by Czarinah Galve, Staff Writer
After 6 years, the Filipino-American Club made a comeback on stage during Galileo’s Multicultural Assembly on November 30th and December 1st. With the help of Kuya Ray and Kuya PJ, who are part of the SOMCAN organization, the Barkada club were able to step out and represent Filipino culture.
The club decided to represent Filipino culture at Galileo after Ms. Jackie Alacon, who organizes the Multicultural Assembly, approached the Barkada Club and asked them to perform for the assembly. The club ended up practicing 2-4 times each week at lunch for 4 weeks to prepare for their performance. The performance included a Filipino song sung by seniors Samantha P. and Anghel R. to show an old-fashioned way of courting people called “Harana.” and a traditional dance called “Tinikling”.
Senior, Samantha P. expresses her excitement, “I was excited to show something that’s part of our culture because it’s something that I’m very proud of! Not a lot of people know about the Harana so I’m happy our club was able to introduce stuff like this to each other.”
Putting the performance together took time as the group needed to get everything down. “When we first learned the “Tinikling” dance, we didn’t have proper choreography and our dance came from the group’s past knowledge of it. Though it was messy and confusing at first, we were able to get the hang of it and add our own steps to the dance,” Kuya Ray said.”
There were other issues the group faced in preparing for their performance. Originally the time duration of the performance was set at 10 minutes, but every week the club would get news that the amount of time to perform would change, which led to confusion and stress.
Another stress for the club was the amount of preparation time before the assembly. The group thought they only had about 3 weeks to prepare for the assembly, before it was moved to November 30th. And even then, the club felt it wasn’t enough time. Kuya PJ states, “I think that more time would’ve been great, maybe set the multicultural assembly in the 2nd semester.”
Overall, the Barkada Club felt that they could’ve done a better job with their performance, but given there were scheduling conflicts, and the majority of the members had other things going on at the same time, they felt they did pretty well.
Ultimately, everyone was proud of the performances they gave. “I didn’t want to do it but I ended up enjoying the performance,” said Miguel E, Tinikling dancer. Senior Lualhati N, Tinikling dancer, added, “I was really excited about the performance and the day I got overwhelmed but enjoyed the experience,” and Juliana L, dancer, said “It was nerve wracking but a fun experience.
