Pastor Ed Lapiz  Day by Day Ministries Cultural Redemption

For most of the indigenous peoples, dances and music are highly sacred facets of their culture, and should not be readily revealed to anyone. Revelation entails the highest form of trust.

The Manobos of Western Bukidnon perform the Dugso to invoke the Divine to bless the land with a bountiful harvest. A highlight of their costume is the saloloy, an intricately designed headdress.

For most of the indigenous peoples, dances and music are highly sacred facets of their culture, and should not be readily revealed to anyone. Revelation entails the highest form of trust.

KALOOB has taken great pride in rendering auth-entic traditions of indigen-ous peoples, showcasing, with each prayfomance, their indigenous context and spiritual essence. The tradition of authenticity can be attributed to one of KALOOB’s commitments—Research. It is a process considered as the back-bone of all KALOOB’s creative idioms. All of these began with the vi-sion of Pastor Ed Lapiz, KALOOB’s founder, when he saw the power of indi-genous expressions in en-riching the national identity of Filipinos.

This isn’t just about song and dance.

The past decade saw KALOOB stage numerous prayformances in different venues around the country and some parts of the globe, witnessed by thousands of people. Each prayformance celebrates the diverse expression of Philippine music and dance, conveying to every audience sheer beauty and spirituality.

He believes that gathering, documenting and developing indigenous cultural heritage such as music and dance will not only be useful for the Filipino church but can also serve as chronicles of culture and history for Filipinos to look back into and for the rest of the world to see.

In 1993, Pastor Ed went to four towns in Central Luzon to document never-before published Tagalog folk poetry.

More than a decade later, KALOOB has extensive cultural research of almost half of the country’s 110 known indigenous groups, from the Cordilleras, down to the frontier of Tawi-Tawi, the land of the gentle Sama Di Laut. Among these are documented and recorded researches of more than 200 dances, musical pieces, folk literature, chanted epics and rituals.

As of this moment, five chanted epics from the Manobo groups of Min-danao and from the Mangyan groups of Mindoro are being recorded while T’boli epics sung by two chanters are being translated for publication. Under KALOOB’s care are hundreds of cultural artifacts, costumes, accessories and artworks from different indigenous groups.

powerful tools for glorifying God, and as authentic representations of Filipino indigenous culture.  For most of the indigenous peoples, dances and music are highly sacred facets of their culture, and should not be readily revealed to anyone. Its revelation entails the highest mutual trust, which, in Filipino, is a process called “pag-iisang loob” or oneness of spirit. That is why it is every KALOOB member’s goal when doing research to first meld with the heart and spirit of the informants and to treat them with the highest respect. Beyond mere anthropological know-how, KALOOB researches call for spiritual fitness!  Beyond the research phase, KALOOB remains friends with resource persons and, whenever possible, continue to visit with each other again and again.

Research done on indigenous groups entails careful study of every dance and music, their peculiarities, context, aesthetics and most especially, their spirit. KALOOB pays attention to every detail, discovering the meanings of each body movement, even the small-est gestures and the mi-nutest twitch, or the signi-ficance of drones and pat-terns of melodies of music in their indigenous setting. By remaining faithful to context and essence, KALOOB imbibes the true spirit of these expressions and translates them into

Research done on indigenous groups entails careful study of every dance and music, their peculiarities, context, aesthetics and most especially, their spirit.

Click map for an updated list of cultural communities reached by Kaloob Research.

December 1995 marked the beginning of KALOOB’s first-hand research among several ethno-linguistic groups from North to South of the archipelago. More than thirty curious and energized people set off for Palawan and landed in Puerto Princesa to do the first-ever field research of KALOOB among the Tagbanuas and Palawanons.

The beginnings of an ambitious undertaking

Pastor Ed Lapiz  Day by Day Ministries Cultural Redemption