Friday, July 23, 2010

OCPAG to the Battle of Clavijo (KINABAYO Festival 2010)


Oroquieta City - The city’s self-liquidating Performing Arts Group (OCPAG) with its 120 member’s contingent this year will join and wish to win the legendary Battle of Clavijo of Spain as the religious theme of the yearly Fiesta celebration of Dapitan City on July 25, 2010 thru its original choreographed dance and music adaptation.

With 90 percent of the group participants who came from the (OSY) out-of-school youths of the different barangays of Oroquieta City and 10 percent are students and professional from different high School and Colleges based in the City of Good Life.

The OCPAG or the Oroquieta City Performing Arts Group was born thru the effort and leadership of the city’s Youth and SK Coordinator under the City Mayor’s Office, Mr. Gilbert Roa, a licensed Medical Technologist who prefers more on the Culture and the Arts manage to establish the OCPAG.

As an artist, He started working on his first group, Tribu Malindang the City Cultural Troupe who won Arts and Dance battles like the Dalit Festival in Tangub City in 2007 and Harvest Festival of Dumingag, Zamboanga del Sur as champions.

This year, OCPAG will be presenting a 3-12 minutes choreographed dance drama with the beating of drums and sound of trumpets defecting Dapitan City patron saint, Santiago Matamoros, (St James, the Moor-Slayer) as the legendary fighting Saint riding on a White Horse aided the Spanish Army in the Battle of Clavijo, Spain.

Not only winning prices of the festival, OCPAG is also promoting the city culture and arts practices and its tourism programs potentials with the support of the SP Committee on Tourism, The Office of the City Mayor under City Mayor-elect Jason Paredes Almonte.

Dubbed as the 2010 Kinabayo Festival of Dapitan City, a 2nd class city in the province Zamboanga del Norte , this religious-cultural event is an another boost for the tourism industry in honor of the city’s Patron Saint Santiago Matamoros ("Saint James the Moor-slayer").

With its relics, the Battle of Clavijo was a legendary battle, supposedly fought in 844 near Clavijo between the Christians led by Ramiro I of Asturias and the Muslims led by the Emir of Córdoba. Saint James the Great, known to Spaniards as Santiago Matamoros (the Moor-slayer), is reputed to have aided the vastly outnumbered Christian army. Some aspects of the historical Battle of Monte Laturce (859) were incorporated into this legend, as Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz demonstrated in 1948.

The legend as it survives was first written down in the twelfth century. A forged grant to the Church of Santiago de Compostela by which Ramiro reportedly surrendered a part of the annual tribute owed him by all the Christians of Spain also dates from the mid-twelfth century.

With the yearly Kinabayo Festival, Dapitan City is also historically significant as being the place where the national hero, Jose Rizal was exiled by the Spaniards and is known as the "Shrine City in the Philippines." With its tourism program the city also boasts of Gloria’s Fantasyland, the first amusement park in the Visayas-Mindanao region.

This year contest will also be participated by other cultural Troupes like from Pagadian and Oroquieta cities, the municipality of Liloy and Polangco of Zamboanga del Norte and a Barangay Cawa-Cawa of the host city as confirmed recently by the Fiesta organizers.

With its 100-T, 1st Prize cash prizes and trophies 80-T for the 2nd place and 65-T for its 3rd place, the OCPAG hopes to bring the bacon home.

“It’s a way of showing to our friends and neighbors, cities and localities that Oroquieta has its own culture and arts and we would like to share it to them, and be a part of our Philippine Tourism and strongly believe that we can also do it” Mr. Roa said.(PJTremedal-BND/MisOC/CIB-OCM,/www.onlinenews-mindanao.tk)

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