CORTES, Bohol, June 10 (PIA) -- Eighteen festivals later and Katigbawan, Catigbi-an’s uniting farm festival, gets back to the streets this year as the town folks celebrate their 74th Foundation Days on June 11-17.
Now set to bring out specific story narratives of the districts or barangays of the town performed in creative festival dancing, the Katigbawan Festival Street Dancing Competition will be the town’s major cultural showcase to cap the week-long celebration, to be judged after a full streetdancing parade complete with contingent’s festival queens and a coal presentation inside the Catigbian Sports and Cultural Activity Center on June 17.
Participating contingents are consolidated barangays to form districts, as eight of them are joining and competing for this year’s Katigbawan Festival, said Catigbian Information Officer and Sanggunian Secretary Ardissa Estavilla.
These include Poblacion and Poblacion Weste as District 1, Sinakayanan, Haguilanan and Ambuan as District 2, Bongbong, Alegria and Triple Union in District 3, Candumayao, Libertad and Rizal in District 4.
District 5 has Causwagan and Mantacida, District 6 has Liboron, Baang and Cambailan, District 7 has Mahayag Sur, Mahayag Norte, Bagtic and Hagbuaya, while District 8 is Maitum and Kang-iras, she added.
In Catigbian’s festival, the minimum entry is 20, maximum of 30, excluding the festival queen and instrumentalists.
For the spectators and performers’ safety, organizers said that flammable materials, pyrotechnics, fireworks as part of the ritual, are strictly banned.
Prizes at stake are the top three major prizes at P10,000 with trophy, P7,000 with trophy, and P5,000 with trophy.
The contingent adjudged best in Street Dancing also gets P3,000 and trophy while the Katigbawan Street Dancing Festival Queen gets P3,000.
One of the few street dancing festivals that have imbibed the authentic carabao steps, Katigbawan is still struggling to fully shake off that borrowed steps introduced by import choreographers who insist on their own introduced steps to embellish what they think is a drab festival.
For Katigbawan, however, the schools have still retained the authentic characteristics of the Katigbawan while some innovated on some researched native traditional steps despite the occasional intrusions of ungrounded traditions conveniently masked as native dance.
For the local festival organizers, however, they made sure that costumes and performances depict and represent the festival clearly.
One of the more recent introductions, the festival queen, was set to further hype on the street presence, and keep the street crowd on their feet.
Other than the street dancing and ritual performance on Saturday, Katigbawan is also getting known for its Carabao Parade.
Taking to the streets on June 15, the parada sa kabaw features costumed and embellished carabaos taking to the streets. (RAHC/PIA-7 Bohol)
