The Pasangan Cultural Dance Troupe performing at the Kahayag Dance Company’s 20th anniversary concert.Folk dance, on paper, seems largely passe – a mere fragment of a bygone era. But the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
At its heart, folk dance is storytelling in dance form. It tells stories of what goes on in our daily lives, whether from the distant past in towns forgotten or from the here and now. It tells tales about courtship, separations, revolutions, tragedies, faith, and families – all parts of a whole that add up to becoming our cultural identity.
“Folk dance…if you do not appreciate it – if you can’t find it in your heart to appreciate folk dance – then you don’t have an identity,” Kahayag Dance Company’s Aiken Quipot unabashedly says. “Because it is what you are. It is what separates you from other cultures”.
Member, Kahayag Dance Company Aiken Quipot.“Kahayag”, in Cebuano, means “to illuminate” or “to shine a light”; and Dumaguete City’s Kahayag Dance Company lives up to their name by shining the spotlight on the traditional stories from Negros, Visayas, and all over the Philippines for a modern audience. It was never just dancing for the troupe – it was also about introducing folk dance to the contemporary masses. The mission when they started in 2004 was, according to Kahayag Dance Company’s former director and choreographer Ronnie Mirabuena, “youth empowerment through the arts”. The mission hasn’t changed much 20 years later. It may have expanded its scope from gaining independence, but the advocacy of promoting folk dance still rings true. Indeed, Kahayag Dance Company has lived up to its name by being a beacon pointing the next generation towards a niche dance style and the stories behind the dances.
In their 20-year history, the group has even become a family, which was the organic result of the blood, sweat, and tears left on all the stages and studio floors on which they had stepped foot. With all the ups and downs that the collective has been through in their personal lives and their careers in the craft, their story as a family was, unbeknownst to them, already being written.
The Kahayag Dance Company performed a classic at their 20th anniversary concert.Breaking the Mold
The story of the Kahayag family began at Dumaguete City’s Silliman University. Their introduction to the world was the institution’s way of shifting focus from ballet, a product of its Western heritage, to the more locally rooted folk dance style. Albay native Ronnie Mirabuena, upon an invitation from the university to revive the school’s dance program, was understandably hesitant to accept given the distance. As a counter offer of sorts, he presented the university with a two-week workshop that he would conduct to familiarize himself with the environment. It was also Mirabuena’s way to get to know the students and gauge their interests in the dance form. He decided to stay due to their growing desire to learn and dance the genre. He also witnessed the passion and dedication of the troupe’s pioneering members to revive a lost dance form in an age of modern dance styles.
The transition from ballet to folk dance was a huge shift for the dancers, as Mirabuena tells us. “Part of the mindset was to tell them that folk dance is an interesting dance form and an interesting dance genre,” he recalls. The more the students rehearsed and trained, the more they appreciated the dance, he says. “Because our dances are very colorful, very dynamic, very diverse, and full of narratives,” says Mirabuena. “And you get connected not only with your fellow dancers, but with nature, with people, and especially with God,” he adds.
The Kahayag Dance Company posing for the camera in Cambodia.In those days, folk dance wasn’t the first choice of the students interested in dancing in Silliman. They wanted to dance to what reflected pop culture at the time: ballet and hip-hop. Even for Kahayag member Camille Cabrera, folk dance wasn’t on her radar back then. Upon a friend’s encouragement, she tried it out and auditioned – and eventually passed. She later discovered that the more she immersed herself in folk dance and learned its steps, the more she became enamored with it. “You fall in love with it as you study folk dance, with its history and how it tells a story,” Cabrera says.
It was a similar case for member Cheenee Limuaco. “When we learn the dances, we are taught its history, we are taught the narrative behind those dances,” she says. “It’s not just Tinikling, you’re not just dancing over bamboo. There’s a story behind that and what you are representing. I think that was the factor that made me fall in love with folk dance.”
Limuaco-Gaston Dance in Motion ballerinas performing at the Kahayag 20th anniversary concert.Kinship Through Dance
The stories of the folk dances weren’t the only ones being illuminated in Dumaguete, however. What began as a tale of a mere dance troupe eventually became a story about a family composed of members from different regions in the country with various backgrounds, different upbringings, and different cultures united by a love for folk dance.
