The realization of non-traditional collaborations within art genres, between arts, and other fields
Seven arts and cultural organizations qualify for the Innovation Grants Project, a special program implemented by the board of trustees of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP).
Among the numerous organizations considered are Ballet Manila, Casa San Miguel, FilDocs Inc., Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Colleges, Marbel Inc., Sipat Lawin Inc., and The Performance Laboratory and Tuldok Animation Studios will receive grants to create and produce new work in various art disciplines, and distribute new content on the arts using online technology, blended, and hybrid technologies.
Ballet Manila proposes the "Silver Linings: Ballet Manila @ 25, Hope and Dance in Extraordinary Times." The project aims to celebrate the 25th season of the dance company heeding the global pandemic, lockdowns, and complete stoppage of live performances. The project will showcase re-imagined presentations of classical pieces as well as new commissioned work specially developed for film as a primary medium. It will also include "Ballet Minis," a series of short dance films designed to reinforce Ballet Manila’s main strength of performing the classics with the Russian Vaganova discipline. The series highlights the best of the company’s classical, neoclassical, and contemporary works. Each dance film will be around five to seven minutes, featuring excerpts from full-length pieces.
The company also plans a "Silver Linings Ballet Gala," specially conceptualized for the new normal. Embracing the fact that the stage is altered and the medium is different, the gala will showcase live performances from Ballet Manila studios, dancers’ homes, and pre-recorded performances, which will be streamed live through the Ballet Manila’s Facebook page and YouTube channels.
Meanwhile, Casa San Miguel's proposal focuses on the concept of "Spring" in different iterations through music, dance, visual arts, and film. "Spring" is a series of eight 10-15-minute episodes that will revolve around the renewal of hope, a celebration of creativity, and how arts have served artists and communities as a medium for reflection and healing.
FILDOCS, INC. hopes to continue the success of the "DaangDokyu" film festival and consolidate the achievements of the virtual cinema festival to sustain and widen the awareness on Philippine documentaries through various projects. The organization intends to produce and distribute "DaangDokyuDokBook," which contains the full program featuring over 45 documentary titles and film details, as well as essays on the study and appreciation of contemporary Philippine documentary. They also plan to have a virtual-access library that will offer private viewings of documentary films featured in the "DaangDokyu“ program and collection.
A portion of the grant they will receive will go to the development of the "DaangDokyu" website, which contains the information on Philippine documentaries featured in the festival including creative and technical details, trailers, Q&As, and other updates. The site also provides free access to the "DokBook" for one year, feature sections such as “Reality Check” with insights from various experts, “Dokyu Scene” with ongoing developments in the documentary filmmaking, and “Artist Support” with updates and announcements beneficial to the film industry.
Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Colleges, Marbelinc. proposes "OpenStudio+OpenSeason ," an art project undertaking non-traditional collaborations with art genres integrating performing arts, visual arts, dance, and film. It will feature five short dance films selected from the Juror’s Choice winners of Teatro Ambahanon’s Director’s Prize Competition, as well as an installation art to be installed at the The Nest Arts Incubation, the Teatro Ambahanon’s art space
There is also the “Salamindanaw” film project, seeking to create an omnibus film that delves on memory, space, and body. The special screening will be staged with poets from SOCSKSARGEN with impromptu pieces that will be read after each dance video. The project also experiments on delivering and conducting multi-platform community events and festivities through live and online technology.
Sipat Lawin Inc.’s Komunidad X Collective Business takes on "E-mahiNASYON: Community Performance Innovation for Social Change Festival," a three-year performance innovation development platform that started in 2020, the surge of global pandemic, and will culminate in 2022, the year for the national elections.
For its first edition in 2020, "E-mahiNASYON" gathered 10 next-generation performance-makers working and innovating performances with and within communities from different islands in the Philippines to collaborate with non-theater partners as part of the “Contemporary Ritual Makers Performance Platform." Further themes that will be explored are climate change, new solidarities in time of physical distancing, citizen and voter’s education, rethinking notions of nation, queer and queering, combating discrimination, and empowerment of women and children in the time of national and global crises. The performances and documentation will be shared on kXchange.org, the leading virtual center for contemporary performance in the Philippines and is also an initiative of Sipat Lawin Inc’s Komunidad X.
With the innovation grant reaching out to regions, The Performance Laboratory Inc. is getting a piece of the pie. In collaboration with Teatrokon: West Visayas Theatre Network and CCP Kaisa sa Sining Regional Arts Center Partners in Negros Occidental, the Performance Laboratory, Inc. launches "Ang Mga Alates," a series of four short plays tackling current and relevant societal issues and incorporating stories of realities brought by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This will be a part of the weekly staged readings of plays written by emerging Negrense playwrights featured in The Blackbox Presents.
Producing a web series based on theater production is the group's way of exploring and experimenting on migrating one artform into another medium. The staged readings will be developed into full productions for the Kuris Theater Festival in 2021, and will be part of an online web series to be premiered next year.
Tuldok Animation Studios Inc. creates an "Edutainment package for Cultural Advocacy: Reimagining Cultural Advocacy through Integrated and Synergized Edutainment (RISE)," which includes two five-minute animated folktales and one Pinoy komiks folktale with a mobile app for an augmented reality component. The project aims to inspire Filipino artists to create compelling, world-class animated films highlighting the Filipino myth and legends. Through this, the organization hopes to raise awareness on the abundant Filipino folk heritage through modern re-telling using modern technology.
The Innovation Grants was CCP’s calibrated response to the pandemic and how it has been affecting the creative industry and art communities. Through this, the CCP hopes to realize non-traditional collaborations within art genres, between arts, and other fields or professions to deliver community-wide, multi-platform events and festivities using novel ways of distribution and dissemination.