In my almost two decades of being a resident of Metropolitan Manila, I confess I have not yet fully explored the city. One of the places that I have always wanted to explore was Quiapo and the University Belt where the majestic San Sebastian Minor Basilica (or most popularly known as San Sebastian Church) is…
Author: SAP Tiatco
I am Sir Anril Pineda Tiatco. And yes, Sir is really part of my name. I was not knighted - I wish I were. I am a Filipino academic from the University of the Philippines Diliman. I am interested in cultural performances - rituals, festivals and theatre performances. I am also a World Heritage Site enthusiast and an advocate of inscribing UP Diliman and Corregidor Island as World Heritage Sites. For more about me, visit: https://pages.upd.edu.ph/sptiatco/introduction
The Month of May and the Season of the Queen in the Philippines
The excerpt below is from my essay “Panata, Pagtitipon, Pagdiriwang: A Preliminary Contexualization of Cultural Performances in the Philippines” published in Humanities Diliman: A Journal of Philippine Humanities, a Scopus-listed journal published by the University of the Philippines Diliman. The journal is open-access, please click here for the current issue. To access the full essay,…
Performing Heritage / The Intramuros Project (The Project Brief)
On 1 April 2019, the project “Performing Heritage/The Intramuros Project” commenced. Funded by the University of the Philippines Diliman Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Development, the project is both an ethnographic study and a performance of ethnographic data about cultural heritage development. The goal is to problematize the concept of heritage via…
The Great Wall, not of China, but of South Korea: Hwaseong Fortress
It was cold winter. The temperature was dropping to 0 degrees Celsius. The good thing about this kind of weather was the coldness. I would not get sweaty and I would be very comfortable to move around. The bad thing about it was also the coldness: moving was limited and it ironically it was also…
Culture and Nature, the Everyday and the Holy Day, Bali and Tri Hita Karana Philosophy
According to Julia Roberts in the box-office film Eat Pray Love, Bali is the best place to fall in love. I did not get the reason exactly but I believe the film suggested that a serene and calm heart opens up for love. Bali’s serenity and its sort of calmness are viral infections that ironically the…
The Dead Lives Among Us: The Royal Tombs of the Joseon Dynasty
The International Federation for Theatre Research – Asian Theatre Working Group (IFTR-ATWG) 2019 was hosted by the Korea National University of Arts in Seoul through the Department of Theatre Studies’s Prof. Meewon Lee. The colloquium was slightly different in the sense that the opening program and the opening keynote were scheduled at 3:00 pm. We…
A Volcano Paradise that is the Jeju Island
My friends know very well how unaffected I am with nature (A.K.A. I am not a nature lover!). I remember how bored I was when I, together with my colleagues and friends, visited the World Natural Heritage Site Puerto-Princesa Subterranean River National Park (Underground River) in Palawan Island in 2012. It is not that the…
Art Nouveau and Victor Horta
When I was young, my only idea of Belgium was Christelle Roelandts. The year was 1994. And my interest in Belgium began. Christelle Roelandts and 1994? Miss Universe 1994 was held in Manila, Philippines. Christelle Roelandts was Miss Belgium and she was one of my favorites. Unfortunately, she did not make it – not even…
Paghahanap kay Miss B (Finding Miss B)
In 2009, I won my first Carlos Palanca Award for Literature (Full Length Play). In 2010, the University of the Philippines Press accepted the play for publication. In 2011, the play was finally published (my first book came out, yehey!). Below is the preface/introduction of Miss Dulce Extranjera o ang Paghahanap kay Miss B (University…
Performing Catholicism, Performing Ambivalence
In 2003, I was admitted to the master’s program (theatre arts) of the UP Diliman Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts of the College of Arts and Letters. My thesis was on the nailing ritual in Cutud in the province of Pampanga. The nailing ritual was not my original research plan. I initially wanted to…
