My Escapades: 2017 Parayan Festival

Parayan Festival was a yearly grand festivity in the Municipality of San Roque, Northern Samar in celebration of its Founding Anniversary which was held every 16^th of March. The annual celebration is one of the town’s ways of showing its gratitude to the Almighty on a bountiful harvest of rice and crops grown in the locality. The word “Parayan” is a waraynon word which means an abundant harvest of rice and is attributed to Señor San Isidro de Labrador, as the Patron Saint of the farmers.

The municipality of San Roque, is one of the municipalities of the Province of Northern Samar, located at 12°32′14″N and 124°52′26″E. The municipality comprises of 16 baragays with a total land area of 152.98 square kilometer with a population of 30,580 (2015). Majority of the people in the locality speak the Ninorte Samarnon, a variation of Waray-Waray. (Source: Wikpedia).

San Roque has several tourism potentials that remain undiscovered by tourists. Some of these include waterfalls, rivers, virgin forests, and beaches.

The Parayan Festival highlights the celebration with a dance parade and floor show competition participated in by the different barangays of the municipality. Of course, there are other competitions all throughout the day that culminates in the evening with a dance party at the municipal auditorium and the awarding of prizes.

The dance moves resembles to the sequence from rice planting to harvesting gestures. The sounds of the drums and other musical instruments add more excitement to the performers and spectators, as the dancers sway their hands and bodies on its rhythm. Costumes and props were designed to showcase its creativity and ingenuity to create an atmosphere of the rice farm, as if the dancers are performing themselves on the actual rice plantation. Other creatures such as birds, bees and farm animals including scarecrows were also characterized to add more color on the dance presentation.

The presentations show the respective originality of each barangay and capture the stories of the rice farmers including their beliefs and traditions during the planting and harvesting seasons.

I was so lucky that my 2017 vacation coincide this year’s celebration of the Parayan festival and got to experience the magnificent performances of the different tribes. Here are some of the photos during the festive celebration.

The CHAMPION - Brgy. Laoangan tribe