The Abatan River Theater sparkles in Prague!

From one cultural capital to another, Bohol represents in an international festival dubbed the Olympics of Theater Design.

Prague, the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic, and among Europe’s traditional cultural centers, hosts many of the world’s biggest cultural events, one of them the Prague Quadrennial (PQ) of Performance Design and Space 2011 on June 16-26.

The quadrennial is the largest event of its kind in the world, with 60++ participating countries – presenting contemporary work in a variety of performance design disciplines and genres – costume, stage, light, sound design, and theatre architecture for dance, opera, drama, site specific, multi-media performances, and performance art – veritably a cultural Mecca of approaches to theatre and stage design!

A six-meter high bahay kubo, designed by scenographer Rolando “Rollie” De Leon (also the PQ National Curator for the Philippines) served as the Philippine Pavilion for the main exhibit area in Veletrzni Palace, the building of the Czech National Gallery. “Photos, videos, maquettes, and costumes will be installed ‘suksok’ style inside the bahay kubo. It’s inspired by the Pinoy penchant for inserting things in crevices, jambs, joists, and holes in walls.”

One of scale models or maquettes featured in the Philippine Pavilion is that of the proposed Abatan River Ecological Performing Center or the Teatro Abatan. Conceptualized by Lutgardo “Gardy” Labad and designed by Arch. German Janus Niño Guidaben, Teatro Abatan will be an open-air theater by the river at the Cortes Pavilion which will utilize the existing pavilion and docking area as the spectators’ seating, whilst the staging area sits on the river, the performance area blending into the waters and the surrounding mangroves – making the river itself the theater staging area. Embraced by the beautiful Abatan River, Teatro Abatan will truly make for a unique scenic and mystical ecological theatrical experience.

The Ecological Theater will be the theater home base of the Abatan River Cultural Groups and Collectives performing for the Abatan Community Life Tour, thus a venue for bringing artists and their performances together at one space.

Arch. Guidaben, himself, attended the Praque Quadrennial, seeing to it that the Teatro Abatan will get the attention it deserves. True enough, the model caught the attention of international designers and theater architects. They, impressed with the presentations, discussed with Niño the possibility of holding in 2013 a Theater Architecture and Design Forum in the Philippines.

After meeting up with the Philippine members of the International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians (OISTAT), Bohol has clinched a place to host one of the 2013 Special Meetings of the Theater Architecture Committee of OISTAT, along with demonstrative presentations of Bohol’s ecological theaters in various sites in the province, especially the Teatro Abatan site.

Gardy Labad and Arch. Guidaben are currently developing the master plan for the TEATRO ABATAN facility with the help of NCCA, the PHILIPPINE UNESCO DREAM CENTER, the UNESCO ITI CENTER OF SOUTH KOREA (where Arch. Guidaben and lights designer Jerameel Decasa will finalize their designs in consultation with the Seoul Institute of the Arts), and the Provincial Government of Bohol and the Abatan River Development Management Council (ARDMC). It is hoped that the facility will be completed by end of 2012.