Kristian Kubuay of Oakland, is an artist/entrepreneur/futurist specializing in endangered writing systems and tattoos from the Philippines. As a leading authority for the propagation and instruction of prePhilippine scripts, he launched his own edutainment business specializing in custom art, books, events, technology, and apparel. Kristian has spoken around the world at museums, schools, and companies. His work is wide-reaching that spans across multimedia, traditional practices, and technology. He is currently working on his 8th book, 2nd documentary, education startup, and honing his traditional tattooing practice.

Apprenticeship Program

2024

Pre-colonial Philippine Tattoo with apprentice Iggy Mora

Kristian Kubay will mentor his apprentice, Iggy Mora in traditional pre-colonial Philippine tattoo practices covering a range of skills, including tool making, hand poke marking techniques, storytelling through traditional patterns, and skin stretching. By assisting as a skin stretcher at the mentor’s hand-tapping ceremonies, the apprentice will learn about the traditional symbolic patterns of the diverse ethnolinguistic groups of the Philippines.

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Living Cultures Grant

2023

Subli

Funding will support Arteche’s research and documentation of Subli, a religious folk dance of the (Philippine) Batangenya Tagalog ethno-linguistic group. 

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Kimberly (Kim) Requesto is a Philippine born, Mission District raised Cultural Worker and Interdisciplinary Artist based in unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Territory, also recognized as San Francisco, California. With an artistic foundation in Philippine folk dance, Requesto has dedicated herself to cultural expression and advocacy through movement, photography, and community outreach. Requesto has been part of the Philippine Folk Dance community since 2005, and is currently a part of Parangal Dance Company’s Artistic Team. She is also the producing artist behind Pangalay Circle, a workshop series focused on providing accessible resources and creating in-person dance circles, with hopes of connecting community members and seasoned practitioners who specialize in Pangalay dances and related forms.

 

 

Living Cultures Grant

2023

Pangalay Circle

Requesto will expand and continue the Pangalay Circle Workshop Series, which will showcase three forms of dances: Igal of the Sama, Pamansak of the Yakan, and Pangalay of the Ta’u Sug. These dances and their respective ethnic groups originate in the Sulu Archipelago in the Southern Philippines, between Mindanao and Borneo.

Apprenticeship Program

2022

Tongatong and Byallingbying
with mentor Jenny Bawer Young

Requesto, under the mentorship of Jenny Bawer Young, learned patterns and playing styles of the two main traditional instruments found in Kalinga: the Tongatong and Byallingbying, which are both made from bamboo. During the apprenticeship, Requesto reviewed the reasons for the patterns (what music is played for various events), as well as traditional dance movements for the music.

2016

Indigenous Kalinga dance of the Philippines
with mentor Jenny Bawer Young

As an apprentice to Jenny Bawer Young in 2016, Requesto trained in the practice of the indigenous Kalinga dance of the Philippines.

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Kai Delgado Pfeifer is a lifelong student and practitioner of Filipino cooking, indigenous agriculture traditions, and Hilot (Philippine traditional healing). Filipinx Food as Medicine is their grassroots education project centering Filipinx food and medicine traditions, and the stories embedded within them, as media for community health and climate justice. Filipinx Food as Medicine offers in-person workshops (one per month), virtual knowledge shares (two to three hours each), and five- to eight-week-long virtual courses (three cohorts per year) teaching Filipinx traditions of food, herbalism, agriculture, ritual, and cosmology. Participants gather in the ancestral format of ritual and talk-circle, which allows them to center the lived experiences of their ancestors and communities within the historical, political, and ecological contexts of the Filipinx diaspora. Since 2022, Filipinx Food as Medicine has educated close to 150 individuals from Filipinx and other BIPOC communities in the Bay Area and beyond.

Living Cultures Grant

2023

Filipinx Food as Medicine

Kai will provide scholarship spaces in each of Filipinx Food as Medicine’s Autumn 2023, Spring 2024, and Summer/Autumn 2024 cohorts to seven youth, LGBTQ, and migrant participants. Funding will also support in-person foodways workshops and garden days.

