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For 18 years now, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) has been organizing the National Arts Month (NAM) in the month of February with a series of festivities and activities mounted throughout the country celebrating Filipino artistry and promoting the arts and the artists. For 2009, the celebration takes a leap by going international under the name Philippine International Arts Festival (PIAF).

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It will feature the talents and performances of the many artists and art groups in the seven arts on whose trainings, competitions, and creative expressions NCCA has invested the past year or so. More than a way of looking back at past accomplishments, the festival will be a celebration of the fruits of the creative efforts for the past year and a looking forward to a richer, more fertile ground in the coming years for the evolution of artistic modes of expression available to the Filipino creative imagination.

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The National Arts Month started with Presidential Proclamation No. 683 in 1991. Now, the NCCA, led by its Chairman, DepEd Usec. Dr. Vilma Labrador and Executive Director Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, through the NAM Artistic Committee headed by Prof. Ricardo de Ungria, Commissioner of the NCCA-Subcommission on the Arts (SCA), is taking the celebration to the next level by calling National Arts Month the Philippine International Arts Festival (PIAF) for next year.

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Selected artists from different countries are expected to join in the different PIAF events through the PIAF Artistic Committee in coordination with the Philippine International Theatre Institute (ITI) through its Sec. General Malou Jacob, also concurrent NCCA Executive Director.

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All over the country, different arts and culture groups as well as local governments will hold events for the PIAF with funding and support from the NCCA. With the theme �Ani ng Sining,� the PIAF has evolved from Manila-centered activities to a truly national event with key activities in all three major island groups, Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, involving hundreds of artists from different disciplines of arts and reaching thousands of people from all walks of life and all over the world.

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The following are some of the highlights to look forward to in the 2009 PAIF:

��������� The Ani ng Sining Launching. PIAF Ani ng Sining will formally open in three venues: Launching on TV (Sunday noontime variety program); Sining Gising of NBN 4 and Concert at the Park with delayed telecast in NBN 4. Philippine International Arts Festival will also simultaneously be launched in major sites in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

��������� PA(ng)LABAS. The project is a composite of a traveling exhibition, lecture-forum, and a film showing which will examine both the medium of film and the form and style of architecture as they relate to the development of film media, architecture and urban landscape. The title Pa(ng)labas is doubly coded to encompass both the concepts of projected moving image (palabas) and the exteriority of architecture (panglabas) to establish a sense of place. It will happen from February 9 to13, 2009 at Cine Adarna, Aldaba Theater, University Theater of the University of the Philippines; from February 16 to 20, 2009,at the Cultural Center of the Philippines; and from February 23 to 27, 2009 at the University of San Carlos in Cebu.

��������� Walai-Vernacular Architecture of Mindanao. This is an architectural drawing and photography exhibit of the vernacular houses of Mindanao culled from the Walai Pangampong project, complemented with a lecture series, selected ritual dances and craft works associated with house building and construction, and a model replica of selected indigenous structure. It is slated from February 1 to 6, 2009. ���������

��������� Sinerehiyon. This is a showcase of nascent cinema from the regions. From the highlands in and around Baguio to the heart of Bicolandia that is Naga City; across the thriving Visayas cities of Cebu, Bacolod and Iloilo; and through Mindanao between Cagayan de Oro and Davao, a new generation of artists is telling stories of their own cultures and people in cinematic form. This will be from February 17 to 19 at the CCP.

��������� Sayaw Pinoy. This touring dance concert brings together different dance forms and features local dance troupes of the host cities and municipalities performing back-to-back with the different professional dance companies in the country. This will be from February 6 to 9 for the Visayas and NCR regions; from February 13 to 16 for Mindanao; and February 20 to 23������� for Luzon.

��������� Tanghal! The 3rd National University Theater Festival. Hosted by Colegio de San Juan de Letran-Calamba, the event will feature university-based theatre groups from Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao and NCR in cooperation with the Lusong Luzon Arts and Culture Network. It will happen from February� 10 to 14, 2009 at the Colegio de San Juan de Letran-Calamba.

��������� Taboan: Philippine Writers Festival. This will be a celebration of the word�written, painted, sung, or performed�and will assemble writers from all the regions and across generations who will interact with one another and with their audience on issues pertaining to their craft or the situation of writing in the country, or read from their new works. This will happen from February 11 to 13, 2009 at the UP Diliman, Ateneo de Manila and Cubao Expo.

��������� Organik Muzik. This is a series of four concerts showing the metamorphosis of elements of Philippine music from village roots to urban manifestations, from Cordillera traditions to Kadangyan�s world music, from Leyte�o siday to Junior Kilat�s reggae Binisaya, from GAMABA Awardee Samaon Sulaiman�s virtuoso kutyapi-playing to the hard-driving neo-ethnic rock of Popong Landero, from flights of Balagtasan to the acid-jazz rants of Lourd de Veyra and Radioactive Sago. Musical innovator Joey Ayala weaves the journey towards a coherent whole. It will happen on February 7, 2009 at SM Baguio; February 14, 2009���� at SM Cebu; February 21, 2009 at SM Davao; and February 28, 2009������ at SM Mall of Asia.

��������� Philippine Visual Arts Festival ‘09.� It will be a convergence of selected various Filipino and International Artists from the different regions of the country. It will feature the talents and performances of the artists and groups in the visual arts whose trainings, competitions and creative expressions NCCA has invested on the past year or so.

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Also, as part of the National Arts Month and in line with the Poverty Alleviation Program of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and the Cultural Caregiving Program of the commission, the NCCA will be tapping programs for artists� like the signing of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between NCCA and the Provincial government of Rizal headed by Gov. Jun Ynares for the Artists� Housing Village in Angono, the launching of the newly-restored Metropolitan Theater, and the unveiling of the Urdaneta Park in Urdaneta City, Pangasinan, in commemoration of Fray Andres de Urdaneta�s 500^th �year.

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