Abstract
Without fail, the Ati-atihan festival is celebrated in the town of Kalibo in the province of Aklan, in the Philippines every January. ‘Rain or shine’, local residents would say in English, Ati-atihan must go on. Popularly considered as the Philippines’ equivalent to the famed Mardi Gras of New Orleans and the Carnival of Rio de Janeiro, Ati-atihan brings participants and visiting tourists to this central town on the northern tip of Panay Island to dance in the streets for days. For some of them their dance is not simply for fun, but is an offering to Santo Niño, the Holy Child Jesus, whose image was first brought by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan in 1521, when he landed on the neighbouring island of Cebu to spread Roman Catholicism and to begin the project of Spanish colonialism in this part of the world.
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Alcedo, P. (2014). How Black Is Black?: The Indigenous Atis Compete at the Ati-atihan Festival. In: Dankworth, L.E., David, A.R. (eds) Dance Ethnography and Global Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137009449_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137009449_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-43605-7
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