Dear Educators and Learners,
Welcome to Project Destination!
Project Destination is a six-part mini-series that explores a set of imperative Filipino cultural values mainly emphasizing family orientation augmented with creativity, faith, religiosity, hard work, and hospitality.
In the last 22 months or so, we journeyed through great challenges which changed the course of our lives. We have continually lived in fear and uncertainties. Arts, dance in particular, has been greatly affected by this pandemic, like closure of dance schools and studios, cancellation of festivals and cultural events all over the country.
As the COVID-19 pressed on, dance directors, choreographers and dancers found innovative ways to continue creating and mounting dance productions yet challenged by the need for space to showcase these works.
Handog Sayaw at Saya is one such opportunity to present the wonderful creation of 22 dance groups. It is a 30-minute program which utilizes dance to promote the 20 shared Filipino values. It is a great honor and privilege to be part of Balay Pinoy, a festival of arts and values.
It was challenging to scan from the data base of more 300 dance videos to select dances which enshrined each of the 20 shared values. The 7-day presentation of the 22 dances had also been opportunities to broaden the dissemination of the said dances while contributing to the better understanding and appreciation of the values.
In Handog Sayaw at Saya, we will bring you very interesting performances that are relevant to our pandemic situation. The dance groups have carefully selected their venues to enrich the performances, recognizing new perspective on how dance can continue to navigate in these challenging times. While dance productions were shot in different outdoor locations to be able to comply with health protocols, it led into the audience better appreciation of the meaning and significance of the dance to the Filipino culture and values.
So, here we are now, ready to reboot as we will bring dances performed on mountain top, in the sea, in the caves, in the garden, in heritage places, even in the cemeteries. These dances are loaded with messages of gratitude, of hope, of love, of faith, of unity and of the current realities and aspirations for change.
It is therefore, my hope that the Filipino audience will support Handog Sayaw at Saya. Thank you very much and let us dance our fears away.
MARICHU TELLANO
Deputy Executive Director
NCCA
PROJECT DESTINATION is a dream project of the NCCA Values Committee aimed at strengthening the public’s appreciation, deeper absorption, and continued practice of positive and humanizing Filipino values shared by Filipinos everywhere despite age, gender, history, geography, and local cultures. Utilizing the powerful genre of the teleserye, the story follows the lives of two brothers born of parents coming from different cultures, Igorot Cordillera vis a vis Catholic Pampanga. They grow up together in childhood, but are separated to continue their adolescent and adult years, one in the Cordilleras, the other in America. Their separation causes a process of conflicts and confrontations, but mediated by their endearing love for their heritage and parenthood, they slowly heal and reach mutual love for their common values couched in different manifestations.
We request the TV viewers to view the rich diversity of Filipino cultures with deep respectful amazement, but also to journey together with the characters as they discover a common destination: the deep recesses of the human heart where reside the most inimitable values of the Filipino: love for family, sensitivity to the other, care for the environment, premium on education and occupation, concern for the common good, reverence for an Eternal Being, and many more.
The production team has harnessed the best possible artists to give realization to the narrative and cinematic execution of the material: writers, director, cinematographer, production design, music score, and performers to give the production a ring of authenticity and artistic ingenuity, as well as the resonance of truth in the human experience. Our team has made immersion trips to the Cordillera and Pampanga to better understand the cultural realities of these two bastions of history and heritage.
PROJECT DESTINATION hopes to continue its journey of cultures from Luzon, to the archipelagic islands of the Visayas and their maritime cultural history, and well into the great land mass of Mindanao with its turbulent yet colorful history of indigenous populations, multi-faith dynamics, and struggles for hegemony. Experience the joys, the pains, the struggles, the victories of our Filipino brothers and sisters as they confront their individual and social human conditions in these two other major regions of our nation.
Travel with us as we discover and experience the roots, the branches, the leaves, the flowers of our common histories, the ethos of our race.
LUTGARDO L. LABAD
Artistic Consultant
