Philippine Folk Dance

• The history of Philippine folk dancing incorporates influences from immigrants and conquerors while at the same time maintaining distinctly Filipino roots.

  • Philippine folk dancing is a true reflection of daily life in past centuries while enchanting the modern audiences at the same time
• The history of Philippine folk dancing incorporates influences from immigrants and conquerors while maintaining distinctly Filipino roots.
• Philippine folk dancing is a true reflection of daily life in past centuries while enchanting the modern audiences at the same time.
• Folk dance is a community dance that emanates among the people of the area, commonly with Indian, Chinese, Indo-Chinese, Indonesian, Malay, Spanish, and American influences.
• These dances were introduced by Spain to replace ethnic dances in the different festivities celebrated in the region.
• Ethnic dance is a dance belonging to a group without Western influences.
• In pre-colonial days, pagan rites were practiced all over the islands.
• Animistic rituals to celebrate planting, harvest, birth, death, and all kinds of community activity were common occurrences.
• Dances of the Cordillera are dances of the people who live in the Cordillera region, named by the Spanish Conquistadors when they first saw the mountain ranges.
• She was also known as the “Mother of Philippine Folk Dancing”.
• She is a recipient of the Republic Award of Merit and the Ramon Magsaysay Award.
• Cordillera groups are pagan people, living simple lives to appease their gods, celebrating their daily lives through rituals.
• Banga is a dance performed by the Kalinga of the Mountain Province in the Philippines, illustrating the languid grace of a tribe otherwise known as fierce warriors.
• Ragragsakan is a dance portraying the walk of the industrious Kalinga women, carrying water pots on their heads and wearing the colorful hand-woven "blankets of life" around their necks.
• Nearly 400 years of Spanish rule left an unremovable mark on the Philippines, bringing with them all aspects of their culture, including the Catholic faith, clothing, and dance.
• The barong tagalog and the terno are Philippine interpretations of Spanish dress made to fit the humid climate of the Philippines.
• The costumes and props of the original dances were either adopted or done away with: the rounded castanets transformed into two elongated bamboos, and to cover shoulder and back, the women used panuelo.
• Dugso is a ceremonial dance usually performed during the feasting or kaliga, as a thanksgiving of a favor granted.
• Itik-Itik is a mimetic folk dance in the Philippines, originating in the province of Surigao in Mindanao, with dance steps that imitate the movements of ducks among rice paddies and swamplands, such as wading, flying, and short choppy steps, as well as the way it splashes water on its back to attract a mate.
• Tinikling is a traditional Philippine dance which originated from Leyte during Spanish colonial era, with movements that imitate the movement of tikling bird as it walks around through tall grass and between tree branches.
• Binasuan is a dance where dancers carefully balance three half-filled glasses of rice wine on their heads and hands as they gracefully spin and roll on the ground.
• Pangalay is a dance that emphasizes the agility of the upper body, with the rhythmic bounce of the shoulder and simultaneous alternating waving of arms as the basic movement.
• The dances of the rural farmers that inhabit the countryside areas are the most famous of all Filipino dances.
• Pangalay is commonly performed at weddings and other social gatherings.
• The traditional women’s version of the malong shows countless colorful designs, used mostly as a skirt, woven in many different ways, depending on the purpose of the wearer.
• The Maranao people, along with other ethnic groups from Mindanao, have a rich warp and woof of cultures that existed since the time immemorial.
• Dancers have serious facial expressions and move with an air of reverence throughout the dance.
• Other ways the women wear malong is as a shawl, a mantle, or a head-piece.
• Francisca Reyes Aquino is a folk dancer from Bocaue, Bulacan, noted for her research on Philippine folk dance.
• Pangalay Ha Agong, also known as Sambi sa Malong, is a Maranao dance that shows the many ways of wearing a malong, a simple tubular yet highly functional piece of cloth.
• The Jota brought by the Spaniards from Southern Spain found its way into many places in the islands.
• One such jota is named after the valley it adapted.
• Pandanggo was first created in the Philippines during the 15th century when the country was first colonized by the Spanish.
• The Barong Tagalog displaced the French Tuxedo.
• The Cariñosa is a Philippine folk dance of Hispanic origin, closely associated with the island of Panay and the Visayan region in general.
• It is a combination of Spanish and Ilocano dance set to Spanish music and castanets.
• The word cariñosa is from the Spanish cariñosa meaning the affectionate one.
• Pandanggo sa Ilaw is a popular folk dance in the Philippines.
• Pandango Oasiwas is a Spanish Fandango dance with its origins coming from the fishing town of Lingayen in Pangasinan.
• Pandanggo Oasiwas is a Spanish Fandango dance with its origins coming from the fishing town of Lingayen in Pangasinan.