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Kulintang is an ongoing source of joy and purpose in my life.” – Conrad Jaminola Benedicto

Conrad ​​Jaminola Benedicto studied kulintang music with Master Danongan Kalanduyan for twenty years, starting in 1997. He was a member of Master Kalanduyan’s The Palabuniyan Kulintang Ensemble, as well as his apprentice with ACTA in 2007 and 2013. Benedicto now teaches kulintang to beginners and long-time practitioners; performs frequently; and supports kulintang culture bearers in the Philippines. With grants awarded by the San Francisco Arts Commission and the Zellerbach Family Foundation, Benedicto has also composed new music based on the kulintang tradition.

Conrad Jaminola Benedicto’s band, Kulintang Dialect, at Make Music Day 2023, in San Francisco.

During her apprenticeship, Jinji will learn the basic rhythmic and melodic patterns on all ensemble instruments for Kamamatuan and Kangungudan (styles of kulintang music). She will also build her understanding of how these parts contribute to the entire structure of different songs.

2013

Filipino Kulintang
with mentor Danongan Kalanduyan

In 2013, Kalanduyan and Benedicto returned to the Apprenticeship Program, focusing on the Filipino music form of Kulintang.

2007

Filipino Kulintang
with mentor Danongan Kalanduyan

After studying with the late Master artist and NEA National Heritage Fellow Danongan Kalanduyan for nine years, Benedicto became Kalanduyan’s ACTA apprentice, focusing on advanced rhythms and techniques on the five different kulintang instruments, improvisational techniques, and the history and social context of kulintang music. Bendicto also presented what he learned to his students at Balboa High School in San Francisco.

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In 2005, Peter Paul de Guzman traveled to the Philippines and serendipitously met Ligaya Fernando-Amilbangsa, a respected artist, researcher, and teacher of Pangalay. She began instructing him in the fundamentals of the dance, according to her own style. In order to hone a skill which generally requires years of informal training from childhood, de Guzman devoted himself to multiple long trips to the Philippines. There, he aimed to live and breathe Pangalay, joining Amilbangsa’s dance group, the Alun-Alun Dance Circle, and learning from indigenous master teachers in the Sulu Archipelago. Currently, de Guzman continues to center his training, artistic practice, and teaching around the Amilbangsa style of Pangalay.

Apprenticeship Program

2022

Philippine Pangalay Dance
with apprentice Caroline Julia Cabading

During this apprenticeship, de Guzman will provide comprehensive, private Pangalay instruction to Caroline Cabading using the Amilbangsa Method and culminating in a performance as part of a larger Pangalay cultural intensive. Cabading will learn movement vocabulary; Pangalay as both a solo and partner dance; improvisational individual expression; how to choreograph; and the history and cultural context of Pangalay.

2018

Philippine Pangalay Dance
with apprentice Jasmine Orpilla

Peter Deguzman will be working with his apprentice, Jasmine Orpilla, to enrich her understanding of the Amilbangsa Method of Philippine Pangalay dance.

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The NEA’s National Heritage Fellowship is our nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. These lifetime honor awards highlight the “breadth and excellence of the artistic traditions found in communities all across the United States.” We are excited to see cultural leaders of California honored this year.

“We are thrilled to see the unique legacies of Tagumpay Mendoza De Leon and Los Lobos recognized as National Heritage Fellows by the NEA,” said Amy Kitchener, Executive Director of the Alliance for California Traditional Arts.

“These California awardees have made seminal contributions in their musical genres of Filipinx Rondalla and Chicanx Rock—to interpret, innovate and expand the traditional musical heritage of California and the nation.”

Tagumpay Mendoza De Leon

Rondalla Artist from Burbank, California

Rondalla, the traditional string ensemble of the Philippines, often provides the music for Philippine folk dances and is prominent in community celebrations like fiestas, weddings, and other civic and social events serving the Filipino-American community.  Coming from a prominent musical family in the Philippines, where he and his brothers and sisters formed the De Leon Rondalla, Tagumpay de Leon is now deeply involved in the Filipino-American community of Los Angeles where he plays rondalla music with the Fil-Am Family Cultural Group.

“Having been involved with the Philippine cultural scene since my childhood days in the Philippines, I have been deeply attached to the beautiful sounds of rondalla music.  It is very important for the Filipino-American community to be constantly reminded of their culture and where they came from and one way I can accomplish this is to let them hear the beauty of their own music by listening to the rondalla.”

