“Tanghal-Tula” is a one-week workshop in writing and performing poetry. In the first ASEAN Poetry
Conference-Workshop held in Manila in 1995, the Literature Division director who headed the secretariat, noted that the Filipinos
were lagging behind in performing poetry. They may be excellent in writing, but compared to their counterparts from the other
ASEAN countries who recited poems with ultimate showmanship at a moment’s notice, they could not perform without clinging
on to a text or a script. That showed the Filipino poets’ strong orientation to written poetry, and the tradition
of the great mambabalagtas as exemplified by Jose Corazon de Jesus, Florentino Collantes and Amado V. Hernandez is now all
but a memory. The academic writers’ workshops and the literary contests like the Palanca awards which put a high premium
on the manuscript or written text have grabbed the limelight from the performance of poetry. Performed poetry which used to
be the hallmark of the civilized village and which links Philippine oral poetry to its Asian roots has lost its prestige,
now buried under a heap of pulp literature called tsismis (gossip) and lingguhan (weekly) “vernacular” magazines.
A “Tanghal-Tula” workshop combines writing, as if a poem were a script, and theater performance.
A poem may be recited or read, sung or chanted as in an epic or ritual, staged and/or performed with music, dance, visual
art and /or multimedia presentation. A poem may be a lyric or a narrative or a combination of both. The
advantage of being introduced to creative writing and performance via the poetic craft may be better appreciated in the discipline
one acquires in metaphorical language.
Because of the difficulty of finding one who is a master of both written poetry and performance, we hire
a team composed of a poet who is good in writing and teaching the writing of poetry, and another who is a performer or director
and can teach performance. Poets who have written poems are ideal participants. But in the localities, poets who do not consider
themselves poets recite poems not written on paper. The oral tradition is alive in the provinces and in the hinterlands and
poems are recited in the local languages. These poems or verses usually follow traditional rhyme and meter as well as metaphors,
imagery and symbolisms that are normally called cliches in modern poetry. Here one finds a conflict between the aesthetics
of traditional poetry and that of the modern. “Tanghal-Tula” has to bridge the two and enrich both. A well-written
poem has to be performable and vice versa.
In choosing resource persons, we always consult the beneficiary group. We request the local organizers to
find a counterpart resource person (a poet or theater person based in the locality or region) who will compose the other half
of the team. A resource person who will teach writing has to be proficient in the language of the locality. Participants are
required to write poetry in the local language/s. Use of the local language/s eliminates a lot of problems in both writing
and performance and, in fact, facilitates the creative process and research. If the counterpart resource person is a theater
person, CCP brings a poet-resource person, or vice versa. CCP hires both. The idea is to promote exchange and collaboration
between CCP/Manila and the region, and to avoid the usual situation where Manila/CCP takes the role of the “educator”
and the local community that of the “student”.
In the process of the workshop, we encourage the participants to do research on their native folklore, local
history, local language/s and their lexicon, local artistic and cultural traditions and heritage, local artists, local sites
and the origins of their names, aside from community issues like environmental problems and political personalities. These
are all challenging subjects of research and materials for creation.
In Loon, Bohol, fisherfolk who composed drinking songs with ease and vigor came to the “classroom”
bursting with pride when they brought bundles of scripts and photographs showing their artistic ancestry; they never realized
before that their grandparents were the great zarzuelistas of their community, no wonder, the participants were such gifted
songwriters and singers.
In Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur, a participant - a Manobo - came up with several legends of his tribe showing
to all and sundry the rich vocabulary of his own language. To tap it all, he had an oral lore to prove that Sta. Cruz, before
the town was renamed Sta. Cruz by virtue of the miracles of the Holy Cross the friars claimed as benefiting the locality,
had an indigenous name, i.e. Tubuan, and rich culture.
In Cagayan de Oro, it took a “Tanghal-Tula” workshop to expose some young participants to see
the city’s wet market. But they emerged victorious from the “expedition”: their poems were the wittiest
and had the freshest images.
In Tagbilaran city, the Boholano high schoolers showed extraordinary talent crafting modern day tigmo-tigmo
(riddles) as they created new metaphors for the cellphone and the computer and later entertained themselves quizzing each
other with their new “inventions”.
In the Iloilo National High School, Iloilo city, some 60 high school teachers shed off their shyness learning
poetry writing and performance using a blanket; indeed, it was play and teaching could be such fun.
In Maragondon, Cavite, in a shrine dedicated to the martyrdom of Andres Bonifacio, where the Supremo of
the Katipunan was subjected to a farcical trial before his execution in Bundok Buntis more than a century ago, the teachers
and youth reflected on their community’s history and created lines, images and body movements that would help them come
to terms with their role as heirs of a nation at the crossroads of a new century.
In Silay city, young and middle-aged community leaders and artists gathered to give form to their community’s
contemporary realities by constructing new meanings out of their folklore and rituals.
The workshop closes with a performance and exhibit showcasing the participants’ best individual and
group works. The community, local officials and sponsors are invited to witness the program and view the exhibit so they may
be encouraged to replicate the experience even without the CCP managing the exercise. It is assumed that as they continue
the experience with new participants, new and better skills in creativity as well as project management are attained, and
more managers and teachers are developed. An added incentive for the participants is the publication of their best works in
the ANI journal in a succeeding issue. With the camaraderie and cultural pride inspired among the participants, a “workshop
graduation” usually features the induction into office of officers of a newly formed association, alliance of writers
and cultural workers or theater group in the community.
In 2003, “Tanghal-Tula” was among the favorite modules in the “Sine sa Eskwela”
program of the CECSD. The program aims to strengthen the arts in the curricula of selected pilot high schools all over the
country. In many a workshop session in Laoag city, teachers and students were made to reflect on their lack of knowledge of
and concern for their own language, literature and culture. No wonder that teacher and student would rather watch a bad movie
or television program than read a good literary work in their own language. After the workshop attended by teachers at the
Isabela State University in Roxas, Isabela, however, the participants felt they were ready to outdo each other in a poetry
writing and performance competition. Some of them felt they could publish their poems in national publications. Such confidence
should translate into greater ease in intertwining technical expertise and creativity.
