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PROGRAM DETAILS

VII. MY FATHER, THE MECHANIC — 5 mins

An excerpt from 1992-95 *DIWATA

Original Cast: Joshua Francisco in 1992 and by Jesselito Bie in 1995

Text: Alleluia Panis

Performer:  Johan Raymudo Casal  and Kulintang & Jazz Art Ensemble 

In My Father, the Mechanic, the immigrant father’s subtle, indirect, and at times ambiguous mode of communication is conveyed through storytelling rather than explicit discussion. The piece  reflects a cultural way of addressing difficult issues including gender and sexuality without naming or directly confronting them. The fictional character  of Aunty Aning is a composite  of Manai  Alleluia’s real-life aunt, who wore men’s clothes and the experiences of several lesbian folks  she personally knew,  who lived relatively conventional lives.

VIDEO: INDRA MUNGAL, Presenter, Curator

VIII. DUST FROM KAPIMPILAN

1990 Cycles, Timeless Ritual to Ancient Icons

Composers: Frank Holder, Dana Nuñez, Robert L. Henry, with Jon Jang

Performers: Kulintang Jazz Art Ensemble 

This piece was inspired by KAE’s visit to the brassware makers in 1989 located in the village of Kapimpilan. Kapimpilan’s clay soil is considered ideal for making kulintang gong molds. Today, gongs are still made by lost wax casting process.

The composition is in the Maguindanaon ‘kangungudan’ rhythms and melodic style of playing.The lead musician  demonstrates  virtuosity  while maintaining the beauty of its melodic quality.

IX. CRISIS OF CONSCIOUSNESS — X mins

Performers:  Jake Fong, APDT and Kulintang Jazz Art Ensemble 

Composer: John Calloway

Spoken Word/Poetry: Tongo Eisen-Martin

Crisis of Conscience is a musical reflection of the moral dilemma  African American soldiers faced vis a vis the American subjugation and treatment of the native Filipinos during the Philippine American War of 1899-1902.  Composed by John Calloway, the grandson of a Buffalo soldier and performed with kulintang and western instruments, it is combined with a riveting spoken-word intro by former 2021-2024mPoet Laureate of San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin. 

The movement inspiration for Crisis focuses on the strength and self-reliance of the islands’ Indigenous population fighting for their own liberation, whom the Buffalo Soldiers encountered. 

X. PERFORMANCE: 

10/9 FRIDAY, GENNY LIM

10/10 SATURDAY OSCAR PEÑARANDA

10/11 SUNDAY ALLAN SAMSON MANALO

VIDEO: FRANCIS WONG, Music, Educator

XI. MUSIC: BINALIG A AFRO PINO

Performers:  Kulintang Jazz Art Ensemble 

Composer: Conrad Benedicto 

Binalig a Afro Pino is an unexpected byproduct of the hybridization  created from African American roots and kulintang music  found in Kulintang Blue, and is a further deepening of the ties between music of the southern Philippines and the African diaspora. Done in  a 6/8 feel, Binalig a Afro Pino is essentially a dialogue between the kulintang and the Afro Cuban chekere instrument with the kulintang’s melodic roots taken from binalig song traditions.

XII. KALUNTANG — 6  mins

Performers: APDT  and Kulintang Jazz Art Ensemble

Composed by: 1989 by KAE: Dana Nunez, Frank Holder, Robert Henry  w/ Jon Jang

Inspired by the kaluntang, a traditional Manguindanaoan musical instrument consisting of a series of suspended wooden logs. It is traditionally  performed by two players for entertainment and is also used to frighten birds and other pests away from ripening rice crops. In KAE’s kulintang and jazz composition, the melody is played by two people on the kulintang gongs. 

The  movement choreography performed to the 2026 Kaluntang builds upon two of Alleluia Panis’ previous works: Bagong Diwa’s 1977 Tinkling Bird and KAE’s 1990 Pagapak. 

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*DIWATA

The DIWATA project  was based on  hours of talk story sessions among  the original 1992 cast and collaborating artists. We shared immigration stories about ourselves, our  families and folks we knew. Contributors included  Allan Manalo, Anna Sun Foo, Frank Holder, Joshua Francisco, Ric Serrano, Robert L. Henry, Sharon Sato, and Wilma Consul. The creation of each DIWATA character is not based on a single story or person  but a confluence of many stories  into a single fictionalized character.

