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The Palo-Palo in Batanes, Philippines: From Colonial Legacy to Performance of Solidarity
- Asian Theatre Journal
- University of Hawai'i Press
- Volume 35, Number 1, Spring 2018
- pp. 174-191
- 10.1353/atj.2018.0019
- Article
- Additional Information
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Abstract:
This essay is a preliminary discussion of the palo-palo, a cultural performance of the Ivatan community in the Batanes group of islands in northernmost Philippines where performers strike "opponents's" sticks to reenact a battle of two opposing camps. The first part is a descriptive narrative of the palo-palo performance. The second part is a preliminary analysis and theorization of the palo-palo's origin by arguing that the performance could have been based on and/or inspired by the komedya, a Philippine traditional theatre form introduced by the Spaniards during colonization which has roots in the socio-historical conflict of the Christians and the Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula in Southwest Europe. Generally, the localization of the form is argued to be paradoxically an embrace and repudiation of the foreign.