Binatbatan Festival:showcase the traditional weaving craft

 

City of Vigan celebrated the week-long Binatbatan Festival of Arts with various cultural events featuring the City’s historical significance as the World Heritage Site.The City is known for its unique architecture combining the Philippine and Oriental structural designs, with colonial European architecture. Binatbatan Festival traces its roots from the abel weaving industry of Vigan which has been in existence even before the Spaniards came to colonize the PhilippinesIt comes from the word batbat, a pair of bamboo stick used to separate cotton pods that come from a tall tree called kapas sanglay.It was celebrated on April 29 to May 6.

The streets were closed, and people congregated in specific areas.The drums are pounding loudly and clearly.The street dancers proudly proclaim "Viva Vigan!" in colorful costumes.Binatbatan Festival street dancers wave their "batbat," some imitating the way used by abel-weavers in separating cottons as they gracefully conduct the process artistically to the beat of drums and lyres rolling along the historic streets of Vigan's heritage city. Binatbatan Street Dancers also have a basket behind them in which they place the cotton pods harvested from the kapas sanglay tree.

I purposely did my blog late so that I could give my personal insights about the Binatbatan Festival.This year's Binatbatan is more likely a reunion to many.I've meet and seen a lot of friends and old aquitaince after the pandemic hit our country that made us lost our social life.After how many years,I felt relieve.Relieve and hope seeing the world slowly going back to how it was.Moreover,the celebration and culture was exactly the same from before like how I described it on paragraph 2.I also want to acknowledge the patient of the dancers and the generosity of the event organizers to make these festival memorable.It was undeniably a hot day however the street dancers still continued to wear smile of pride with our rich culture and heritage.Indeed,the Binatbatan festival has grown to be one of the largest cultural gatherings in the Philippine archipelago

 

REFERENCE:

https://www.edmaration.com/2012/05/viva-vigan-festival-binatbatan-street.html?m=1