Dancing in the

Philippines

By David Castillo, Le Nguyen, Tyler Whipple

Philippines

Cebu and Leyte

 History Tinikling

•Legend has it that the peasants, when

punished were beaten, between two bamboo
poles, against their ankles having to jump to
escape.

•Tikling
bird is a bird with long legs and a
long neck.

•This dance imitates the movement of this

bird as it moves in the forest and fields.
•The Tinikling dance originated in
Leyte.
•When Spain conquered the
Philippines, the Filipinos were
made slaves.
•They were punished rather
harshly by being hit by two
bamboo poles on the ankles.
•This punishment evolved into a
song and dance.

•The costume varies in this

dance.
•The women can wear one of two
things: the balintawak, and the
patadyong.
•The men wear: Barong Tagalog
 Patadyong
A plaid dress in bright colors

Barong Tagalog

Formal Atire, made from pineapple fiber

Balintawak
A dress with wide-arched sleeves
and a panuelo or handkerchief
 •The Tinikiling involves two people
beating, tapping, and
sliding bamboo poles on the ground.
• A man or women steps over and in
between the poles to dance.

•It involves five steps:

•The first four steps, the
dancers dance opposite each
other.
•The last step, they start
from the same side of the
poles
Instruments: the bamboo
sticks are also used as an
instrument, by using a
staccato beat every 1st beat
per measure for four
measures.
Props: Bamboo Sticks
Space: A boy and a
girl face each other
and jump together to
the beat. Following a
four counts per
measure.
As they dance the girl
holds their skirt and
the boy’s hand on her
waist. Not all the
time.
Modernized Tinikling dance influenced by American culture

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asgQ4lWug3s
History of Sinulog Dance
•The costumes are basically the same as
the Tinikling
•But, the props and the music is way
different.
•The dance movement is also different.
•Because of the name Sinulog, which
means wave, it has a the same motion as
a wave.
 Props: Prayer book,
candle, Santo nino de
Cebu.

•Costume: They wore almost the

exact same thing as in Tinikling.
•The women wore brightly colored
headdresses.
•The men wore their formal attire, a
pineapple shirt with red trousers.
Instuments:
Drums, wooden
sticks.

Culturally the Sinulog

dance has changed to
include more religions and
more cultures, in the U.S.
the dance evolved into
competitions with new
instruments, such as the
flute, and more creative
costumes and different
types of chanting.
•The dance steps in
Sinulog is based on
the form of a wave.
•When they dance
they move up and
down, with one step
forward and one step
back and two more
steps forward.
•The dancers will
carry a candle in their
right hand and a
prayer book in their
left hand while
chanting the words
“this dance is for my
father, this dance is
for my mother, etc”
Modern Changes of the Sinulog Dance
•During the reign of the During this time many of the
Spanish, the Filipinos Filipinos migrated to the
had a hard time U.S. to get better jobs.
adjusting to their rule. They worked on plantations
•When most of the land in Hawaii and California.
was in the “pure”
Spanish and Mezitos. When certain laws were
passed, to prevent Asians
from immigrating to U.S., the
When the Philippines won Filipinos were able to do
independence from Spain, immigrate without any formal
the United States made bureaucracy.
them a commonwealth, or
territory of the U.S. This eventually led to some
discriminating actions take by
some citizens of the United
States.
A perfect example of
discrimination is. During the
start of the great depression,
many Americans were afraid
that this people would take
their jobs. While for the
longest time the Filipinos
worked doing the worst jobs,
busboy, janitor, and working
in the fields.
When working in the fields,
they were accosted. While
many of the buildings, and
equipment was burned, or
damaged, by the whites.
They were literally forced off
the land, so they could not
work. A funny thing was that
the state of California did a
survey and found out that the
whites still didn’t want to do
these jobs.
Another thing was that any
Asians weren’t allowed to marry
any white person. During this
era.
Also when an expert in a certain
field came to the U.S. they had to
work at other jobs before they
could work at what they learned.
Also they passed a law
called the Tydings-
With the increase of better
Mcduffie act. Which
immigration laws, smarter
basically stopped the
Filipinos immigrated to the U.S.
flow of all Filipinos to
Like doctors, and engineers,
the U.S.
this was called the “Brain Drain”
This brought around a
greater reform of the
U.S. so the Philippines
While through it all the Filipinos
could gain
have held onto their beliefs. While
independence ruling
American culture has effected
themselves.
them for the good. Even when
oppressed they did not change
While in recent years
their on personal and religious
this has changed. With
beliefs. But, it did take a few more
the radical changes of
years before they had their own
the sixties, Filipinos
church in the U.S.
slowly gained a better
chance in the U.S.