I really like this venue. It's so beautiful, spacious and the folks working here are so very nice.
The Jacobs center's full name is the Joe & Vi Jacobs Center (they are seen in the photo montage in the background) which serves this needy community and provides support for the arts and serves as a meeting place for cultural and community organizations.
This weekend happened to be a very rainy one but despite the rain throughout the day, people came and filled up the hall, which was very nice to see...
The word "parol" refers to the star shaped lantern that symbolizes the star that led the three Kings to Jesus. In the Philippines, parols are traditionally made out of bamboo and covered with tissue paper. Nowadays you can use any kind of material to cover your bamboo frame.
There was also a Parol contest as they have had in year's past. Here is one of the contestants' entries:
It was laying on the floor as he filled out his contestant entry slip. This was quite large! Made out of natural materials like burlap and abaca (woven banana fibers), this gentleman said it took him several months to complete this. The frame was also quite cool, as it was doubled and formed a wheel.
Here is a detail from one of the tails:
More on the parol contest later.
Here are just some of the sights and sounds of this year's Parol Festival which was actually one of the best I've ever attended. The hall was filled to nearly capacity and the performances from the PASACAT Dance Company as well as the guest performers were spectacular. Below, dolls in traditional garb at the registration table...
One of the many intricate parols on sale. This was one of the more expensive ones, made out of capiz shell. I think this was more than $200!
A pabitin frame - a bamboo lattice with suspended toys on strings (attached with binder clips!).
It is lowered and raised like a Mexican pinata while young children jump up to try to grab some toys. I helped one of the moms attach the toys. This year someone had the great idea of using binder clips. In past years, we actually had to TIE the strings to the toys (which were the cheapo kinds from the dollar store). The pabitin is offered at the end of the performance to children ages 12 and under.
A merienda, or a light snack (almost a full meal actually) was served. I thought the price of $10 was pretty damn good to get food,drinks AND entertainment. This year, the food served was pan de sal, lumpia, pancit, and putong puti (steamed white rice cake served with grated coconut). No food pix this year. I wanted to focus on this...the drinks!
You can find these bottles of calamansi and dalandan (both are native Philippine citrus fruits) from Seafood City. The concentrate was mixed with water, sugar, and ice. The calamansi bottles were already flavored with honey.
These drinks were such a hit over the past two years and I was happy to see it offered again.
Besides the seating area near the stage, there were also rooms in the bag that held parol making workshops. For a small fee, you could buy a pre-made parol and design your own parol.
Now THIS was another contestant's entry in the parol contest. This was actually on a wheeled contraption (hidden in the back). This was quite over the top. It was lit up, had both the American the Philippine flags, fake doves, and yeah...a lot of stuff on it!
The stage...
There were performances by the Junior Dancers (ages 5-young teens) and the Senior Dancers (ages 13 and up) with guest perfomances by a Mexican Ballet Folklorico troupe and Teye sa Thiosanne, an African dance troup. Something new this year was an appearance by Andre Soriano, one of the fashion designers featuring on Bravo's reality tv-show, "Styled to Rock". Soriano, a Filipino American designer based in San Diego, was recently featured in the SD Union-Tribune (see article here) because he was actually hand picked by Rihanna (yes, the singer!) to be on his show. Below are some of his models. Holy #$%@, that blond girl in green was super tall and super waify!
and there is Andre Soriano addressing the audience. He was quite fierce in his all black ensemble with fedora, hexagon spectacles, leather jacket, tight black skinny jeans, and silver studded boots.
Although I didn't watch his show, I remembered him from the article I read about his participation in the show. He was also featured for San Diego's Fashion Week. Here is a link to fashion blogger Cy's recap of San Diego Fashion Week which also has a few videos of of the show and the "Styled to Rock" contestants, including Soriano.
The parol tables were filled with supplies...
and occupied by young folks making their parols. Below, a clever youngster using water and a bamboo stick to serve as a cutter since scissors were in short supply.
