We should be working together, says theater director Nick Lizaso

Nick Lizaso, a stage, TV and film director who’s also an educator, trainer and lecturer, is confident that Philippine theater can be at par with the rest of the world, particularly Belarus where he recently participated in a theater festival as a jury member and workshop facilitator.

“Ang mahirap lang sa atin [ay] parang feudal system,” he observes, recalling his past experience in Baguio where he tried to get various university theater groups to work together in a festival. “Para silang nagbabakuran.”

“Dapat sana they work together,” he points out.

Lizaso cites as prime example the 6th International Theatre Festival which was held last Sept. 28 to Oct. 3 in the capital city of Minsk under the auspices of the Belarusian State University.

It was also called Teatralny Koufar, the last word signifying reverence for the coffer or chest, which holds the dearest of the Belarusians’ possessions. Its theme revolved on traditions, quest and experiment.

The festival brought together 300 participants from 16 countries who came up with a total of 20 performances that vied for six awards.

The Philippines didn’t send a delegate but Lizaso – the vice president of theater education and training committee of the International Theatre Institute (ITI)-Unesco, executive committee member of the International Association of University Theatre (AITU/IUTA) and executive director of special studies in digital filmmaking and the theater arts at La Consolacion College – was a worthy representative.

He was joined by other theater luminaries, tutors and critics from Lithuania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Colombia, Russia, Mexico, Estonia and Belarus in the jury.

He also gave a workshop on Voice for Performance to about 30 multicultural participants who learned through exercises these topics: work on the voice; preparing for the performance; and a practical look at important elements such as relaxation, phonetics, articulation, pitch of sound, rate of speech and stress.

The other workshops were conducted by Siarhei Paliaonak from Ukraine (“Plastique in Theatre”) and Leif Olsson of the esteemed Swedish theater school, Skara Skolscen (“The Stage is the World”).

What Lizaso would like to share from his Belarusian experience is the appreciation for theater that everybody involved in the festival has.

“It’s lovely because the students who presented, loved theater and those in the audience also loved theater. It was a time for excitement. Ang ganda ng reaction nila. Theater experience is good because it becomes a tool for some kind of a development, something you do in life,” he elucidates.

It is for this reason that Lizaso stayed in love with theater since he took it up in college, first as an actor and later on as a director and teacher.

“It’s everything that I do,” he states. “Of course, I’ve also done television and films but  [those two media] still came from theater. I’m not a National Artist but [I can say] I’ve lived on theater.”

Lizaso is so tireless in promoting theater that prior to his trip to Belarus, he took part in several events earlier this year, namely the 2nd National Schools Arts Festival in Baguio on Feb. 10 to 13; Workshop on Theater as Part of Cultural Caregiving Program in Manila in March; and Shanghai Theatre Expo 2009 from June 6 to 12 with, among others, Tanghalang Ateneo’s artistic director Ricky Abad.

These days, Lizaso is preoccupied with preparations to a theater festival and workshop that will take place in February. With organizers from the La Consolacion College Manila Centre for Theatre Education and Training and the Mass Communication Department, he has made initial communications with theater educators like Jeffrey Sitchel of the Catholic University of America, Aubrey Mellor of La Salle University in Singapore and Maria Horne of Buffalo University in the U.S.