Allan Samson Manalo,
Theater/Stand-Up Comedy 
Writer, director, producer, and stand-up comic who has performed in over 400 colleges and comedy clubs across 47 states. Co-founder of the comedy troupe tongue in A mood, and the former Artistic and Managing Director who transformed Bindlestiff Studio into the epicenter of Pilipino American performing arts in the Bay Area. 

Anna Sun Foo, Dance 
Principal member of the Kulintang Arts Ensemble and a dancer whose career spans the ensemble's founding era through Alleluia Panis Dance Theatre (1986–1998). She was an original cast member of "Cycles: Timeless Rituals to Ancient Icons" and "Diwata." She was the artistic director of Asian American Dance Collective's Unbound Spirit Dance Company, 1986–1989. 

Anne Huang, Producer 
CEO of World Arts West, supporting 500+ California dance companies sustaining over 100 dance forms, and former Executive Director of the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. A national leader on cultural equity in the arts. 

Frances Cachapero, Dance 
Born and raised in San Francisco, she was a member of the Kulintang Arts Ensemble (1986–1993). She was in the original cast of "Cycles: Timeless Rituals to Ancient Icons" and has performed with Dohee Lee and the Manilatown Ancestral Ensemble. She currently exhibits her visual artwork. 

Francis Wong, Music 
Called one of "the great saxophonists of his generation," featured on more than forty recordings and co-founder of Asian Improv aRts. A longtime KULARTS leader and mentor to generations of Asian American artists. Wong also performs in this production with the Kulintang Jazz Art Ensemble. 

Frank Holder, Music 
World and jazz percussionist and founding member and lead composer/musician of the Kulintang Arts Ensemble. His work on "CYCLES" received the Isadora Duncan Award for Best Original Sound Score for Choreography, the very material being restaged in this production. 

Genny Lim, Literary / Theater ·
[Poetry Reading Friday, Oct 9]
San Francisco's ninth Poet Laureate and the first Chinese American in the role. Author of the award-winning play "Paper Angels" and co-author of the American Book Award-winning "Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island." 

Gregory de Silva, Dance 
Dance artist and curator, and Alleluia Panis's dance partner in the 1970s, at the roots of the artistic lineage this production honors. Born and raised in San Francisco, he was a founding member of the Pilipino American Bagong Diwa Dance Company (1976–1982) and former dancer with the Metropolitan Opera and New York City Opera. 

Indra Mungal, Producer 
Arts and cultural programmer whose career spans the Asian Art Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, KQED, and the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, where she served as Director of Programs and Exhibitions. Recipient of the 2025 Arts Seva Award. 

Jesselito Bie, Dance 
Dancer and choreographer, Artistic Director of STEAMROLLER Dance Company since 1994, and a veteran of Kulintang Arts, the High Risk Group, and companies across the Bay Area. His honors include choreography awards from the SF Bay Guardian and Bay Area Dance Watch. He's a resident artist at SAFEhouse. 

John Calloway, Music · Music Director 
Nationally recognized multi-instrumentalist, composer, and Emmy-winning arranger who has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, and Israel "Cachao" Lopez, and toured the Philippines with Kulintang Arts Ensemble. He leads the Kulintang Jazz Art Ensemble as this production's Music Director. 

Jon Jang, Music 
Pianist, composer, and the first American-born Chinese composer of a symphonic work honoring Chinese American history. Co-founder of Asian Improv aRts, with commissions from the Kronos Quartet, the NEA, and the Rockefeller Foundation. 

Joshua Francisco, Dance 
He was a member of the Kulintang Arts Ensemble, 1988–1993, and was an original cast member of "Cycles: Timeless Rituals to Ancient Icons" and "Diwata." 

Marcella Pabros-Clark, Dance 
Co-founder of Kulintang Arts, Inc. in 1985; performed with the Kulintang Arts Ensemble, 1985–1989. She currently serves on the KULARTS Board. 

Oscar Peñaranda, Literary · [Poetry Reading Friday, Oct 10] 
Poet, fiction writer, educator, and activist; author of the award-winning "Seasons by the Bay" and recipient of the Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas lifetime achievement award from the Writers Guild of the Philippines. Founding member of the Filipino American National Historical Society's San Francisco chapter. 

