Exhibit viewing: Stage design and costumes

Exhibit: Savador Bernal National Artist for Theater and Design

After seeing some posters in a bulletin board, I went to an exhibit alone. So happy I was the only viewer at past 1:00pm today. It feels like I own the place.

Salvador Bernal, widely acknowledged as the “father of Philippine theater design.
Bernal’s name is synonymous with Philippine theater design in which he excelled and for which he was conferred the honor National Artist for Theater and Design in 2003. The National Artist award is the country’s highest cultural honor. 

He worked with the CCP for the longest time but at the time of his death, he was designing a production of King Lear for PETA, one of the country’s most popular and respected theater group. Badong, as Bernal was called by friends and colleagues, was collaborating on King Lear with Nonon Padilla. The two helped put together a production of Dalagang Bukid in 1987, the first major stage production of the CCP after the Edsa People Power uprising.

The CCP said in a statement that Bernal’s last production for the CCP was a musical version of Lope K. Santos’s “Banaag at Sikat,” a political novel first published at the turn of the century.

Bernal designed more than 300 productions for drama, musicals, operas and concerts such as those for Musical Theater Philippines and Opera Guild of the Philippines. 

He also dabbled in the movies, designing the period costumes for such films as Oro, Plata, Mata and Gumising Ka, Maruja. He also helped design TV commercials and calendars. 

Bernal was known for using indigenous and locally available materials for stage such as bamboo, abaca fabric, hemp twice raw, rattan chain links, and styrofoams in productions such as Rajah Sulayman, Abaniko, La Traviata, Tomaneg at Aniway and Pagkahaba-haba man ng Prusisyon sa Simbahan din ang Tuloy (Much Ado About Nothing).

Source: http://www.interaksyon.com/entertainment/salvador-bernal-national-artist-and-father-of-philippine-theater-design/

This exhibit was on also on national tour last February to November 2014 in selected local communities nationwide as part of the Lakbay Sining (Touring) Program of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Cultural Exchange.

Below are the pictures of the fittings/costumes.

The Filipiniana costume that I like the most is this one. Although it is just black and white it looks very classy. I like the lace design of the skirt.

One of the small scale set designs

 

My favorite was the one with statute of Liberty in the background but I was not able to take a picture because someone was looking. I used Camera 360 in taking pictures because flash photography is not allowed.

One of the set designs has a 'hologram'.

The exhibit will run until May 31, 2015.
Venue: Basement DL Umali Hall, UPLB, College, Laguna.
Gallery Hours : 8am-5pm Free Admission