MassKara Street Dance

MassKara festival started in the 80's when there was a farming crisis. Also that same year there was a huge tanker that sank and 700 lives were lost. With these tragedies occuring the city of Bacolod, known as the city of smiles (which it truly is!), decided to hold a festival of Smiles. It was a declaration to the city that no matter how bad times got they would be able to 'pull through, survive, and in the end, triumph.' It also gave them a reason to do something fun and forget their troubles. It is now a 3 week long street party with dancing, masks and parties!

This is our 4th MassKara festival since we moved to Bacolod and although we've been in the Charter Day parade we've never actually really watched any of the dancing which is pretty much what MassKara is. This year we decided to really do it up and today was the MassKara street dance competition. They shut down one of the main roads in the city which was fortunately close to our house so we all squished on the motorbike and found a less populated spot at the beginning of the parade to watch from. There were 20 different Barangay's competing against each other for the best dance, all wearing different masks and costumes dancing through the streets and sweating buckets. There isn't too much to say about it but I have some great pictures to show off how amazing these costumes were. Just imagine dancing down the street in these masks and costumes for 1-2 hours in the 35*C heat.... I have this huge appreciation for these dancers! I was sweating buckets just standing still.