It’s exactly that love for the dance that they intend to pass on not just to the next generation of dancers, but to their audience as well. Pioneer Kahayag member Richu Kung says that when he started with the troupe, it was about passion. As time progressed, the passion developed into love. “Dancing has to be easy; it has to be subtle,” Kung adds. “You have to find comfort in dance because your audience will see that. What’s the point of dancing if you can’t move someone?”
Singer Katrina Saga performing during the Kahayag Dance Company's 20th anniversary concert.After performing for two decades on regional, national, and international stages, the Kahayag family has had more ups and downs than they can count. Chief among them was a falling out with their home base for more than a decade. After the Kahayag Dance Company and Silliman University parted ways in 2013, the family encountered trials and what amounted to homelessness. When they were still living under the roof of Silliman University, they never had to worry about resources and finances. Everything was provided for. “When we transitioned to being community-based, that’s when all the struggles started,” Cheenee Limuaco tells us. “We had to look for venues where we could dance. We had to look for a safe place where we could perform. And we had to look for funds. We were on our own,” she recalls.
They were a dance company without a studio to rehearse in. But it was those initial struggles with having no place to call “home” that molded the family into becoming who and what they are now. It set the stage for Limuaco to open her own dance studio, Dance In Motion, where she serves as the Director. Naturally, the studio also became the Kahayag Dance Company’s new home.
Ready to dance their way to new horizons!Stars are Born
Resilient as the dance style they champion, they still actively pursue the mission to pass on their experience, knowledge, and love for folk dance to the next generation. Renslie Enguito, the youngest member of the Kahayag family at 20 years old, discovered that his interests aligned with the dance troupe’s. Enguito wants to educate people about the beauty of folk dance, making him a perfect fit in the family. The future educator thanks the Kahayag family for accepting him and, despite his professed lapses, helping him not just to become a better dancer but a better person as well.
With the Kahayag Dance Company transitioning to a community-based group, they now have more liberty to pursue projects that widen the scope of their mission. The Bansayaw lecture series, their effort to promote folk dance, has been a mainstay in schools in Dumaguete and neighboring towns for the past five years. It’s the Kahayag family’s way of spreading folk dance awareness to the public, as well as giving back to the community that they love.
The legacy of the Kahayag family has even spread outside of Negros Oriental. Claudio Ramos, a pioneer member of Kahayag, has since moved to Isabela, Basilan. Aside from working as the city’s tourism officer, Ramos also serves as the Artistic Director of the Pasangan Cultural Dance Troupe – a group composed of students and young professionals that he formed out of necessity due to the nature of his work. He hopes that his students will eventually pass on what Kahayag has taught him during his stay in the group.
Richu Kung works as a nurse in Australia where he, like Ramos, carries the Kahayag torch. His day job, however, is still what he has loved to do for decades. Kung is part of the Australia-based Filipino folk dance group Hiraya. He also dances as part of the contemporary folk dance group NUDO.
Strength in unity.In Pursuit of Negrense Pride
The Kahayag family members have also been living out their advocacy on an international stage. It’s in their concerts abroad, Cheenee Limuaco says, that they’re reminded why they can be proud of the Filipino culture and its folk dance. After the group went through an existential crisis of sorts where they started questioning their purpose and why they were still shining a light on folk dance, it was during a performance abroad that it all seemed to feel right once more.
After the Kahayag Dance Company’s Taiwan performance in 2023, several Filipino workers in the country approached the group and told them how proud they felt watching their performance. “I think it was that moment that reminded us how and why we are doing this and why we are performing up to now,” Limuaco shares. “It is that feeling of pride bringing Negros, bringing Negros dances, bringing Negros culture out to an international platform”.
Official logo: Kahayag Dance Company Philippines Inc.; “Keeping the fire burning; sharing the light!”The Kahayag Dance Company celebrated its 20th anniversary on September 21, 2024, with a concert that more than encapsulates what the Kahayag family is all about. It’s an accumulation of blood, sweat, tears, and love from over the last two decades. Titled “Panumduman: A Tribute to Negros Oriental and Two Decades of Kahayag’s Legacy,” the concert that was held at Silliman University’s Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium is a testament to the love that the Kahayag family has for the craft, for the community, for their cultural identity, for the mission, and of course, for each other.
Article and video script: John Mari A. Marcelo
Photos: Paolo Correa; Cheenee Limuaco
Video: Grilled Cheese Studios
