‘Performatura’ at CCP in reading month

THE CULTURAL Center of the Philippines (CCP), through its Intertextual Division, celebrates the National Reading Month of November with Performatura Festival, Performing Literatures on Nov. 6, 7 and 8.

Performatura Festival, the free three-day event in various venues of the CCP, has over 200 local and international participating artists. The Department of Education declared November as the National Reading Month in 2011 to address the 10-point education agenda of the government, promoting a reading culture among learners.

In lieu of ticket sales, the public is enjoined to bring a book in exchange for a day pass in Performatura to gain access to the 10 performance sites for one whole day. The books will be for the benefit of the CCP’s Aklatang Bayan program led by the Center’s Library and Archives Division and the Cultural Exchange Department.

Aklatang Bayan aims to build resource hubs with a variety of books to develop a love for reading and art appreciation among children in poor communities in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

For a donated book or a day pass, the audience could experience the Epic Center (featuring Philippine epics), the CCP Café (featuring talks with National Artists for Literature), the Park Poetry Series, three art exhibitions (Chromatext Rebooted at the Main Gallery, Oral Literatures Exhibit at the Pasilyo Guillermo Tolentino and Binhi, Ani at the CCP Library), the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s “Inquirer Read-Along”, and a daylong summit of performances from young poets among other pocket events.

The festival name “Performatura”, coined by Festival Director Vim Nadera, is intertextuality at work where the terms “performance” and “oratura” had been combined. Defining intertextuality is one of the primary objectives of the festival. “Oratura,” on the other hand, was derived from another coined term “orature” by Pio Zirimu, a linguist from the Republic of Uganda, who wanted to put oral literature at par with the written word.

Like Uganda, the Philippines has a rich oral tradition that predates the Spanish colonization. The Hudhud of the Ifugao and the Darangen of the Maranao have been proclaimed as “Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity” by the UNESCO.