Tultugan Festival – Bamboo Dance and Music

It's More Fun in the Philippines, No.1 for Fun!

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TULTUGAN FESTIVAL

Photo from: http://mapio.net/s/75471408/

Tultugan is an indigenous Ilonggo bamboo drum used centuries ago by the natives of Panay to communicate with each other. The drum was used by the natives to send messages of distress to the community by making fast beats. Upon hearing, the beats neighbors will then follow the pattern. The transference of beats is crucial to the evoking the immediate action of everyone in the community.

Tultugan Festival held in Maasin every December 26th is the main tourist attraction of the municipality. It gives tribute to Panay’s rich culture. The festival features a competition between tribes wearing costumes with bamboo as dominant material and dancing to the beat of bamboo musical instruments. Also in the festival is the Gwapo-Gwapa Carabao, a contest of carabaos dressed in fancy costumes. Read More: http://www.localphilippines.com/events/tultugan-festival

Photo from: http://www.pinoytravelblog.com/2006/04/17/aliwan-fiesta-2006-3/

As a welcoming to the mayor’s office in the municipality of Maasin, local students performed a bamboo dance – accompanied by an all bamboo instrument band. The unique and delightful sounds of the various bamboo instruments reverberated a musical sense of enjoyment I’ve never heard or experienced before.

Tultug is an action verbalizing the act of playing sound on bamboo. Every year, the Tultugan Festival, held in Iloilo, features bamboo-based performances and competitions. This yearly event, held in the month of December, contributes to the evolution of bamboo music and dance in the Philippines. Read More: http://designcognito.blogspot.com/2007/10/bamboo-immersion-trip-day-3_24.html

Photo from: http://www.exploreiloilo.com/blog/tultugan-maasin/

The municipality of Maasin Iloilo is famous of its annual “Tultugan Festival” showcasing Maasin’s bamboo industry. Set one day before the town fiesta, Tultugan Festival features competition of tribes and street dancing with participants wearing native costumes made of bamboo as dominant material and dancing to the live beats of bamboo instruments. Tultugan comes from the root word Tultug, an action verbalizing the act of playing sound on bamboo. Usually this is rendered through a bamboo stick striking it against the body of the bamboo, thus becoming a rhythmic instrument called Tultugan. This is classified in ethno musicological term as idiophone because the source of sound is the body of the instrument being used as percussion in contrast to the membranophone where a membrane or animal skin is being struck as a drum. Read More: http://nap.psa.gov.ph/ru6/2/municipality_of_Maasin.htm

Photo from: http://fun-philippines.com/tultugan-festival-maasin/