- A five-minute film “Our Gift to the World” stages original contemporary dance and musical experience of Filipino ancestral cultures, communicating updated science about the Philippines and its people
- Bangkóta’s “Our Gift to the World” communicates the fusion of 65,000 years of human interaction and the 4,000-year story of a water-oriented culture that shaped the Filipinos
Dubai: Creating excitement for its participation in the much-anticipated Expo 2020 Dubai, the Philippines ‘Bangkóta’ Pavilion displays a cross-generational collaboration of select finest Filipino talents in a variety of artistic facets – visual and performing arts, digital media, and other forms of new media – including an original production entitled: “Our Gift to the World.”
Led by the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry (PDTI), the Philippines marks its participation to the Expo with a range of creative sectors. “Our Gift to the World” is among the artistic expressions in the Bangkóta Pavilion’s interior spaces projected on a 180-degree immersive surface.
The five-minute multi-media narrative articulates the fusion of the 65,000-year human interaction in the Philippine archipelago and the 4,000 years of water-oriented culture that shaped the Filipino identity of hyperconnectivity.
The task of creating the five-minute film was given to multi-awarded Filipino creative agency BBDO Guerrero, also known for the “It’s more fun in the Philippines” tourism campaign, after a competitive pitch. The film’s overall direction was provided by Bangkóta’s independent curator Marian Pastor Roces and Architect Royal Pineda, under the guidance of PDTI Assistant Secretary and Philippines @ Expo 2020 Dubai Alternate Commissioner General Rosvi Gaetos.
The creative team, led by its chairman David Guerrero, worked remotely across continents with a carefully selected ensemble of performing, visual and digital artists to mount the stunning display.
Among them is Filipino veteran choreographer Denisa Reyes, former Artistic Director of Ballet Philippines and noted composer and sound artist Teresa Barrozo, together with Korean director Jae Hyung Wang, known for his spectacular work in computer graphics, and Pixel Box, a production house based in Hong Kong.
The digital creation gathers Philippine motifs of cultural identity and interconnectivity, bringing together a mix of breathtaking, imaginative reflections of scientific and humanistic data about the Philippines and its people. It is poetically expressed through contemporary dance performed and choreographed by seasoned Filipino talents led by Reyes.
Reyes is assisted by co-choreographer and dancer JM Cabling, a full generation her junior. Along with dancers Angella Betina Carlos, Minette Caryl Maza, Michael Barry Que, and JM Cabling, they contribute a continuity of interest in Philippine motifs in dance.
Meanwhile, another set of Filipino performing artists will take centerstage during the Philippine National Day at the Expo 2020 Dubai on 11th of February 2022 – a full festivity of Philippine dance and music.
Nestor Jardin, former President and Artistic Director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, guided the conceptualisation of the programme by Silang Communications, headed by renowned actor and stage director Bart Guingona. The programme “reflects the soul” of Filipinos—a re-imagination of corals, forests, fauna, and movement—through a cultural show interpreted for a global audience.
Production, technical, and graphics design for the programme will be crafted by visual artist Leeroy New, graphic artist Steven Tansiongco, and technical director Meliton Roxas Jr. Meanwhile, musical composition and direction will be a collaboration among sounds engineer Rards Corpus, composer Ejay Yatco, and vocal director Krina Cayabyab, with the choreographic supervision of JM Cabling.
The PDTI also commissioned Filipino talents in other creative industries, spanning from architecture, design and crafts, visual arts and performing arts, to film, animation and software development, including gastronomy, media and publication, to represent the Philippines at the Expo 2020 Dubai.
The Expo 2020 Dubai will open from October 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022.
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About The Bangkóta - Philippines Pavilion in Expo 2020 Dubai
Bangkóta is the name and inspiration for the pavilion of Philippines at the World Expo 2020, which will be held from October 1, 2021— March 31, 2022 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The pavilion, organically shaped like the Bangkóta—the ancient term for “coral reef” in the language Tagalog—updates knowledge about the Philippines, an archipelagic nation that nourished a collective, sea-oriented culture for millennia.
By calling attention to the coral reef-like qualities of Filipinos—such as an inclination for hyper-connectivity—the pavilion offers clues into a people who can build vibrant communities anywhere and everywhere in the world.
Remaining interconnected with each other as Filipinos, even through massive diaspora, the Philippines’ global stage is held together digitally. In the past 4000 years, as their Austronesian ancestors spread throughout island Southeast Asia and then embarked across the Pacific, they were and still are connected by the oceans of the world.
The Philippines pavilion evokes this hardy, traveling people in the sustainability District of the Expo, poetically emphasizing cultural sustainability through the millennia. In a plot size of 3163.25 sqm, the pavilion presents contemporary expressions in architecture, art, and design that links the deep past with the future of connectivity for the Filipino.
It is conceptualised and actualised by Architect Royal Pineda of Budji+Royal Architecture+Design and independent curator Marian Pastor Roces, collaborating with unusual synchrony with Assistant Secretary Rosario Virginia Gaetos of the Department of Trade and Industry, who also serves as Alternate Commissioner General of the Philippine Organizing Committee (POC).
Bangkóta aligns with the theme of this forthcoming Expo 2020 – “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future” – with a riveting image of the Philippines and its people as truly global.
© Press Release 2021
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