EIGHTEEN festivals later and Katigbawan, Catigbi-an’s uniting farm fest gest back to the streets this year in their signature carabao back kicking move and the horned sway as the town folks celebrate their 74th Foundation Days, 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 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 Saturday, June 17.
Participating contingents are consolidated barangays to form districts, eight of them are joining and completing for this year’s Katigbawan Festival, says Ardissa Recimilla Estavilla, Catigbian Sanggunian Secretary.
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, minimum entry is 20, maximum of 30, excluding the festival queen and instrumentalists.
And for the spectators and performers’ safety, organizers ruled: flammable materials, pyrotechnics, fireworks as part of the ritual, is strictly banned.
Prizes at stake are the top three major prizes at P10K with trophy, P7K with trophy and P5K with trophy.
The contingent adjudged best in Street Dancing also gets P3K and trophy while the Katigbawan StreetDancing Festival Queen gets P3K.
One of the very 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 which are well springs of creativity have still retained the authentic characteristics of the Katigbawan, 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 at 7:30, the parada sa kabaw features costumed and embellished carabaos taking to the streets. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)
