Gong and bamboo music and other cool things at the 2013 PHL Arts Festival

The Philippine Arts Festival (PAF) will kick off on February 3 at the Rizal Park, setting off a roundup of new events and long-running projects that celebrate Filipino art. Among the many new projects in store for this year's PAF is the Likha ASEAN, a festival and conference on community theater and cultural tourism. The conference will be held in Bohol from February 26 to 28, and will bring together Lihok Bisaya, a coalition of community-based Visayan cultural groups, and similar organizations across Asia.

Another first on the PAF line-up is it's music component, "Tunog-Tugan: First International Gongs and Bamboo Music Festival." The festival, to be held in Dipolog and Baguio, will gather gong and bamboo ensembles from all over the country and the world for performances, workshops, and lectures. Meanwhile, among old PAF favorites that will enjoy another run this year is the Cinema Rehiyon, a series of screenings and forums of regional films, which will run from February 5 to 8 at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. Also making a comeback is the 10-year-old Sayaw Pinoy, which showcases different dance forms by dance companies performing in major venues across the country. This year's Sayaw Pinoy is set for 30 performances across 30 venues, and will run for the whole month of February. In celebration of the literary arts, the annual Taboan Festival will take place from February 7 to 9 in Dumaguete and will feature forums, lectures, literary readings and performances, a contest for flash fiction and poetry, even a book fair, among others. For the dramatic arts, there is the Tanghal 2013, which will focus on community- and university-based theater groups from Marikina, Albay, Bohol, and Cagayan de Oro. Tanghal will be hitting various venues from Legaspi to Bohol between February 11 to 25. The PAF will also feature an exhibition called Archi[Types/Text], a series of conferences, lectures, competitions and exhibits that focuses on Philippine architecture. It will run throughout the country for all through February. And in honor of the visual arts, there will also be the annual Philippine Visual Arts Festival, which will run from February 7 to 11 in Pagadian City, featuring painting sessions, tours, workshops, competitions, and exhibits, among others. Outstanding artists and cultural workers will also be honored this year at the Ani ng Dangal awards ceremony, whose date and venue have yet to be finalized, according to the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). The PAF has been running since 1991, and is held in celebration of National Arts Month. It is organized by the NCCA. For more details, visit the NCCA website or Facebook Page. — KBK, GMA News