Pison 69 one, that is. In a few years, Davao will have a dance festival similar to the WiFi13 (i.e. with contemporary choreographies). It was poet Ricardo de Ungria who prodded Locsin to organize such festival because like Manila, Davao could have one of its own. Locsin hopes that the workshops she offered in the past years would prepare the local choreographers for the festival. Hopefully, with an expanded movement vocabulary—contemporary, modern, and neo-ethnic—the choreographers will also help conceptualize street dancing and other dance festivals. Compared to Cebu’s Sinulog and Iloilo’s Dinagyang, Davao’s Indak-Indak can claim no distinct identity as it appears to be an imitation of the Dinagyang. The choreographies of the latter, are impressive, according to Locsin. In fact, they bear traces of her neo-ethnic grammar perhaps because she had worked with several artists and dancers of Iloilo in the 90s when she choreographed the Hinilawod14 and conducted the Apic Workshop. Because she believes that the “Pinoy is eclectic and is thus able to combine what is Asian and Western,” Locsin will always create works that will make the most of this ability.15 This fascinating quality of the Filipino which is also apparent in movement, makes dance a very powerful performance art to narrate the nation. Choreography is not only a language in which we write and re-write the past but is also an eloquent expression of the present—from the neo-ethnic to the urbanatives. In their book Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, David Bayles and Ted Orland posit that: ”...the art you can make is irrevocably bound to the times and places of your life... decisive works of art participate directly in the fabric of history surrounding their maker. Simply put, you have to be there” (52). Locsin’s works attest to her being “there,” at the vortex of history, the historical present, that is. NOTES A considerable part of this paper is based on an interview with Agnes Locsin at the CCP Complex in on September 24, 2010 and in Davao on October 24-26, 2011. 2 Locsin describes how the school started in the sala of her parents’ bungalow house in the 1940s and had a number of different names. The “Locsin Dance Workshop” became the official name in the 1970s. 3 Although Locsin was a strong figure in the field of modern dance, she was among a number of choreographers who also contributed to this area. Some of them were 1