KARATUAN:

Kudyapiq in Old Maguindanao

The fourth volume of the NRCP research grant “Music Cultural Flows” titled Karatuan will have its first screening on May 15, 2023 at the Videotheque, UP Film Center. Free Admission.

This is a rare research documentary

by Jose S Buenconsejo, PhD

featuring

Karatuan Kalanduyan, kudyapiq teacher, with his family Kalano and Nissan, brother Kanapia and sister Kanaot; kudyapiq players Kundo Talin, Alex Kamad; tumpong player Sadika Timbang; and dikil singers Basir Saliangguto, Mantiong Alba, Angkanan Maliga.

camera man Rajii Marren Lunas

non-linear editing and trailer Dr. Crisancti Macazo

Synopsis

This is a documentary on the Maguindanaon two-stringed lute kudyapi, which tradition is sustained by Karatuan Kalanduyan, teacher and instrument maker in Bulod, Sultan sa Barongis, Maguindanao. Associated with courtship in old Maguindanao culture, kudyapi music draws a resemblance in its tuning with the gongs-laid-in-row kulintang. The sustained sound of drone and ornamented melody characterizes the sensations that one gets in listening to both instruments. This aesthetics is also evident in the wooden and bamboo kulintang as these are heard in between the seasons of waiting for growing rice that the irrigated plains of Maguindanao are known for. This documentary therefore connects human leisure to practical activities, especially in the tenure of land once known as sharecropping. Recent linkages with export labor and entry of outsider banana plantations would coerce changes in the economy but the styles of playing the kudyapi had remained resilient to the impact of this encroaching modernity. The documentary also presents a rare performance of sung Islamic religious poems in the event called dikkil that is still practised through the centuries by the pandita.