Bailes de Luces 2011
Posted by on January 7, 2011
Last January 5 I flew to Bacolod City then took a two hour bus ride to La Castellana, a southern town in Negros Occidental.
This year, Bailes de Luces held its 13th edition of the festival as a celebration of the town’s founding anniversary.
Unlike other festivals, Bailes de Luces is held at night time for very obvious reasons: It is a festival of lights. The beautiful interplay of lights play a big role in judging the groups. If I am not mistaken the artistic display of lights consists of 40% of the total scores. That’s pretty big. Even bigger than the criteria for Choroegraphy, and costumes.
It was my first time to actually see the Bailes de Luces competition, and I am tuly amazed at the wonderful performances of the schools and Barangays!
The first time I saw Bailes de Luces perform was during the 2009 Panaad sa Negros Festival of Festivals. During that time, I was totally blown away by the group’s performance. Their number landed them on the top spot and earn the Championship Trophy.
Bailes de Luces is now on its 13th year, unfortunately only a few knows of its existence. Not a lot of people outside of Negros are aware that a festival of Lights a beautiful and crazy as this exists in La Castellana.
I am very confident that this festival has a very bright future. I hope that th LGU of La Castellana would further promote Bailes de Luces by joining other competitions like Electric Masskara which is a new attraction during the Masskara Festival (can they actually join there?), BacoLaoDiat, Aliwan Fiesta, among others.
It is high time that people should be aware that a colorful festival exists in Negros occidental.
Until now I still have a hangover of the festivities. I swear, I return to La Castellana this December for the streetdance competition, and on January 5th 2012 for the Arena Competition of Bailes de Luces 2012!
one word: WOW!!! can’t wait to see the video…
amazing shots, great pictures!
lookin forward for the video as well
i’m just so glad that u said people from outside Negros should start noticing this flourishing festival. I think even in Negros, Bailes de Luces is not as popular as the Masskara or the Pasalamat of La Carlota. I think the LGU of La Castellana should do more to promote this festival outside of its territory rather than just see it done because you have to.
I am from La Castellana and I am proud of this festival, a brainchild that is so original and modern, but every year we would hear complaints about it being too superficial and just as what you expected it to be and nothing more. I really hope that they do something that will make it more interesting and more attention-grabbing than the play of lights that they offer.
Thank you for visiting our town!
Ang mga diwata ng gabi!
sbrang ganda!:))
Wonderful shots! Keep it up!
Nice!
nice shots!!!
It’s festivities like this that makes specific towns/cities unique from all other. Thanks for sharing.
ahhh…how I wish to witness like that!
amazing!=)
Nice shots. It is really my dream to visit the different places in the Philippines and experience the festivities.
amazing shots
Nice play with lights
ano ba yang ginagamit nila pampailaw? is that something like an LED? anyway a very colorful festival grea!
yup its LED lights. but the green streaks you see is just created using flashlight with its head covered with
PET bottle painted in green
Cool! I didn’t know this festival exist. Nice photos
ang cute ng LED lights! I love the photos!
I enjoy reading this post as well as the other posts.
love the effects, hope to see the videos too
wow! festival of lights a must see,indeed!
First time I heard about this festival. thanks for giving us an opportunity to take a peek on this wonderful festival!
Wow! This could compete with the festivals in Brazil!
kaya naman proud ako to be pinoy eh. ang tatalino to invent such wonderful things