ABSTRACT
The young dancer-members of Fiesta Filipina are able to negotiate multiple spheres of identities with virtuosity to both embrace and transcend diversity. Within a cultural community, dance serves both to create and maintain strong community networks. By training first family members, then friends and ultimately admirers in Filipino dance and music-making, the Aguinaldos created a dance ensemble that today serves as an ambassador of Filipino dance in Canada and internationally. The music is a lilting instrumentation of bandurria and guitar that echoes the sustained circular movement of the dance. Although Fiesta is involved in many activities, it is primarily through dance that members developed a link to their Filipino heritage. The semiotic vocabulary of dance as practised by members of Fiesta Filipina transmits Filipino culture to an audience. The body as a cultural text acts as a bridge between performer and spectator, facilitating discourse. Otherness is both reinforced and transcended; diversity is celebrated and embraced.
