PDT Workshops and Winter Plans

Last quarter, PDT (Pagkakaisa Dance Troupe) held open dance workshops to introduce the community to various traditional Filipino dances. This quarter, some of these dances are making a reappearance. Coordinator Kai Linis plans to teach two to three of the dances, with the hopes of being able to perform them. Panderetas, Pandanggo sa Ilaw, and potentially Pangalay are the dances that Kai will be teaching this quarter. While there are a multitude of traditional Filipino dances out there, these three were selected specifically because they translate well into this remote format of dancing. “Although these dances are typically danced in groups or pairs, I found that they can focus on the individual as well,” says Kai, who choreographed the pieces while being mindful of spatial constraints.  

Graphic by Kai Linis

The hour-long workshops that took place last quarter were inspired by the Parangal Dance Company, a San Francisco-based traditional dance group, and the virtual dance workshops they held over the spring and summer of 2020. The first of PDT’s fall quarter workshops took place on November 11th and was centered around Pandanggo sa Ilaw, a dance that kickstarted the formation of PDT and led to the emergence of Bayanihan (or FSA, Filipino Student Association, at the time). “Pandanggo sa Ilaw was a dance that guided fishermen home from their journey, so although we are advancing towards the future, I wanted Pandanggo to also be a dance that guided us back to our roots,” explains Kai. 

The second workshop, held on November 17th, was focused on Pangalay. Kai says she chose to dedicate a workshop to Pangalay for two reasons: “One, it was going to be our third dance last year (Spring 2020), but we could not get to it. Two, Pangalay was one of the first dances of the Southern Island suite I was introduced to.” The third workshop occurred on November 24th and highlighted Panderetas, a dance categorized under the Maria Clara suite of traditional Filipino dance. Kai worked with last year’s PDT coordinator, Joshua Decena, to bring the workshop together. “After listening to the music and watching the videos, I found Panderetas to be an exciting Maria Clara dance. I also thought it would be a nice dance to collaborate with my predecessor,” she says. The fourth workshop, which took place on December 1st, was about Pagapir. Housed under the Southern Island suite, this dance was performed by PDT at a previous PCC. Upon stumbling among some old choreography from that time, Kai remarks that she “thought it would be fun to learn something that was previously performed at least ten years ago.”

All four workshops began with a check in to see how everyone was doing. Kai then moved on to reveal what dance the attendees would be learning, and provided the background - which included the origin, significance, and types of moves - behind each dance. A video was shown of the dances being performed, and Kai pointed out certain attributes of the moves that had previously been talked about. Finally, it came time to learn how to dance the dances, which took up the bulk of the time of the workshop. Kai demonstrated how to do the moves, using the videos as reference, and by the end the attendees were able to do a little bit of the choreography as well. 

With the arrival of winter quarter, Kai aims to dive deeper into the choreography of the first three workshopped dances and to develop a team that will learn and perform the dances. “My hope for the team is for them to see that even if we do have limitations right now, we can still be together and learn about the traditional dance culture together,” she says. Due to time constraints, learning all three dances may be difficult, especially in a remote setting. Whether or not Pangalay will be performed in the future remains unknown, but Kai intends to look into all the different meanings and representations of the moves used in the dance if PDT does end up learning it. If you want to be a part of PDT, you can fill out this form. It will be open for a few more weeks but practices are schedules to start next week, so don’t hesitate to fill it out if you are interested!

Written by Samantha Sebandal with contributions from Kai Linis