Tayasan Festival 2017

Municipality of Tayasan – Negros Oriental

The weather gods must be friends of Tayasan. While in many parts of the Visayas and Negros Oriental dark rain/clouds were looming on the horizon, the municipality of Tayasan was blessed with blue sky and the sun was smiling down on all participants and visitors of the annual Festival. Of course, we did not want to miss the Tayasan Festival 2017 and started our trip up to the northern part of our island as early as 4 am, so we could check in before the street dancing starts at 8:00am.

When an event is scheduled at 8 o’clock in the morning one would expect in the Philippines, that this is rather a suggestion for slowly standing up and getting ready for breakfast. Not in Tayasan!
The organizers and participants of Dalit Tayasanon Festival were super disciplined and were ready to start at the scheduled time. Congratulations from our side. With hundreds of participants in the 7 contingents, this is truly a great achievement.

All groups were not only in time but also very well prepared. Great choreography, nice costumes and some joyful smiles earned them the cheers of the many spectators along the streets of the municipality.

After the street dancing and a quick lunch break it was time to go to the municipality gym as the showdown was also starting in time. As a matter of fact, prayers and speeches started ahead of schedule, so the first group performed exactly at 2 pm as the opener for the Tayasan Festival showdown 2017.

We would not know how to decide the winners, but that is also not our problem. There is a reason why there are knowledgeable judges. We simply enjoy the whole event as a great show itself, no matter who will win. Each contingent earned our honest respect for their performance.

After the showdown was the last part of today’s program, the election of the Tayasan Festival 2017 King and Queen, before we made our way back to our resort to rest for the next day, where the search for Miss Tayasan took place.