WALKING THROUGH PURGATORY
deadly sins were interpreted through multigenre installations and performances from the degree programs of Theater, Dance, Music, Design Foundation, Multimedia, and Fashion.
“In commemoration of Dante Alighieri’s 750th birth anniversary, we wanted to instill an appreciation and deeper embodied understanding of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy with special focus on the Purgatorio. Dante’s great epic poem is a profound treatise on sin, absolution, and eventual redemption that reveals itself in multilayered metaphors, Christian exegesis, and vivid imagery that begs to be performed and engaged with through the arts. Students of CSB, as well as the community as a whole, find relevance in this medieval masterpiece as a way of understanding our own struggles and yearnings for spiritual journey amid the onslaught of urban blight and congestion, the seduction of consumerism, the vagaries of our emotions, desires, and despite our physical character, and circumstantial limits,” says Dr. Sunita S. Mukhi, associate dean of the Culture and Arts Cluster of DLS-CSB and project head of the event.
Through singing, dancing, acting, fashion design, and even cosplaying, the students and faculty of the school brought Dante’s poem to life, capturing the heart and mind of the audience, encouraging them to climb the stairs of the building, be purged from their sins and reject the temporary promises of the world.
“We tried to make it more relevant to the students by adding a cosplay aspect to it, which invited the students to engage with their own understanding of who in their world of media, literature, and gaming would be part of heaven or hell. This makes them relate to what could be perceived as ‘old-fashioned’ material and make them discover that indeed, he is a poet for all times, for all people. After all, Dante did write in the vernacular Italian at a time when Latin was the language of the hoity toity literati,” Dr. Mukhi adds.
Dean Joey Yupangco, dean of the School of Design and Arts (SDA) played the role of Dante, DLS-CSB president Br. Dennis Magbanua played as Beatrice who was Dante’s guide in the purgatory, acapella chants were sung by the Coro San Benildo, and a movement piece by the deaf and hearing dancers of School of Deaf Education and Applied Studies was performed the whole afternoon. The event ended with a medieval merienda provided by the School of Hotel and Restaurant Institution Management.
“We used the SDA building for the deadly sins, the ascension of Dante and the audience through the sins. The finale is in the cafeteria, which happens to be on the 12th floor. We chose the sixth, seventh, and ninth floors because they were good spaces to perform but also they are considered as sacred numbers. It was a feat in itself to involve the whole college and to give them the freedom and structure to create their own components for the piece. What I worried about was whether