Art & Culture in the Philippines

Feature on the Philippines 

‘It’s more fun in the Philippines’ proclaims the Philippine Tourism Commission, and its pretty true. The Philippines, like its near neighbour, Indonesia, is young, dynamic and growing fast. Pinoys know how to have fun, unselfconsciously and exuberantly expressing their vitality through their food, music, visual and performing arts. This 7100 island archipelago is multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-faith. There are ten major different ethnic groups of 100 million people who speak nearly twenty different major languages and over 40% are 16 years or younger. Metro Manila, the fourth biggest mega-city in the world, is the size of Australia’s national population alone.

To experience and to know more about Australia’s near north neighbours is to learn more about the West Pacific that connects East Asia to Southeast Asia. To experience and learn more from Pinoys is to learn more about our own place, including Castlemaine, in the twentieth-first century global order.

The 2017 Castlemaine Festival is going to give us a hearty sample of the richness of Pinoy talent and their ineffable, joyous embrace of life and of community.

See the Fillipino program here