I have been braving the streets of Bacolod for the past 4 years taking pictures of our masskara dancers and I didn't expect it would end up this way in 2014.
The Hype for this year's festival was not as we expected. The initial schedules prior to the start of the festival has been misleading. One website's information differs from another. Netizens especially those who has booked a flight to Bacolod for the festivities have been anticipating this event rely heavily on social media but information from both the Bacolod City PIO and Masskara Bacolod are not aligned.
For one, the Photo Contest registration fee is 1,000 Php , which comes with an ID and a "limited edition" TShirt. I was excited to get my Photographer's ID assuming that it was going to be personalized since they required the contestants to submit at 2x2 ID Picture, but lo and behold, the ID which i expected to be personalized can easily be photocopied. The "limited edition" shirt was not impressive at all. A few days before the competition I saw an Ad saying that the registration fee was lowered to 700Php but this time did not include the shirt. I don't believe that the "limited edition" shirt would cost 300Php. I'll let you be the judge to that.
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| Evolution of Photographer's ID from 2011 - 2014. |
What ever happend to the trademark latin flare for which the festival was known for? What does "Waka-Waka" have to do with Masskara? The Official Theme song has been released 3 times thus giving the choreographers and dancers a hard time changing their routine to match the song.
MassKara has been known for its streetdancing, colorful masks and costumes. However, this year the Arena Competition came first. People lined up the streets to see dancers perform but what the people saw was a bunch of dancers running to catch up with their groups. We don't know what officially transpired nor why there were 30 mins gaps or more between participants.
It seems that the amount of time spent on planning for the festival has not been as long as it should have been. The logo has been copied, pasted and edited from last year's logo. There were even rumors that the caption "One Rhythm, One Bacolod, A Million Smiles" has been copied from another festival. As to how true, I'm not sure. It has been a tradition from previous festivals that the official logo has been done as a contest to help our local artists.
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| Photo from the Visayan Daily Star |
The real essence of Masskara has been lost in translation this year. I may be traditional but it's good to keep some aspects of the festival as it was way back in 1980. May we not lose track of why we established the festival in the first place. The way I see it, a lot of people are disappointed with this year's turn of events. Well.. just saying.. these are just my 2 cents.
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