CAUAYAN CITY, Isabela- About 300 Bambanti Festival street dancers, with their rhythmic and unified dances that wowed spectators, strut their stuff in street performance along Rivera street and in showdown exhibitions in a mall in this city on Sunday (January 25).
The dancers showed their winning performances–to the delight of villagers including some children who even danced while watching them–while garbed in colorful costumes, which were inspired by the scarecrow symbol in the province, a part of the Bambanti Festival which formally ended on Sunday.
The dancers portrayed the festive mood for farmers who have remained resilient with palay and corn and harvests in the past cropping seasons despite calamities.
Bambanti, an Ilocano word for scarecrow, has been a prominent figure at rice fields to drive away birds and pests from crops.
Bambanti Festival street dancing and showdown performers Roxas, Benito Soliven, and Tumauini showed harmonic displays of dancing prowess and wowed the crowd with their own surprise dance moves and choreographed sways.
“I enjoyed their mastery and spectacular skills. So entertaining to watch these Bambanti dancers,” woman-spectator Melecia Agas, 55, said on Sunday.
The street dancers emerged from the streets and later performed inside a mall as they showed symbolism for the diligence, resoluteness, and the enduring spirit of the people of Isabela folk.
Bambanti was regarded as a demonstration of thanksgiving for the Isabelenos’ consistently rich agricultural harvest and to celebrate the diligence, resilience and vigilance that characterized Isabela farmers and established the province as biggest corn producer and with biggest rice surplus. (VILL GIDEON A. VISAYA)
