Every January, Iloilo City celebrates the Dinagyang Festival in honour of the Santo Niño. The festival’s roots go back to the late 1960s, when a replica of Cebu’s Santo Niño arrived at San Jose Parish in Iloilo; the celebration took the name Dinagyang — from dagyang, merrymaking — in the late 1970s, and grew into one of the Philippines’ biggest and most awarded festivals.
The centrepiece is the Ati tribe competition: warrior dancers in elaborate costumes, their skin blackened in homage to the Ati, the indigenous people of Panay, perform thunderous, tightly choreographed routines to drumbeats, each tribe telling the story of the Santo Niño and the legendary barter of Panay. The Kasadyahan showcase, held the day before, brings cultural performances from towns and provinces across the region. The festival climaxes on the fourth Sunday of January, with days of fluvial processions, street dancing and religious rites before it.
Dinagyang in photos
My Dinagyang archive runs from 2010 to 2019; this gallery presents the frames that survive online from the 2010 and 2014 festivals — the Ati tribes of the 2014 competition, the Kasadyahan cultural showcase, and a Dinagyang contingent performing at Aliwan Fiesta in Manila in 2012, where the country’s grandest festivals meet. Click any photo to open the original post.
Dinagyang is one of the great Santo Niño festivals of the Visayas — compare it with Cebu’s Sinulog, photographed over the same years, and with Iloilo’s own heritage churches, including Molo Church.