Taboan 2012 opens today

Thursday 9th of February 2012

CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga, Feb. 9 (PIA) -- A total of 86 poets, playwrights, essayists and fictionists from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao are set to converge in Clark Freeport today for the 4^th Taboan Philippine Writers Festival.

National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) National Committee on Literary Arts chair Priscilla Macansantos said “the Taboan, which literary means the marketplace in Bisaya, seeks to serve as an avenue for the academic exchange of ideas among the country’s writers that will help hone their respective crafts and address issues currently affecting their field.”

Topics to be discussed this year are: Rizal and the Filipino Imagination, Under 35: Young Writers & Their Milieu; Toward a Filipino Aesthetic: Our Words, Ourselves; History, Literature & the Art of Remembering; A Harvest of Songs: A Regional Symposium; Blurring Boundaries: Women Writing; Teaching Literature in the Contemporary Classroom; Under the Volcano: The Literature of Central Luzon; Born or Made: Teaching Writing; Traditional Texts in Contemporary Times; Writing as a Profession; Offline,Online; Writers,Inc.; and Writing Nature: Science & the Environment as Literature.

Among the speakers of the three day gathering include National Artists Bienvenido Lumbera, F.Sionil Jose and Virgilio Almario who is popularly known as Rio Alma.

Apart from panel discussions, there will also be lectures, a book fair, literary readings and performances of Central Luzon talents. The second volume of the Kapampangan literary journal “Tuglung” shall likewise be launched during the confab.

Culminating the gathering will be the the conferment of Taboan awards to writers with lifetime achievements in the fields of regional literature and the literary arts.

Macansantos explained “the Taboan serves as one of the main activities of the Philippine Arts Festival (PAF) which is an annual event celebrated every February in time for the National Arts Month.”

PAF highlights Filipino ingenuity in architecture, cinema, dance, literature, music, dramatic arts and visual arts.

This year, the festival is anchored on the theme “Tradisyon at Inobasyon (Tradition and Innovation) which focuses on the interface of traditional and contemporary art forms and genres.

Other activities of PAF 2012 include Archi[types/texts] exhibits; CinemaRehiyon 4 (February 8-11,Bacolod City); Sayaw Pinoy; First Asian Festival of Gongs and Bamboo Music (February 25-28, Baguio City and Iloilo City); Music for the healing of “Sendong” victims workshop (February 20-24, Cagayan de Oro City); Tanghal (Calamba City, Cebu City, General Santos City and Cultural Center of the Philippines); and Philippine International Visual Arts Festival: The Rizal Experience (February 17-20; Angono town in Rizal). (WLB/CLJD-PIA 3)