In 2002, Tagumpay was a master artist in ACTA’s Apprenticeship Program with apprentice Patrick Tanega, who has been playing in the same group with the Tagumpay since 1990.  The apprenticeship focused on increasing Patrick’s repertoire across all instruments of the ensemble.

Learn more about Tagumpay

Los Lobos

MExican-American Band from Los angeles, California

Los Lobos have defined the East Los Angeles sonic landscape for nearly a half-century. Formed in 1973 by guitarist/accordionist David Hidalgo and percussionist and lyricist Louie Perez, their joint eclectic musical interests led them to recruit two other students from Garfield High School. Guitarist Cesar Rosas and bassist Conrad Lozano joined and they decided to call themselves Los Lobos del Este. As young, music-loving Chicanos from the barrio, they were a product of their surroundings, applying African-American influences such as the blues, rock n roll, jazz, and doo–wop, as a natural complement to the deep and soulful Mexican and Latin American sounds they had grown up with, such as the bolero, rancheras, music Norteña, son jarocho, son huasteco, and cumbias, to give birth to their unique sound. The wildly successful soundtrack of “La Bamba” (1985) catapulted Los Lobos into international stardom, earning them industry recognition and a Grammy Award. Los Lobos has carried the torch of Chicano music into the present and has amassed a body of work that will be cherished, studied, and emulated for many years to come.

Learn more about Los Lobos

“The diverse art forms of the National Heritage Fellows allow us to experience and appreciate the rich cultural traditions that make up America,” said Ann Eilers, acting chairman for the National Endowment for the Arts. “It is inspiring how these artistic practices continue the legacy of generations past, while blending contemporary elements as they continue into the future.”

Learn more about all the 2021 National Heritage Fellows here.

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In 2021, a grant from ACTA’s Living Cultures Grant Program will support workshops and performances of the indigenous dances and music of Maguindanaoans, an Islamic tribe in Mindanao, Southern Philippines. Interactive workshops, developed and taught by culture bearers and artists trained in Mindanao by Maguindanaoan master artists, will be held with intergenerational participants at community events.

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In 2021, a grant from ACTA’s Living Cultures Grant Program will support Balay Kreative’s Inabel nga Indayon (Inabel Cradle Cloth/Blanket) project. Led by artist Rachel Lozada, this project will engage the Filipinx-American community in the creation of an inabel (traditional Ilocano weaving) cradle cloth. Weaving workshops will be held outdoors in-person, as well as live streamed online. This represents the first weaving of its kind to be made in the United States in contemporary times, and will honor the first wave of Filipinx (Manongs/Manangs) who came here in the early 1900’s.

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Malaya Filipino American Dance Arts was formed in Granada Hills 2012 and first presented Pangalay for the Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture in 2014. The work was groundbreaking because Pangalay had never been performed in its traditional form at the festival. Past performances of Pangalay have always been theatrical staged interpretations, but Malaya’s presentation was directly connected from the source by way of research and training with Ligaya Amilbangsa, a highly respected researcher and dancer of Pangalay. Since that initial presentation of Pangalay, Malaya has offered multiple workshops and classes to the general public and its members have undertaken intense study of the complex dance technique under Peter de Guzman, who studied directly under Ligaya Amilbangsa and is the Artistic Director of Malaya. Malaya has been able to share Pangalay at Sea World (2016), the Descanso Gardens (2016), Walt Disney Concert Hall (2018), and in 2017  they celebrated their 5 year anniversary where they presented a wide variety of Philippine dances that culminated with a 20 minute suite of traditional Pangalay dances.

Living Cultures Grant Program

2024

The Kapwa Project:

Funds will be used to bring together Filipino American dance companies throughout the state of California for the Kapwa Project, a series of interactive community music and dance workshops and a collaborative performance on indigenous Philippine culture.

2020

Malaya Filipino American Dance Arts received the Living Cultures grant to produce and present a full gala highlighting the traditional Pangalay dance/art form from the southern Philippines. The project will be the first time a full gala will be entirely devoted to Pangalay dance in the United States. The show will be a collaboration between Malaya, local artists from Los Angeles and the Alun Alun Dance Circle from the Philippines with the goal of sharing the depth, detail, and versatility of Pangalay to the Los Angeles community.

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