REACTION TO KARL'S LECTURE (given during the Mindulani Theatre Congress on November 2008 in Cagayan de Oro City)

I WAS seven years old when I first encountered our dearly beloved speaker and guru, Brother Karl Gaspar. A group was rehearsing a koryo in our church in Mati, and as it was my habit, I peeped in as I passed by and was struck by the dramatic scene, mediated no less by Karl himself. Little did I know that it was to be my world, and, in a manner of speaking, the world of all of us who are gathered here today.

That world is the Mindanawon Theater, which became a Movement -- thanks to Karl, Fr. Dong and the rest of their tribe who did not need any intellectual prodding to do what they did when someone had to pioneer in the yet uncharted theater of Mindanao. I am not sure which came first in the privacy of Karl's theater space in the late 1960s and early 1970s: Was it the challenge of the intellect or the call of empathy when he engaged in the koryos and the liturgical-cultural productions at the time? I would assume it was the call of empathy, which is quite characteristic of the artist.

My mentor Nestor Horfilla could not have been wrong in assigning to Karl a topic such as postmodernism as it relates to the theater movement in Mindanao. It is always prudent to ask the wiser -- which somehow necessarily means the older among us -- to tackle the more difficult and uncomfortable themes. Having accepted the assignment, we are all saved by Karl. Some may agree or disagree with him, some may have understood or not understood, but we can all keep quiet and keep our peace, pretend whichever way, and then, in the privacy of own theater spaces, look for answers for the questions that we did not dare ask.

But we have little reason to be embarrassed. Even among the postmodernists, post-structuralists, and deconstructionists, a great debate is raging as to definitions and epistemology, ethics and aesthetics. In any event, what Karl says is that even before these latest schools of thought came to our shores to disturb the comforts of our improvisations, we in Mindanao have been at it. We have been deconstructuring, engaging in works that were postmodern and poststructural. That being the case, it would be a lot easier for all of us to grasp these newfangled ideas if only we could find a way to actually relate them to our concrete practice on the ground. Then, as Karl says, practice could be elevated to the level of theory – which, interestingly, we learned when some of us were exploring one school of thought called Marxism.

In this regard, I would prefer to choose "practice" in reply to the question "which came first – theory or practice." Somehow, this position offers a security towards an understanding of what we assume we don't understand. Again, in this regard, we must take note of how it became a lot easier for us to recognize and appreciate "the post-modern philosophical roots, underpinnings and perspectives of the Mindanawon Theatre Movement" when Karl took us on journey back to history. That is because, that history is our turf. That was our praxis. We were part of it. The names he mentioned were the names of our friends and associates and comrades – even as some of them we no longer consider to be. We were all together in some of the best years of our lives conquering the world and accomplishing what we did – and now part of the history of Mindanawon Theater.

We ought to heed Karl's 7-point advisory, top of which is something about keeping to our standpoint, which I take to include that old-fashioned term "commitment" to the ideals of the golden years of Mindulani and the inspiring phase of our struggle as artists and cultural workers. If I may add to Karl, that is what is sorely lacking in our world today. And to which Nestor has a lot to say about. But that is another story.

One Filipino writer, a Pulitzer awardee I think, wrote a book which he entitled "I Walked with Heroes." I have been thinking to write something which I could also call "I Walked with Karl."

Daghang salamat ug mabuhay.