Content area
Full Text
This article examines issues related to cross-cultural encounters through the presentation of Filipino folk culture at the 1998 Smithsonian Folklife Festival (SFF). Embedded in the project were issues of power-historical and current, actual and virtual-related to the differing U.S. relationships with the Philippines. I suggest ways in which Philippine values and modes of thinking determined or at least influenced the inception and reception of events, constructed communication, and informed Filipino intent in this particular presentation across cultures. I consider modes of complicity and responsibility that referenced Filipino and American experiences throughout the project.
THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES issues related to cross-cultural encounters through the presentation of Filipino folk culture at the 1998 Smithsonian Folklife Festival (SFF) on the national mall in Washington, D.C. embedded in the project were issues of power-historical and current, actual and virtual-related to the U.S. colonization of the Philippines. not so hidden were the ironies of the year 1998 as a Philippine centennial: 1898 witnessed both the Philippine declaration of independence from Spain and the arrival of American occupation forces that initiated forty-eight years of colonial rule. Of course, the declaration of independence from Spain was the event celebrated during the year 1998 at home and abroad.1 The centennial as event was the major impetus for both the American invitation and the Philippine decision to participate in the 1998 SFF.2
As Richard Bauman and Patricia Sawin have pointed out, "[American] festival producers and folklorists have taken ample opportunity to present their own view of how folklore festivals work" (1991:295). Mindful of this caveat, I propose to foreground viewpoints of Filipino producers and participants, suggesting ways in which Philippine values and modes of thinking determined or at least influenced the inception and reception of events, constructed communication, and informed Filipino intent in this particular presentation (or celebration) across cultures. In no way do I presume to speak for them, but I do intend to speak at great length about them. While I privilege a "Filipino viewpoint," I nevertheless intend to show contrast, balance, and modes of complicity or responsibility that reference both American and Filipino actions (which were not always dyadic) throughout the project.
In the spring of 1996, Dr. Richard Kennedy, deputy director of the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage...