Text and photos by Kimmy Baraoidan and Chris Quintana
Photo by Chris Quintana.
“Actually, totoo kasi ‘yung sinasabi na ‘Sino ba’ng may gusto ng history?’ (Actually, it’s true, the saying, ‘Who even likes history?’” said 36-year-old Sari Saysay, director of Sining Banwa, a community-based theater group from Legazpi City, Albay. We were sitting on the steps of one of the side entrances to the D.L. Umali Hall in the University of the Philippines Los Baños, talking about the group’s original rock musical Oktubre, just right after the show.
The rock musical was part of the 2nd Likhandula International Arts Exchange and Collaboration, a week-long arts festival organized by the Arts Research and Training Institute in Southern Tagalog Incorporated (ARTIST, Inc.) in cooperation with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.
Photo by Chris Quintana.
Oktubre is about the 1917 October Revolution in Russia (also known as the Bolshevik Revolution), where leftists, led by the leader of the Bolshevik Party Vladimir Lenin, revolted against the provisional government—a group of leaders composed of Russian bourgeois capitalists. This particular one is actually the second of two revolutions that occurred in Russia—the first one in February 1917—that put an end to imperialist rule.
These two revolutions occured during the time when Russia was still in the process of industrialization. They were sparked by persistent social unrest due to poor conditions of industrial workers, overcrowding, food shortages, and poverty. Lenin was intent on forming a Soviet government that would be ruled by councils made up of soldiers, peasants, and workers. In October 1917, the Bolsheviks successfully took over government buildings and other strategic areas in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg), and soon established a new government with Lenin as head.
Having people, especially the youth, read history can catapult them to dreamland in no time, but delivering it to them in an art form such as theater can be much more effective in opening their eyes and ears to the past.
