Kan-laon
Dancing in the Light
Philippine Dance Master and Choreographer, Sydney Loyola
Philippine Dance Master and Choreographer, Sydney Loyola new commissioned work, Kan-laon, Dancing in the Light. Rooted in Philippine folkloric dance tradition, this contemporary work will honor the indigenous deity of fire, Kanla-on, who is believed to live in the active volcano, Mt. Kanlaon, and appears in both male and female forms.
For more than three decades, Sydney Loyola has created dance works performed by cultural groups in the US, Philippines, Asia and Europe. She toured internationally as a principal dancer of the Bayanihan Philippine National Folk Dance Company and was considered a protégé of choreographer Lucrecia Reyes-Urtula, Philippine's National Artist for Folk Dance.
Loyola is the founding artistic director for American Center of Philippine Arts, and consultant for Philippine Cultural Night at various universities, including UC Berkeley, CSU East Bay, UC Merced, UC Irvine and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Her awards include "Young Alumni Achiever in Arts and Humanities" by Holy Trinity University, and the nomination for an Isadora Duncan Award for her 2008 collaboration with Rudi Soriano, Kadayawan.
She taught Philippine folk dance workshops for Singapore Arts Festival; Kaliningrad International Dance Festival in Russia, Konnichiwa Festival in Japan, Macau Arts Festival in China and the Philippine International Dance Festival and World Folklore Festival under the auspices of Conseil International des Organisations de Festivals de Folklore et d'Arts Traditionnels in France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and the Philippines.