When the Tide Pulls Back, Who Is Left Standing?

The music cuts off mid-count. “Five, six, sev—” Silence.

In a dusty barangay court somewhere in Bicol, the choreographer holds her hand in the air a second too long, as if the sound might still return. It doesn’t. Around her, teenage dancers freeze—arms extended, knees bent, breath heavy in the sudden quiet. Sweat slips down their temples. Somewhere beyond the court, life continues as usual. Inside, everything stops.

What happens when the tide pulls back and the music does not return?

“Ganito na lang muna,” she says, quieter now. “We’ll just do it like this.”

They begin again. “Five, six, seven, eight.”

Feet strike concrete—flat, dry, unsoftened. No drums. No melody. Only effort trying to become rhythm.

The choreographer used to measure her year by this season. Before sunrise, she was already awake, sketching formations in a worn notebook—curves inspired by Mayon’s slope, patterns meant for crowded plazas. By afternoon, she was in courts like this: correcting posture, repeating counts, turning hesitation into movement. At night, she replayed music through small speakers, mapping where applause would rise and where silence would break.

Festival season meant exhaustion, but also certainty. Another town. Another stage. Another envelope handed quietly after the performance—enough for rent, family needs, and the next cycle of rehearsals.

This year, that rhythm has slipped.

“May nag-i-inquire pa rin,” she says. “Pero parang… hindi sigurado.”

Messages came cautiously at first—budgets mentioned in passing, confirmations delayed. Then plans have collapsed one by one.

Rising fuel costs—diesel prices surging toward ₱170 per liter amid global tensions and a national energy emergency—have changed everything. The Magayon Festival in Albay has been cancelled, its budget of over ₱20 million redirected to resident assistance and resilience programs. The Bantayog Festival in Camarines Norte has been scrapped for the same reasons. In Bulan, Sorsogon, key activities of the Padaraw Festival—the street dancing and drum-and-lyre performances that usually bring the town alive—have been cancelled as transport and logistics costs became too heavy to carry.

The festival they had all been preparing for disappeared in a single message. Weeks of work—choreography set, formations memorized, dancers repeating the same eight-count until their legs shook—have collapsed into a brief notice citing rising costs.

Some dancers have already cleared their schedules, while others have trained after school in borrowed courts, waiting for a stage that never came.

“Ma’am, tuloy pa po ba?” one had asked days before. There has been no answer that can hold.

“Sayang talaga,” she says later.

Now she works with what remains—barangay gigs with reduced fees, late-night rehearsals in borrowed spaces, and shared rides where fuel costs are quietly cut into earnings. Some days she counts everything, and some days she stops.

“The steps are still there,” she says, “pero minsan… sapat pa ba ’to?”

In another town, a drummer lifts his instruments into a van. His arms ache—not from one performance, but from a season that keeps shrinking. The performance has been modest—fewer lights, a thinner crowd, applause that arrived politely, then faded.

“Mas mahirap ngayon,” he says.

He had written new pieces for this season—traditional rhythms layered with sharper, more urgent tones meant for full streets and moving crowds. Most have never left rehearsal. He thinks about what those performances were meant to bring: new instruments, recording time, small steps forward.

Now there is only the ride home.

“Kapag ganito,” he says, “parang hindi mo alam kung kailan ulit.”

In another corner of Bicol, a visual artist sits before unfinished sketches. Marine patterns spill across paper—waves and flowing forms meant for a street performance. She had already imagined them moving with dancers under sunlight. Now they remain still.

When the cancellation came, the project dissolved quietly. The commission was no longer possible. Material costs have already climbed too high. She salvages what she can, cutting smaller shapes, reusing scraps, reducing something large into something possible.

“The crisis teaches you to adjust,” she says. Her hands move slower now. “Pero minsan… parang lumiit din ’yung kaya mong gawin.”

Around her lie fragments—unfinished sketches, half-built ideas, work paused mid-motion.

Across Bicol, stories like these overlap.

A cancelled festival is not just an event lost. It is a chain breaking unseen—no costume orders, no sound checks, no final performances that complete weeks of work.

According to UNESCO, cultural events sustain both identity and livelihood. But when costs rise and budgets tighten, these spaces are often among the first to shrink, removing the work that sustains artists.

From a distance, it looks like budgeting. Up close, it feels like subtraction.

Not all at once. Not loudly. Just enough each time for something to disappear.

The water does not leave in a single motion—it pulls back slowly until the shore feels wider than it should be, and those who depend on it are left standing where it no longer reaches.

One dancer still arrives early after the cancellation. She practices alone, counting softly under her breath, stopping only to ask, “Ma’am… hindi na po ba talaga?”

The question stays in the air longer than the silence that follows.

Back in the court, the choreographer claps once. “Again.”

“Five, six, seven, eight.”

The dancers move—feet striking concrete in practiced rhythm. No music. No speakers. Just counting. Just effort.

This is not rehearsal for nothing. It is work that may not be paid, time that may not return, a routine waiting for a stage that may not come.

She steps forward, correcting a hand, adjusting a turn, still doing what she has always done, even as a certainty thins.

Because stopping is not an option. Not when this is survival. Not when others depend on it. Not when the next opportunity, however uncertain, still has to be prepared for.

So when the tide pulls back, who is left standing?

They are. Still counting. Still creating. Still waiting—not in stillness, but in motion until the water finds its way back.