Pagadian dancers bag awards in Dapitan fest

FESTIVAL DANCERS from Pagadian bagged awards in the 2008 Kinabayo festival July 25 in Dapitan City.

The 60 teenage dancers from the Zamboanga del Sur National High School Sta. Lucia Annex (ZSNHS Sta. Lucia) received P75,000 for the second prize, P20,000 for the best in street dancing, P10,000 for the best in costume, and another P10,000 for the consolation prize.

The Pagadian dancers were then the defending champion in the festival, as they won the first prize in 2007 Kinabayo festival, ZSNHS Sta. Lucia Principal Brigido Bayocot said.

The Kinabayo festival is a dance competition that re-enacts the crusade in Spain, in particular the battles of Covadonga and Clavijo wherein the Christian forces prevailed against the Moors with the reported miraculous apparition of St. James, the apostle, riding a white horse and wielding a sword.

The said battles were the turning point of the Spanish crusade because they gave the Christians the strongholds crucial for their eventual victory in Spain.
Originally, 20 contingents applied to participate in the Kinabayo festival, but because of the recent oil and rice crisis, the number of applicants reduced to seven.

Only the Pagadian contingent came from outside the province of Zamboanga del Norte. The rest represented either a town or a barangay or a school in the said province.

Ms. Alna Lasala, the Pagadian dance trainor, said the ZSNHS-Sta Lucia joined the festival primarily to promote Pagadian City as the new regional center.
“Our dancers really strive hard to win so that people from different places will get notice of Pagadian,” Lasala said.

Bayocot said that the same set of Pagadian dancers in Kinabayo Festival also won the second prize in the Subanen Keg Dance Festival in Ozamiz City last July 16. They received P50,000 for the Ozamiz award.

The dancers were backed up by props men, kitchen staff, and a group of advisers, making the Pagadian contingent a total of 130 persons, Bayocot said.
The ZSNHS-Sta Lucia dancers are consistent placer in dance competitions, Bayocot added.

Lasala said the ZSNHS Sta. Lucia dancers won a grand slam in the Pasalamat dance festival of Pagadian in the early 2004 for winning in three consecutive years. This grand slam made the ZSNHS Sta. Lucia the bet of Pagadian in the 2004 Aliwan national dance festival in Pasay City, she added.

She said that the dancers also won 1st price in the last ZamboSur Megayon dance festival in 2006 and in the dance festivals last year in the towns of Vincenzo Sagun in Zamboanga del Sur and Polanco and Liloy in Zamboanga del Norte.

Lasala said that she hoped that the city tourism office would recommend to City Mayor Sammy Co to have the ZSNHS Sta.Lucia dancers as the city’s bet in the upcoming dance festivals in Tangub City and in Iligan City.

In any dance festival, the city’s bet is either the dance troupe of ZSNHS Sta. Lucia or of ZSNHS Main upon the recommendation of the city tourism office, Lasala said.