Kadayawan Festival
Davao City - August
Davao comes alive with the celebration of the Kadayawan festival, locally clalled “Kadayawan sa Dabaw”. Kadayawan is held every third week of August to coincide with the harvest of fruits and blooming of flowers. Davao City’s annual Kadayawan sa Davao promises a weekend of fanfare and fun tribal style.
Spectacles fill up the main roads featuring tribal dances and music with street dancing called the “Indak indak sa Kadalanan.” This is a spectacle of graceful performers in ethnic-inspired garments. A major attraction is the Floral Float Parade which features floral and agricultural bounties.
The celebration is a showcase of Davao’s arts and culture heritage. Highlights include ethno-cultural presentations, agro-industrial trade fair, festivals expo, indigenous dance competitions, street parties, food fiesta, Davao River festival, and Hiyas sa Kadayawan, the search for the symbolic spokesperson of the festival.
Watch the festivities in Kadayawan sa Davao reach a glorious climax on Saturday morning - the Davao Parade. The parade features colorful, orchid-bedecked floats and more than a dozen "ethnic" groups dancing to the beat of wooden drums.
These are the two main attractions of the festival: the Floral Float parade and the Indak-indak sa Kadalanan.
The floats are intricately decorated with flowers and a variety of fruits like durian, bananas, pomelos, mangoes, papaya, and even vegetables.
The Indak-indak sa Kadalanan is the street dancing of performers in ethnic costumes gracing the streets, enticing spectators to join in the furor of body movement and ethnic music on the streets.
Madayaw! A warm and friendly greeting derived from the Dabawenyo word "dayaw" that means good, valuable, superior or beautiful.
The celebration also showcases Davao’s arts and culture heritage with ethno-cultural presentations, agro-industrial trade fair, festivals expo, indigenous dance competitions, street parties, food fiesta, Davao River festival, and Hiyas sa Kadayawan, the search for the symbolic spokesperson of the festival.
Although already a customary practice of the indigenous people of Davao, the thanksgiving was institutionalized in 1986 to unite the Dabawenyos after the turbulent Martial Law years. It was then called "Apo Duwaling," a contraction of the famous icons of the city, namely Mt. Apo, durian and waling-waling. Two years later, it was renamed "Kadayawan sa Dabaw" to better reflect the merry spirit and indigenous theme of the celebration.
Today, Kadayawan sa Davao has metamorphosed into a festival of festivals, the mother of many other festivals in the region as it honors Davao City’s heritage, its past personified by the ancestral "lumads", its people as they celebrate on the streets, and its floral industry as they parade in full regalia in thanksgiving for the blessings bestowed on the Davao City
Kadayawan sa Davao is an experience with a difference as it explores the past, present and future of the Dabawenyos, the Mindanaoans, the Filipinos. Its sights and sounds remain unparalleled. Be part of the experience.
Truly, the Kadayawan festival gives one a bite of the Philippine's rich culture.
Sources: Davaoguide.com, Projects.aec.asef.org and Kadayawan.com
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