KE-POP: Kalinangan Ensemble Performers Overcoming a Pandemic
PETA ARTISTS PRESENT NEW THEATER WORKS AMIDST LOCKDOWN
QUEZON CITY, Philippines – The Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) continues its yearly tradition of the PETA Laboratory despite the lockdown! Aptly called KE-POP: Kalinangan Ensemble Performers Overcoming a Pandemic, PETA presents a wide array of new theater offerings relevant to this time of COVID-19, now available for audiences on digital platforms.
Last September 21, PETA launched its first-ever online arts festival, the FESTIVAL OF WINDOWS 2020: LOCKED BUT LINKED, which proudly showcases creative works and unafraid expressions about Filipino’s stories of triumph and survival. The Festival, strewn across September to December 2020, comprises four “sub-festivals” from PETA’s different programs, beginning with the School of People’s Theater’s sulYAP Kabataan PLAYlist last September, followed by Lingap Sining’s 3G, Connect! Community Arts Festival – Online which opened this weekend, and ARTS Zone’s START: A Quest to Claim Our Safe Space this coming November. Capping of the Festival from November 27-29 and December 4-6 is the PETA Laboratory called KE-POP: Kalinangan Ensemble Performers Overcoming a Pandemic headed by PETA’s performing arm, the Kalinangan Ensemble.
PETA Artistic Director and PETA Laboratory Director Maribel Legarda describes KE-POP as a tribute to the artist’s capacity to be creative and resilient despite COVID-19. “The global pandemic has been a challenge to all. But I think, most especially, the artists are one of those who have been hardest hit,” she says. “In this platform, we’re trying to create stories that resonate with the times, but we’ll also be introducing our actors and the people behind PETA that give a face to what we do as artists.” For two weeks, PETA will stream a collection of short and full-length plays on the virtual stage. This will include fresh and exciting new works that will focus on the vast theme of humanity and human rights, plus a collection of past theater performances, beloved classics, adaptations and musical hits.
In partnership with ktx.ph, KE-POP presents one of its most in-demand hit musicals, Care Divas, along with the voter’s education musical Juan Tamad, Ang Diyablo, at Ang Limang Milyong Boto, and, for the first time on screen, the historical and landmark musical, 1896 – the first and only sung-through musical in the country, which tells the story about the Philippine revolution. Alongside the streaming of these past plays, KE-POP presents six new works in PETA Lab Sets A and B.
Show Dates
- November 27-29, December 4-6
- FOR TICKETS: Visit www.ktx.ph
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These new explorations are PETA’s response to the changing times we are currently facing, by creating works of art that echo the stories of Filipinos today. “We would really love and need the energy that the audiences bring to us, because of course, we miss that,” says Maribel Legarda about migrating theater to the virtual stage, “That’s the gaping hole that will never be filled. But given this condition, we’re more than willing to accept this challenge – explore and create new ideas and new stories, and at the same time, introduce who we are as artists.”
No quarantine will stop us from creating, no lockdown will keep us silent. Join us for PETA Laboratory 2020, KE-POP: Kalinangan Ensemble Performers Overcoming a Pandemic this November 27-29 and December 4-6, as we bring the theater’s spirit of joy and community – from live to the virtual world – until the curtains rise for the Filipino people once again.
Join PETA for the Festival of Windows 2020: Locked but Linked on www.facebook.com/PETATHEATER, @petatheater on Instagram and Twitter, www.youtube.com/petatheateronline, and www.petatheater.com.