Reunion

Francis Santiago. Finally, after almost a year, I got to meet the subject of my winning shot during the 2008 Bangus Festival photo contest. (Don't get me wrong but exotic is not a sexual preference of this photographer.)

His group was supposed to be the guest performer at the street dancing competitions of the Hundred Islands Festival in Alaminos City this year. Even before any group could perform, however, word spread out that this group, Tribu Pandan, the winners of the recently concluded street dancing competition (open category) of the 14th Panagbenga Festival in Baguio City last month would join as an entry. Not another competing entry dared show up. Not even the juicy first prize of P75,000 could make them change their mind.

Me and my mentor good friend Raymund Sto. Domingo were so disappointed since we had to rush all the way from Dagupan in my rusty (yup, not a typo) pickup at six in the morning after a hasty breakfast of our official pink salmon sandwich and coffee, only to discover we had to contend ourselves with one streetdancing group. Not exactly our idea of fun.

Anyway, since there was not much we could do about the whole thing, I decided to make the most of whatever was left of the morning and engage the handlers of the guest performers in a small talk and hope I dig up some interesting facts I could use for this blog.

I first met the group earlier last year during their local Mapandan Festival of which they were champions. A few weeks later, the same group won again during the Festivals of the North street dancing competition of the 2008 Bangus Festival.

Choreographed by Jonas Dizon and handled by Josefina Landingin Soriano both of Mapandan in Pangasinan, the group shows a lot of promise because of the details of their distinct costumes, a variety of new and original props, their dance routine and above all their catchy original music. I learned the music was produced by the town's mayor, Jose Ferdinand Calimlim, written by Vincent de Jesus who composed the soundtracks for Baler, Pisay and Crying Ladies among others and peformed by May Bayot, Lani Misalucha's older sister. The music has been used by their own Mapandan Festival as its official dance score since their local festival started five years ago.

According the Jo Soriano, they already have their eyes set on the Pattaraday Festival in the province Isabela which they have been invited to compete in May this year. The festival has traditionally invited winning entries of big names in the national scene of street dancing like the Dinagyang Festival and the Sinulog Festival. Here's to hoping this kabaleyan group continue to inspire other local groups to improve on their otherwise ecological friendly costumes and historical performances by winning once more. (Ecological and historical since local streetdancers tend to recycle and repeat last year's grand idea.)

And Francis? He tells me his photo has already graced a calendar of a prominent mall in Dagupan City.

So Far Away: My close encounters with the Taong Grasa of Dagupan

A Photo Exhibit by Ed Sevilleja
Exhibit Notes by: Kaye O'yek, Manila

Ed Sevilleja’s collection of photographic images in SO FAR AWAY portrays different images of the street vagrants of his hometown, Dagupan City. This assortment of candid portraits, called Mga Taong Grasa ng Dagupan by the multi-awarded photographer, started in 2006 as a side project that centered on these oft-neglected personalities mocked or ignored in the peripheries of functioning society, providing close encounters that common passersby rarely ponder on. They are there, and they are smelly, filthy, and out of it, and so what? We see them and we continue on our way through the humdrum rhythms of our daily lives.

Finally presenting his Mga Taong Grasa ng Dagupan to the public in SO FAR AWAY, Sevilleja exhibits the personalities he encountered roaming the town streets with his favorite lens. In doing so, and choosing the most striking pictures that create a visual narration of poverty, hunger, detachment and deprivation, he forces us to take a second look, evoking not pity but empathy, grabbing a few minutes of our attention and letting these images burn indelible imprints on our consciousness before we go back to our collective apathy.

By focusing his viewfinder on these individuals, the photographer captures various characters in their natural state, freezing un-posed instances with his camera. In Takeout, the taong grasa seems to be beckoning, offering scavenged food from a popular fast food chain. Kama depicts a grease man lying on bare cement, apparently resting from exhaustion or as an escape from reality. Kodak is a picture of a playful mirroring of the photographer in action. Istrol shows us a woman walking the streets in broken rubber sandals and utter nonchalance, comforted by a cigarette in her hand. In Buyangyang, easily the most revealing portrait of the lot, Sevilleja chooses to print his image in wallet size and let the audience peer through it a few meters away within the exhibition space and see the details of the picture through a telescope, defining the concepts of distance and intimacy.

Using a telescopic lens to capture most of the images, Ed Sevilleja keeps his distance from these seemingly unstable subjects because of the risk of physical harm, but his interest for his Mga Taong Grasa ng Dagupan nevertheless fuels his passion for pursuing the project and being on alert each time for that click-worthy moment only determined by a sharp eye for irony and aesthetics. With these portraits on photographic paper, Sevilleja affords us a way of seeing things from different perspectives, from realities close but still so far away from our own. In introducing these characters, he lets us dip our toes into their proverbial vessel of consciousness without total bodily immersion, creating visual confrontation against our own sensibilities without going into hyperbolic dramatization or psychology. The lines in the faces are enough, the images speak for themselves, and we are mere witnesses.