Ric Serrano, Dance 
Member of the Kulintang Arts Ensemble (1987–1995) who originated several of the works being restaged in this production, a living link to the choreography returning to the stage. 

Sharon Sato, Dance 
Born and raised in Hawaii, she was a member of the Kulintang Arts Ensemble (1990–1995) and was an original cast member of "Cycles: Timeless Rituals to Ancient Icons" and "Diwata." She performed with Asian American Dance Collective and Purple Moon Dance Project.

Jenelle Gaerlan

Jenelle Gaerlan (she/they) is a Filipinx-American dancer, teaching artist, and choreographer based in San Francisco by way of Portland, Oregon. This is their third season dancing with Alleluia Panis Dance Theater, with a perspective informed by her deep study of Jazz, Classical Concert Dance, American Vernacular Street Dance styles, and Filipino Folk and Indigenous Tribal Dances. Jenelle has also performed works by DarVejon Jones, BodyVox Dance Company, Robert Moses, Nicole Klaymoon, the San Francisco Symphony, and Emmy Award-winning choreographer Natasha Adorlee. Jenelle currently serves as the Co-Artistic Director of ODC Seeds Dance Company and has recently done work for Ailey Arts In Education & Community Programs as an AileyCamp instructor at UC Berkeley.

Francis Eric Aquino

Francis Eric Cabrera Aquino (he/they) is a Filipino multidisciplinary artist in the bay area who specializes in storytelling through dance, heavily influenced by the art of Krump, Contemporary, popping, and Animation. He strives to be a voice for his ancestors who didn’t really have a chance to speak up and express their human experience in a healthy way. Through their Gender Fluidity, Francis sees dance as a way to grasp the meaning of human experience.

Jess DeFranco

Jess DeFranco grew up in the Bay Area and is a San Francisco based dancer. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts in Dance and Asian American Studies from San Francisco State University, she began working as a freelance performing artist and dance educator. Her first collaboration with KULARTS was in 2022 and 2023 with “Nursing these Wounds”, followed by the “AntingAnting Project” and presenting her choreography in “Queering Pilipinx Aesthetics” in 2024.

jose esteban abad

jose esteban abad (they/them)  is an Afro-Caribbean Filipinx interdisciplinary performance artist nesting in unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Territory (San Francisco). Their work is rooted in the embodied and sonic poetics of relations, collaboration, and improvisation, as tools of resistance and liberation across geopolitical borders. abad’s work centers QT/BIPOC experimental collective process-based practices of re-membering and be-coming to highlight the most intelligent technologies that exist in this world—our bodies, ancestral wisdom, and the environment. Their practice is shaped by mentorship and communing with artists including Alleluia Panis, Ishmael Houston Jones, Anne Bluethenthal, Joanna Haigood, Keith Hennessy, Beatrice Thomas, Jess Curtis, Sherwood Chen, Sarah Shelton Mann, Meg Stuart, Florentina Holzinger, Brontez Purnell and others. They are currently the Co-Director of Bridge Live Arts, a core company member of Bandaloop, AD of fugitivity labs, and have engaged in creative and pedagogical exchanges nationally and internationally in the Philippines, Palestine, Chilé, Mexico, and Europe.

FRANCES TEVES SEDAYAO
Frances Teves Sedayao is a multi-disciplinary artist who has performed both in the US and abroad for 25 years. She’s an alumna of Alvin Ailey in NY & CSUEB where she now teaches. Frances is a SF Apature Featured Artist, Art resident of NY OMI International, & a Jefferson Awards recipient. She is currently in collaboration with Dance Brigade, Sarah Bush, Yiddish Theater Ensemble, Joe Goode Performance Project & Nina Haft Company. Frances’ 10th season with KULARTS!

Johan

Johan is a multidisciplinary artist, performing internationally across the Philippines, New York, and California. He has performed in Netflix’s The Queen’s Ball: A Bridgerton Live Experience in San Francisco, Cats at Berkeley Playhouse, Peter Pan Panto in the Presidio and has danced with Alleluia Panis Dance Theatre of KULARTS, Joe Goode Performance Group, and Megan Lowe Dances. Through his production company, Kuya Johan Productions, his independent films have screened at festivals across California, and has choreographed and directed concert dance works and musical workshops.

