What is ‘bongga’?

The Good Life with Eli F.J. Tajanlangit

Since the launch of the 2012 MassKara Festival logo, many people have been coming up to me to say they look forward to October and there is always talk about it being “bongga”, or spectacular. So common has this remark been that I have to pause and ask myself:

But what is “bongga”?

It is a question that stares at me, hangs over me, sometimes hits me in the face, as preparations for the MassKara are going into high gear, and we are hoping to measure up to people’s expectations of how their festival is going to run this year.

Just what is “bongga” really? Is six costume changes in a seven-minute performance “bongga”? What about hanging by a bamboo pole and being swung around the plaza?

How about setting forth a thousand party poppers – why don’t you make that a confetti machine – in a 100-square-foot performance area? Or is it parading 10 revolving sets on stage for a 7-minute number?

More intriguing: who decides what is “bongga” and what is not? And what is our yardstick in proclaiming this one is “bongga” and that one is not? Are the ohhhs and ahhhs, the gasps and open jaws enough yardstick for declaring something is “bongga”? What about the palpitating, you-can-hear-a-pin-drop silence, what does that say of a performance?

I’ve been on the director’s chair in the MassKara for the last nine years, and honestly, I really have no answer. The answer, I think, lies somewhere in the pits of one’s stomach, in one’s guts, that indescribable rising feeling that you did something right, something delicious, something memorable. It’s in the applause yes, in the ohhh and ahhh, in the hearty smiles of people, in that sense of community that one feels amidst the throng that unmistakably declared hey, we are celebrating together here.

It was that feeling that rose in our stomachs when we first saw darkness fall on Lacson Street, back in 2007, and the first batman lights shot up into the air, the first stirrings of the concerts began, and the people jammed our avenue. There was no book that said it, nor was there empirical data to buttress the feeling, but we know something right happened here, something that was indelibly written into our hearts. That was the first Electric MassKara.

It was the same feeling that washed over us after the first Countdown to Charter Day street party at the old City Hall in 2004. Or when we saw our barangay contingents first appearing at the plaza, colorfully, and gloriously interpreting for us the year’s theme.

What is “bongga”?

When the question is posed to me, I think of the lighting of the Olympic torch – they now call it the caldron – and remember the Barcelona edition, where it was lighted by a lone flaming arrow. That simple, stunning moment with just a spotlight on the lone archer taking his aim, and taking fire, the flaming rod flying towards target which bursts into flame is forever in our hearts.

In the last Olympics in Beijing, this was one elaborate show of a runner on the air racing around the stadium, with the screens around him showing glorious moments in time, until he reaches a point where he starts the fire that runs through a line and into the caldron.

Both, of course, were “bongga” in unprecedented scale. The Barcelona number was a celebration of that continent’s power in simplicity and efficiency; Beijing a raucous celebration of our continent’s penchant for the elaborate and even excessive.

And there, I think is our answer to what is “bongga” in a festival: the successful rendition of our peoples’ hopes and aspirations, our culture, our values in our own, unique way of celebrating.*

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