Visual Arts, Moryonan Street Play, Cenukulo Performance and Easter Sunday Festival
Marinduque is known for Marcopper mine tailings spill and butterfly exports. But prior to this and even after the covid19 which coincided with its centennial year of autonomy from Quezon province, the islands of Marinduque have been deeply spiritual if not religious. Between 1807 and 1857, Fr. Dionisio Santiago started a Lenten tradition based from the biblical figure St. Longinus and its native counterpart Longhino, the blind roman soldier who flipped and proclaimed god is real and jesus is god. This belief system and worldview is put to the fore from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. This year’s Lenten tradition have certain key changes and innovation with Anto Monteagudo’s Holy Monday’s opening with “Tuldok, Kuwit” literally, semi-colon referring to his painting technique about island daily life focused on moryon masked locals. Then the comeback of moryon with a vengeance after three years of the raging pandemic. The narrative of longhino, who initially the tormentor of God’s begotten son until he speared Jesus’ side and got his blood unto his eye. Then the street theater begins with three times of evading captivity and the fourth time he would get beheaded and have a funeral rite with other moryons symbolically burying him and having a simple meal after the funeral. Cenakulo was almost a 50 year recorded “bible story” during Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday and Black Saturday starting from the creation account to the birth and trial upto the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This time, cenakulo sticks to its origins, last supper according to this year’s director Danny Mandia. Marinduque is a silentscape rightly so because God is dead but during easter Sunday, a festive streetdancing parade concludes the 40 days of Lent called Gasang-gasang based on the etymology of the town Gasan. Gasang-Gasang Street Dancing Festival is organized annualy by the Gasan Culture and Arts Foundation Inc headed by Dr. Rex Emmanuel Asuncion. This assemblage of faith, tourism, creativity and innovation constitute Marinduque as a creative island not only during the Lenten season but hopefully the basis for an orange economy to flourish and nurture changemakers, innovators and creatives as a viable alternative to mining as considered by the national investment board as “green metal.”
Gasan culture-profile
Gasang-Gasang Easter Sunday Street Dancing Festival
Gasang-Gasang Easter Sunday Street Dancing Festival is a popular festival in the Province of Marinduque. It is the only festival in the whole country that commemorates the agony,
passion, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is celebrated during Easter Sunday. It started in 2003 under the Municipal Ordinance number 100 declaring “Gasang-Gasang Festival an Easter Sunday Dancing Festival and Appropriating Exclusive Funds for its presentation”. It is in celebration of the origin of the town’s name Gasan which came from the term “Gasang-Gasang”, the local term for coral stones that once abound near the mouth of the Matandang Gasan river. The Gasang-Gasang Easter Sunday Street Dancing Festival name was given by the former Cultural Coordinator of the Municipality of Gasan, Mr. Eli Obligacion. It is the merry-making and choreographed street-dancing to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.
Participants are dressed in colorful attire made from indigenous materials, danced in full spirit to the beat of the drums as they parade along the major streets of Gasan shouting “VIVA EL KRISTO” in celebration of the Risen Christ. After the street dancing, the ground competition will be held at Guingona Park. Though not as grand as other festivals, it has become a festival to see in Marinduque every Easter Sunday. In recent years, delegations from other towns have started participating.
Gasang-gasang Easter Sunday Street Dancing Festival 2023 program To recapture the old Easter Sunday glory of the moryonan, the Local Government unit of Gasan in partnership with then Gasan Culture and Arts Foundation (GASCUAF, Inc), a private organization of cultural workers and enthusiasts decided to stage the first street dancing festival in Gasan in 2002, which is the Gasang-Gasang Easter Sunday street dancing festival. To make the event distinct from other cultural celebrations in the island of Marinduque during Easter, the name adopted Gasang-gasang, the origin of Gasan which is a local ter for coral stones that once abound on the shores of the pre-colonial settlement.
Gasang-gasang easter Sunday street dancing festival is an annual activity which depicts the christian’s celebration of the risen christ and was purposely programmed at the end of the observance of the lent so that after the long and solemn celebration, it will shift into an atmosphere of rejoicing and jubilation.