Marc Cunanan Chapelle 

Marc Cunanan Chappelle is a performer and choreographer who cultivates versatility across contemporary, hip-hop, house, Filipino, South Asian, and West African idioms, treating the body as a site of knowing, resistance, and connection. Marc is a company artist with PUSH Dance Company, Duniya Dance & Drum, and Embodiment Project. He recently debuted his pieces “Loretta” at Dance Mission Theater and “Exequel” at SAFEhouse Arts. Credits: AASC’s Cinderella, KULARTS’ “Lakbai Diwa,” SFBATCO’s I, Too, Sing America, and Sign My Name To Freedom, and works by Amy Lewis, amara tabor-smith, and Ronnie Reddick. He graduated from Stanford University.

Conrad Benedicto - Kulintang Ensemble

Conrad is a teacher, author, and kulintang musician who studied with Master Danongan Kalanduyan from 1997 to 2016. Benedicto was Master Kalanduyan’s apprentice within the Alliance for California Traditional Arts’ Apprenticeship Program in 2007 and again in 2013. He teaches social studies, environmental education, and kulintang music at Balboa High School in San Francisco. In 2018, Conrad received an individual artist grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission to compose original kulintang music for his project called, “Kulintang Dialect.” 

Chris Trinidad - Bass 

San Francisco Bay Area based musician, teacher, and scholar Chris Trinidad has fallen into the place where everything is music. Originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, his relationship with music grew through his exploration of the bass guitar, the drum set, voice, songwriting, and choral conducting. Chris's formal education includes undergraduate training in Jazz Studies and Secondary Education, and graduate work in the fields of Philosophy and Sociology of Music Education, Theological and Liturgical Studies, Educational Leadership, and the Educational Philosophy and Spiritual Vision of John Baptist de La Salle. 

He currently divides his time between freelance music making with various groups and artists, trying to develop high school students into compassionate human beings, and working on defeating his addiction to improvising excessively in the saddest of all keys ... D minor. 

Francis Wong - Saxophone 

Francis Wong is an acclaimed saxophonist, composer, and community activist praised by late jazz critic Phil Elwood as one of "the great saxophonists of his generation." Over four decades, he has performed his innovative creative music internationally alongside luminaries like Cecil Taylor, Max Roach, Vijay Iyer, and Jon Jang. Featured on more than 40 album titles as a leader and sideman, Wong is equally renowned for his groundbreaking interdisciplinary collaborations and grassroots advocacy.

In 1987, Wong co-founded Asian Improv aRts, an organization pivotal in shaping a distinctive Asian American and West Coast sound in creative music. His honors include a Ford Foundation Mid-Career Visionary Artist Award, recognition as a "Jazz Hero" by the Jazz Journalists Association, a Rockefeller Next Generation Leadership Fellowship, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and California Arts Council.

Jinji Sayson - Kulintang Ensemble 

Jinji is a Cebuana Filipina-American filmmaker based in the Bay Area, California. Her many passions include playing piano and percussion, as well as performing Kulintang music, writing essays, poetry, cultural critiques and activism. Jinji feels energized by performing with Kulintang Dialect. Her favorite quote is by James A. Baldwin: "The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see."

John Calloway - Flute, Kulintang Ensemble 

Dr. John Calloway is a nationally recognized multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger who has simultaneously had a dual career in education for over 35 years. As an arranger and composer, John has written for several GRAMMY nominated recording projects with John Santos and Ritmo y Candela. Additionally, John has several recording projects of his own: “Asere Ko,” (2016), “The Code” (2007) and “Diaspora” (2001). 

He has also collaborated in works for film, theatre and multimedia projects. Most recently, John was awarded an EMMY in 2019 for his composition in the commercial “No Hay Nada Mas SF” for SFG Productions and in 2022 received a grant from the SF Arts Commission for his current project, “Buffalo Soldiers in the Philippine -American War, a Crisis of Conscience.” 

