Breaking Tradition

BREAKING TRADITION

AROUND a decade ago, the Fine Arts Department of the Ateneo de Manila University was created. During that time, the only courses being offered were theater arts and creative writing, but recently courses in arts management and information design have been added. Ever since the first batch of fine arts majors reached their senior year, the Fine Arts Festival has become a yearly practice.

          “[During the] first year, it was just a showcase of all our seniors projects. We were the first batch. There wasn’t really any benchmark to surpass or whatever. We just wanted to have a grand event,” says Missy Maramara, former theater arts major and current teacher with the fine arts department.

          Xander Soriano, current secretary of the department, describes the birth of the first festival in this way: “The first batch of theater arts and creative writing...their thesis adviser asked them what they wanted to do. Imagine unlimited budget…unlimited resources— what do you want to do? They brainstormed. We want this number of productions. We want this. We want that. And then finally, they wanted to do so much. We can actually have a week where we can present all of this. That’s how the fine arts festival began.”

          And the festivities continued. Year after year, the seniors would have their own form of celebration until it became tradition for each batch to equal or attempt to outdo the previous one in terms of artistry and impact.Of course, it was good that the students were so passionate about showcasing their plays, design concepts, and literary works. However, the possibility of the festival becoming all flash and no substance was becoming a real problem.

          Xander explains the predicament by stating that “as it evolved, the lines between the thesis and fine arts fest were blurred until the fine arts fest equaled thesis, which we didn’t want. More importance was placed on logistics than on than the creative work or content. We made it clear two years ago that the fine arts fest is not the thesis...It has to be made clear that what we are grading is your actual creative output [and not the festival].”

          April, a creative writing senior at present, believes that concentration should be given to the writing of their thesis, and not on the festival. She states that there is no use forcing the issue of joining the festival traditionally held on the third week of January if they have nothing worth showing in the first place. Likewise, she points out that the festivals usually focus on plays and art exhibits, with the book launches being overlooked.

          Isel, also a creative writing senior and block representative explains how the current plan of the block is to have a book launch at the end of February instead of following the traditional schedule of a week-long festival. She explains how they just want to have a night where they can launch their compilation of works and celebrate their being writers and their being seniors in the Ateneo. “Working on our thesis is more important, and there are just too many monetary and time constraints to have a full-fledged fest,” she says.

          Last year, the information design majors boycotted the festival, so that they would have more time to prepare their theses presentations. This year, the creative writing majors may do the same. “There should be no problem standing a bit outside the spotlight. It is not the main goal of creative writers to be a part of that just to fit in,” April says.

          As was mentioned by Isel, fine arts majors have to raise their own money for the festival. This includes funding for the reservation of venues, props, lights and sounds for the playwrights, canvases and LCD displays for the information designers and art managers, as well as the printing of the literary compilations for the writers. Even in the Ateneo there are starving artists.

          Another problem in organizing the Fine Arts Festival is that there was never a set blueprint to follow in the first place.

          According to Missy, “there were always problems because it was always innovative...it wasn’t an imposed culture that you just had to fill in the blanks...and of course you have artists [with] raging hormones and you have students on the verge of graduating, so you have a lot of different sensibilities and opinions.”

          “It’s more difficult now because it was never systematized from the beginning... whereas before it was informal. If it’s informal everybody should know each other. The group should be smaller. Now that the number of FA majors is so large, you can’t rely on the informal ties of the students. There are creative writing majors that don’t have friends from information design, or that don’t get to interact with those from theater arts or arts management,” Xander explains.

          He continues by stating that “now the department is realizing that it might be a good venue to launch the thesis— that it might be a good promotional tool— we’re trying to institutionalize it.”

          When the festival began, there were less than ten students organizing the event. Now, there are over one hundred fine arts majors, majority of who are taking up information design. The prospect of gathering as a group, of planning and raising funds for a weeklong event from scratch within a time limit of a semester and a half is extremely daunting, especially since one has his thesis and academic requirements to worry about as well.

          Both April and Isel agree that if the rules for organizing the festival were more organized, if there were a more logical timeline to follow, and if there were more support from the department, it would be more endearing to push through with the event.

          On the other hand, Missy has a different take on the issue: “I think eventually it [the Fine Arts Festival] will be institutionalized. Maybe it will work differently; it would be more efficient in certain aspects. [But] students may react violently to institutionalizing it because it’s their thing.” According to her, the lack of artistic freedom that comes with making the festival to academic might prove problematic for some students.

          Nevertheless, as it stands, the blocks are making individual efforts. Theater arts majors and creative writers focusing on playwriting will showcase their plays during the festival, while the rest of the creative writers and the information design majors may opt for later dates.

          Amidst all the problems and the confusion as regards the festival at present, there is also the problem that different persons have different visions of the ideal Fine Arts Festival.

          Xander explains how there have been conversations between teachers and students of the fine arts about how the festival, in order for it to be a “True Ateneo Fine Arts Festival,” should be a celebration of the arts not only for the fine arts majors, but for the entire Loyola Schools. He says “it would be a lot more difficult to organize, but it would be nice to have.”

          But to Isel and April, and probably to most currently seniors from fine arts courses, this vision of an Ateneo-wide festival is furthest from their minds. If even organizing the traditional festival seems impossible at present, why think about doing more? April says that “We should just concentrate on writing what we are good at, and let the people who matter, such as our fellow writers from the English and Filipino Departments, know what we do...we couldn’t care less if other courses are interested in our works or not.”

          Missy has a more inspiring message to give: “Don’t let it die! We’re the pioneers you see. Not just my generation, but ours. There will always be the difficulties..., but if you see it as something greater than those challenges and those difficulties...if you just stick to your goal and you have your process then it will pull through. So don’t let it die because it’s such a good avenue to discover your art, to discover yourself, and to discover what there is out there for you.”

          Once again the festival will push through this coming third week of January 2009. It should have relatively the same impact (which is not really impactful in university-wide standards) despite the lack of participation by most of the creative writing seniors.

          Still, the involvement of the creative writers might be greatly missed. According to Missy “the creative writers have always been an important aspect...of the fine arts [festival]. They were always who wanted things put down on paper. They wanted a process...Contrary to popular belief that writers are very solo-solo [cliquish], creative writers, as I’ve noticed throughout the years, like working together with the others, and they keep trying to be a community.”

          Nevertheless, it will not be this year’s fine arts majors that will be affected by the plans the department has for the future of the Fine Arts Festival. If the tradition will continue as it is, or will evolve (or devolve) into a new way of celebrating the arts, only time will tell.