One Visayas closes with a bang

CEBU, Philippines – Just like the way it started, the One Visayas project closed with a big bang yesterday capping the week-long activities that highlighted the different cultural aspects of the region.

A lecture on The new school on film, how to edit film and creation on film was showcased yesterday morning with series of dance presentations in the evening by representatives of the three provinces.

One Visayas hopes to bring together the provinces of the three Central Philippine regions to showcase the best of their culture and art forms.

Each province was provided booth to showcase the best it can offer in terms of practices, tourism, products, services and others.

There was also an area of feature works of the provinces’ artists.

This was conceived as a venue to give the undiscovered artists the needed exposure and for them to sell their art.

A brainchild of Cebu Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia, One Visayas was launched last October when the heads of the three Regional Development Councils came to Cebu and began threshing out details to bring together nearly 20 provinces under one roof.

With the theme “One People, One Vision,” this mother of all festivals paid tribute to home-grown talents to perform, demonstrate or talk about the different native, indigenous visual arts, theater, film, architecture, literature and being Bisaya during the said eight-day affair.

Gov. Garcia said the project aims to strengthen the cultural bond among the different islands in the region.

“Instead of quarreling with the people in Manila, we in the Visayas regions started to look for the commonality in us, something that we can work on,” said Antique Gov. Salvacion Perez.

The One Visayas project, similar to the concept of One Cebu program was conceptualized during a recent meeting in Iloilo City. — Jasmin R. Uy/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)