Jeaden Lino Baclay - Drums 

Jaeden Lino Bamba Baclay is a 3rd-generation Filipino American born and raised in San Francisco. As a drummer and percussionist, he is dedicated to bridging connections and healing communities through live performances, while prioritizing collaboration and cultivating a safe and welcoming space. He attributes his time with the Galing Bata Program, Pin@y Educational Partnerships, the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of SF and his supportive SFUSD educators as most impactful to the foundation of his musicianship. They cultivated his love for all genres of jazz, Afro-Cuban, funk, hip hop, and reggae and guided his development as a forever learner. He has performed at various Bay Area venues with many local artists and groups. You can find him playing with his personal project BBKasama Collective and rising local bands the Top Chefs and Angalo. He is currently pursuing a jazz performance degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

“Manai” Alleluia Panis - Director & Choreographer

Alleluia Panis, Artistic & Executive Director, is the driving force behind KULARTS and respected elder artist in the US and the Philippines. She has created 20 full-length dance theater works since 1985. She was awarded the prestigious 2017 SFAC Artist Legacy, 2019-20 Gerbode Special Artist Award, 2019-2020 Dance USA Artist Fellow, and 2020 Hewlett 50 Arts Commission.

Ladislao ‘June’ Arellano - Costume Designer

Ladislao ‘June’ Arellano was born in Bataan, Philippines. He trained at the Philippine Women’s University and New York’s Broadway Dance School. He is a lead dancer in Parangal Dance Company since 2008 and performed in works by Alleluia Panis and Sydney Loyola.

Jake Fong - Voice Actor

Jake Fong (he/him/his) is a Bay Area actor and fight choreographer and is ecstatic to participate with KULARTS! Jake’s favorite acting credits include Le Bret in Cyrano, Private Smalls in A Soldier’s Play and James Baldwin in the Baldwin Centennial. Jake frequently trains with Dueling Arts San Francisco where he is proficient in six different fight disciplines, his favorites being Rapier & Dagger, Broadsword and Quarterstaff. Jake dedicates every performance to his wonderful wife Jessica and his father, who’ll always have a front row seat in his heart.

John Calloway - Music Director

John Calloway is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger who has over 40 years of experience as a professional musician. He has performed with renowned jazz artists Israel Cachao Lopez, Max Roach, and Omar Sosa. In the San Francisco Bay Area, John has built a solid foundation as a as a performer/arranger leading his own ensembles and projects as well as collaborations with John Santos, Marcus Shelby, Wayne Wallace and many others.

Johan - Rehearsal Director, Digital Media Manager, Short Doc Director & Editor

Johan Raymundo Casal is a multidisciplinary artist, performing internationally across the Philippines, New York, and California. He has performed in Netflix’s The Queen’s Ball: A Bridgerton Live Experience in San Francisco, Cats at Berkeley Playhouse, Peter Pan Panto in the Presidio and has danced with Alleluia Panis Dance Theatre of KULARTS, Joe Goode Performance Group, and Megan Lowe Dances. Through his production company, Kuya Johan Productions, his independent films have screened at festivals across California, and has choreographed and directed concert dance works and musical workshops.

Ken Francis Villa - Short Doc Cinematographer & Assistant Editor

Ken Villa (he/they) is a Bay Area based filmmaker, specializing in the camera department. He is a Director of Photography and 1st Assistant Camera in a range of productions, from corporate to independent films.

Wilfred Galila - Media Artist & Tech Director

Wilfred Galila is a multimedia artist and writer who lives and runs trails in the San Francisco Bay Area. His films were screened at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and his art installations were exhibited at several venues in San Francisco. He is a 2018 nominee for the Isadora Duncan Dance Award for Outstanding Achievement in Visual Design for the KULARTS production, Incarcerated 6×9.

Terry Lily Hwang - Botanical Designer

Terry Lily Hwang is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses dance, earth-based ritual, ancestral somatics, ceremonial space-holding, and a profound collaboration with the plant kingdom. She is an advanced apprentice of maestra Francisca Santibanez, with ongoing study in the South American medicine traditions of Amazonian vegetalismo and Andean cosmology. Her work has been presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and has appeared at a diversity of venues including the black box theater at 447 Minna in San Francisco and the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA. Her work brings artistry, spirit, and a deep connection to the natural world that transforms spaces into a sacred healing ground that cultivates connection, reciprocity, and engages all the senses. She is thrilled and deeply grateful to steward the Tubong botanical earth offerings for this KULARTS production.