces under the baton of its music director Yoshikazu Fukumura, as well as outreach concerts and performances all over the Philippines.
Both the Saturday Group and Philippine Arts Educators will celebrate their 50th anniversary with respective exhibits this coming March. In May, the Association of Pinoyprintmakers will hold an exhibition for their 50th anniversary.
The Gawad CCP Para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video, which is considered the longest-running independent film competition of its kind in the ASEAN region, will have its 30th run this year. The competition harvests the best films in various categories such as Short Feature/Narrative, Experimental, Documentary and Animation.
This year, the CCP also celebrates the life and works of National Artist Lucresia R. Kasilag with a concert dubbed “CCP Gala: The Concert for the King,” in September. Tita King, as she was fondly called, spent her life developing the Filipino audience’s appreciation of music. She worked to discover the Filipino roots through ethnic music and fuse it with Western influences, an approach that current Filipino composers emulate. She became the CCP president from 1976 to 1986.
It will also be a year of collaborations with international artistic companies, as well as Philippine premieres of international productions, starting with the Japanese theater company Rinkogun which will present “Retire-Men,” a humorous play about the Japanese people who move to different Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand and the Philippines, on January 27 and 28, at the Tanghalang Huseng Batute.
On February 8 and 9, CCP will host the UNIMA Chinese Puppetry, showcasing the magnificent and mystical tradition of Chinese puppetry and featuring performances by the Yangzhou Puppetry Troupe, the Pingyang Puppetry Protection and Inheritance Center, and the Sichuan Huge Puppet Theatre. Russian Classical Ballet will perform “Swan Lake,” featuring two of the world-renowned Bolshoi Ballet Theatre dancers Alexander Volchkov and Nina Kaptsova, from February 27 to March 11 at the Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo.
After 10 years, the Earth Hour returns to CCP. Organized by the Wold Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the Earth Hour is the world’s largest environmental movement urging people to switch off non-essential lights for 60 minutes, as a way to protect and save our planet. On March 24, Filipinos from all walks of life will converge at the CCP grounds to #Connect2Earth in a festive night.
Come July, the CCP and NCCA will jointly hold the conferment ceremony and tribute to the awardees of the Order of National Artists, the highest national recognition given to Filipino individuals who have made significant contributions to the development of Philippine arts. In October, the CCP will recognize outstanding Filipino visual artists through the Thirteen Artists Awards.
In September, the CCP will launch the Encyclopedia of Philippine Arts. Akapella Open International 2018, a competition for contemporary a capella groups which aims to promote the love for contemporary a capella and appreciation for vocal harmony performance, will happen in October.
Other highlights of 2018 CCP season calendar include: the Young Artists Series, which is co-produced with the Philippine Opera Company; Marawing Salamat: The Best of Opera and Fashion for Marawi featuring Pagliacci, a two-act Italian opera with music and libretto by Ruggero Leoncavallo; 2017 Gawad Buhay Philstage Award, the first-ever industry awards exclusively for performing arts; Triple Threats, a series of concept concerts featuring real life couples Julienne Mendoza and Stella Cañete, Robert Seña and Isay Alvarez, Franco Laurel and Ayen Munji Laurel; Wifi Body.ph, a competition for choreographers; Festival of Arts and Ideas, now on its second year; CCP Ballet Competition 2018, gathering ballet dancers, choreographers and masters who will compete in classical solo variation and contemporary piece categories; Performatura: Spoken Work Festival, celebrating literature by engaging it with music, theater, dance, film and visual arts; CCP Met Opera in HD at the Ayala Cinema; Kabataang Gitarista, on its 6th year.
There are also the CCP regulars such as the Pasinaya, considered the largest multi-arts festival in the country where Filipino people can pay as much as you want and see as many as you can; the Virgin Labfest, the annual festival of raw, untested and un-staged one-act plays; Cinemalaya, the largest independent film festival with the aim to support cinematic works by upcoming and veteran Filipino filmmakers.
Proud of its art education and outreach programs, the CCP will hold various training and workshops such as National Rondalla Workshop 2018, National Folk Dance Workshop for Teachers, CCP Hands-on Choral Workshop, CCP Summer Dance Workshop, among others. Must-see exhibitions include “Walking Still: Rene Aquitania Exhibit” in January; “Stretched Banners” by MJ Flaminiano; and, solo exhibits by Marlon Contreras, Froilan Calayag, Lesley Ann Cao, among others.
For more information, call CCP at (+632) 832-1125 or visit www.culturalcenter.gov.ph.