Various vendors were also situated near the parol workshops spaces. Some sold t-shirts, crafts, or promoted their businesses. One of them sold this imported from Japan toy, the Kendama, a fancy wooden toy. The old ball on a strip and flip it onto a cup thing. According to TC, a lot of Asian kids at her school has one of these things. Gosh, I must be out of the loop because I haven't seen anyone with these at all where I work!
There were only three contestants for the Parol Contest. The woman who won last year ended up getting third place. She had a much smaller parol and it was "cute" with little toys attached to it, including Santa and tiny little presents. Second place went to the dude who made the GINORMOUS lit up and wheeled Parol. Yowza. First prize went to the gentleman who made the burlap/abaca covered parol.
Kudos to the winners. Each of their parols was unique!
The Philippine dance performance were featured as Suites which include dances from a particular region. There was a Tribal and Mountain suite, along with Muslim, dances with Spanish influence and the traditional country dances. PASACAT is the oldest Philippine dance company in San Diego and is renowned for their dynamic performances that are perfomed with a theatrical flair (one of the choreographers is a former dancer of the Bayanihan Philippine dance company). Below, the complex Muslim dance, Kasanduayan.
Now these next performers were AMAZING. This was Teye Sa Thiosanne, an African drum and dance troupe. They were so energetic and infectious! I cannot even describe how awesome this performance one. You can youtube this group and see an inkling of what they do. Seeing it in person was so quite the experience. Bert had seen them before at another cross cultural celebration and really enjoyed their performancel
The coolest thing about this performance though was the masked dancer on STILTS!
This guy was super high up and he was not only walking around but frenetically dancing while on stilts!
At one point, he had one leg bent back and was hopping around. When he left, there were little children following him!
One of the last dances of the show was the popular and graceful Fandango sa Ilaw (Fandango with Lights), performed with "candles" (they are really electric)..
Pandango is usually paired up with Oasiwas (which means "swinging" in Pangasinan, a dialect in the Philippines). The swinging refers to the lanterns which are swung in the handkerchiefs while candles are balanced on the mens' foreheads.
In all, a very entertaining evening. It was also quite fun for me to see TC perform as well!
When I think of the word parol, I always think of star shapes or stars. I thought I'd throw in a song reference, one of my faves from Earth Wind & Fire:
Damn, now that's groovy! Yeah Maurice White!
This song, at least on their album, is usually paired with "That's the Way (of the World). When you hear it on the radio, they are always together. It's like you can't listen to Queen's "We Will Rock You" without "We are the the Champions" right after. That would be a travesty breaking those songs up. Same thing awith Journey's "Feeling That Way" without "Anytime That You Want Me", or Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" with "Living Loving Maid". Yeah, I'm a nerd like that.
SO EWF's song leads me to this...the infamous dance by Elaine on "Seinfeld"!
Remember this episode? All I could think of when I first saw it in the mid-90's was the EWF song in the background! Oh yeah, and Elaine's terrible dancing! I think I'm just as bad! Ha ha! You cannot pay me to dance. Anywhere. At. All.
*For the record, that was the 138th episode, titled, "The Little Kicks" (the 4th episode of the 8th season which aired on October 10, 1996)
Past Parol Festivals:
2012
2011
2010
2009 is missing because I was serving food
2008
2007
and 2006 (which was the last time we attended "December Nights" in Balboa Park
If you haven't gone to a Parol Festival before, I highly recommend going to next year's! I am certain you will enjoy the merienda (food), the music, and the performances!
4 comments:
Man, my eyes are getting bad....I thoguht it read "parole festival"......WTF...
Haha, Kirk. Now THAT would have been interesting
Teye Sa Thiosanne made the festival for me this year. They were great. It was a really good turn out too. All the free food was eaten and a ran out of printed tickets at the door. The only drawback was that it rained (and heavy) during the festival. Although it was inside, people coming from the outside were soaked. All in all, a good festival.
hello husband,
yes, i'm glad the drum/dance troupe was able to perform this year. that was the best performance i'd ever seen. it was nice to see such a big turnout despite the rain!
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