Maria Christine Muyco
University of the Philippines
Fulbright Scholar in Residence at UCR

 Colloquium presentation sponsored by the Program in Southeast Asian Studies

 “Ideologizing Bird Music-Dance Traditions”

My past research centers on the Panay Bukidnon of the Philippines and its ideology called sibod that manifests itself in the binanog (hawk-eagle expressive tradition). This ideology refers to sunú (music/movement structure), hampang (play on structures), santú (synchronization of elements), and tayuyon, which is a sense of mastery evident in the experience of ‘flow.’ Among the Panay Bukidnon, flow is to meet the goal of cultural sustenance and coexistence with one’s kalibutan, or environment/consciousness, in order to heal and to restore balance. The pursuit of this goal entails a commitment of communality and a consciousness of support from larger societies. The Panay Bukidnon use the term sibod even in sociopolitical negotiations involving ancestral land domain and settling disputes.

MARIA CHRISTINE MUYCO is Associate Professor and former Chair of the Composition and Theory Department of the College of Music at the University of the Philippines (UP). She obtained her PhD in Philippine Studies at UP in 2008, with Alternate Studies in Ethnomusicology/ Dance Theory at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) from 2006-2007. She is also a composer having earned her Master of Music (Composition) from the University of British Columbia and Bachelor of Music (Composition/Indigenous Music Performance) from UP. Her work on the music and dance traditions of the Panay Bukidnon, particularly about a local ideology called SIBOD, earned the UP best dissertation award in 2008. A book about this topic was recently published by the Ateneo de Manila Press. She is founder of Balay Patawili, Inc., a nongovernment organization that has produced/presented festivals, workshops, and performances, and has made other efforts to develop Panay Bukidnon culture. She is currently a Fulbright Scholar at UC Riverside.

For more information, contact Prof. Deborah Wong, deborah.wong@ucr.edu. Free and open to the public.