Teatro Ambahanon, the official performing arts company of the Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Colleges (RMMC) of General Santos City stages their production entitled “LIKI 4.0: The Fourth Anthology of Works” at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Tanghalang Huseng Batute (Studio Theater) on August 15, 2019 at 3:00 pm and 7:00 pm.
RMMC General Santos is one of CCP’s Kaisa sa Sining Regional Arts Centers in Mindanao. Teatro Ambahanon’s (TA) performance at the CCP is made possible through a venue grant that is part of the CCP-RMMC KSS Memorandum of Understanding. TA is one of the very few performing arts companies that maintain repertory building program through its many platforms that calls for new works presented in a season that culminates in a festival called The Last Quarter Intensives. As the only choreographer’s company in Mindanao or perhaps the Philippines, it is natural that a body of works accumulates every year. To date, Ambahanon repertoire of dance pieces number to more than 200 pieces.
Liki is a curated show that selects choreographic pieces that define the Ambahanon aesthetics: edgy, fresh, experimental. Liki 4.0 is the fourth anthology harvested from the 2018 season, with most projects presented during the 3rd Last Quarter Intensives (a festival of contemporary dance) specifically from the Callback, a program that engages Teatro Ambahanon Alumni to submit longer works. This anthology brings together works by Jodel Cimagala, Ralph Malaque, Harold Monteagudo and Wifibody Young Choreographers Competition Winner Beauty Balaga (3rd Place 2016).
Teatro Ambahanon’s members are bonafide students of the college who are fulltime students of the different units of RMMC. The school based company was acclaimed as “The Most Outstanding Young Contemporary Dance and Theater Companies of the Philippines” by the Mindanao Modern Dance Competition when it won the grand prize in 2008. The company continued to reap success as it won the “Cultural Center of the Philippines/Japan Foundation Most Promising Young Choreographer” when Julius Lagare’s contemporary dance piece “Manoy” joined the Wifi Body, an important contemporary dance festival/competition of the Philippines. Other Wifi Winners include Byuti Balaga (2016 third place) and Jovie Ann Domingo (2018 Second Place). The CCP Cultural Exchange Department has been touring Teatro Ambahanon through Ugnayan sa Sining regional performances that has toured the Philippines and China as it represented the Philippines in the 2017 China ASEAN Theater Festival.
John Michael Castino, Senior Education Program Specialist for Monitoring and Evaluation at the Department of Education, after watching TA’s send off performance last August 7, shared that “This is a show that will challenge the audience to think about the presentation, to connect with the dancers, to revisit his own self concept. This show is seamlessly done. Overall, I am always in awe by the impeccable intelligence of my dear friend Leonardo Rey S. Cariño, the Artistic Director of Teatro Ambahanon, for taking the bar of intelligence higher on the floor. Kudos!”
For more information, contact the CCP Cultural Exchange Department at 832- 1125 locals 1708-1709. You may also visit the Teatro Ambahanon Facebook page.
