By Jeanine Budd
Nine months of preparation culminated in Saturday’s “Kamayan 2007,” a celebration of Filipino culture through dance, food and spoken word.
The event included performances by student groups from Brown University, Boston University, Boston College, Tufts University and Northeastern.
Kamayan’s theme this year was, “I Want my D1TV.” Before each group’s performance, spin-offs of popular MTV shows from the likes of “Next” to “Total Request Live” were broadcast on a screen overlooking the stage.
The participating schools, excluding Brown University, are members of District One, a part of the Filipino Intercollegiate Networking Dialogue (FIND) that operates along the eastern seaboard of the United States.
“It’s great to have the whole district here. This is a once-in-a-year experience,” said Patrick Ng, a member of Northeastern’s Barkada, the Filipino student group that hosted the event.
Dance coordinator for NU Barkada Vanessa Sayajon said the event created unity between the student groups.
“It’s a good way of connecting different universities and Filipino organizations with each other,” she said.
In addition to bringing together District One, Kamayan was aimed at raising money for Gawad Kalinga, an organization devoted to “providing land for the landless, homes for the homeless, food for the hungry and as a result providing dignity and peace for every Filipino,” according to their website, GawadKalinga.org.
Their current campaign aims to create 700,000 homes in 70,000 villages in seven years, said Franco Solleza, a member of NU Barkada.
“It’s not all about the money. I mean, whatever you can contribute is good,” Solleza said. “It’s good to have people donate out of their own hearts.”
Kamayan began with performances of both the Filipino and American National Anthems, by Tiffany Yung and Ryan Marti, respectively, both of NU Barkada.
The first half of the event consisted of four traditional Filipino dances. “Carinosa,” a Spanish and Filipino dance featuring flirting by way of fans and handkerchiefs, was performed by NU Barkada. The Philippine Society of Boston College performed the “Bagobo Rice Cycle Dance,” which depicts Filipinos harvesting rice.
“Pandango Sa Ilaw” included dancers balancing oil lamps on their heads and the backs of their wrists, and was performed by Boston University’s Filipino Students Association.
NU Barkada performed “Tinikling,” a dance that uses bamboo sticks to create rhythm and imitate Tinikling birds that jump through bamboo traps.
Following the traditional dances, a spoken word performance by Brown University’s Archipelag-a served as a prelude to modern sets performed by Tufts, BU, BC, Northeastern and the District One executive board.
“I’ve seen Barkada before and I think they have the best energy ever. I think they’re so coordinated and they feed off of each other,” said Dana Brown, a middler music industry major. “[On a scale of one to 10], I give the performance an 11.”
After months of preparation, Kamayan was very rewarding, said Mia Roque, a sophomore business major and another dance coordinator for NU Barkada.
“I was in tears before we went on, because we’ve spent so much time together preparing this,” she said. “A lot of people came out who didn’t know about us. You can tell that the community at Northeastern is very strong.”
Students at the event said they enjoyed the combination of entertainment.
“I thought that was really cool,” said Rachel White, a junior sociology major. “I liked all the dancing, but I also thought that the [D1TV] videos fit very well.”
