“Wadje tale” in Cortes dance drama up soon
IF plans do not miscarry, Cortesanons would have a brief preview of the dance drama of epic tale Wadje, fully performed by amateur Cortesanon artists from the town’s riverside barangays.
Set for a minor launch this October 17 and a repeat performance for October 21, Cortes Foundation Day, the dance drama entitled Wadje sa Abatan sa mga Panghitabo would showcase debuting local artists retelling the handed oral traditions about the famed lady warrior Wadje.
Early this year, the National Commission for Culture and Arts tasked Drama Committee Chair and Boholano multi-awarded artist tasked Lutgardo Labad to study the possibility of a cultural shows complementing Abatan Community Tours.
With a trigger fund from the government through House Committee on Tourism Chair Edgar Chatto and from PROCESS Bohol’s interest in complementing the community tours, executive director Emilia Roslinda initiated the first coordination meetings toward the goal.
Lucky for Cortes, a Cortesanon theater artist and New York based stage director Lorely Garrote-Trinidad, local artists Blair Panong, Sebastian Ocon, Phillip Panong, Rey Anthony Chiu, grounding research for a workable script first started April this year.
Months later, after interviews and research, the frail but epic character of Wadje was a common thread for local lores about the place.
Prodding open the oral memories handed from generations, researchers unearthed the buried tale of Wadje and husband Mag-ile, warriors of Sacsac.
The tale was all too colourful not to be noticed.
The sketchy storyline patched from oral traditions. folk tales and a little persistent archaeological venture grounded the story about Wadje’s transformation from a submissive wife to a ruthless sentinel of the Abatan River came, said pool of writers.
The development in turn excited PROCESS, a non-government organization helping Abatan Riverside Communities keep watch over the river environment.
Nothing could be more fitting than Wadje personifying river environment protection: Abatan river tour’s foremost come-on.
After months of workshops at the Cortes Central Elementary School, choreographers Alfonso Corbita and Toto Cuhit honed the amateur thespians until they gained enough confidence to perform the scenes plucked out from the script.
But, if the audience would be in for a drama loaded with powerful lines, they are in for a big surprise, said a local artist in a casual talk.
Wadje uses powerful dancing to show the entire story in so little time.
It entails doubling up on the effort and skill of local artists to come up with a compelling story which Cortesanons and every tourist should grasp in a sitting.
More than that, the raves would rather be on when Wadje would finally jump into the stage, more than four hundred years after her story fail to lie still in the marshlands of the Abatan. (PIA)
