The FACP
The Federation for Asian Cultural Promotion (FACP), a non-government organization registered in Singapore began in the midsummer of 1979. As Dr. Lucresia Kasilag, then President of the Cultural Center of the Philippines and Mr. Hsu Po Yun, President of New Aspect Promotion Corporation, were having an in depth discussion about the cultural interactions on performing and visual arts amongst regions in Asia, they realized that many of the communications were limited to the rare alliances or networks. In terms of cross-continental activities between the east and the west, the exchange that time was very limited and therefore, the effects of cultural events were minimal, costly, and inefficient. The flow of communications between each country in the Asian region was of greatly deficient when compared with the interactions between Europe or America. Needless to say, the promotion of Asian cultures to the west was very scarce.
The FACP was established in 1981 to promote intra-Asian cultural exchanges and facilitate international touring of artists. Its founding representatives included Dr. Lucresia Kasilag of Manila, Mr. Hsu Po Yun of Taipei, Mr. Tadashi Yokoyama of Nippon Cultural Center, Mr. Seong-Tae Kim of Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and also Mr. Apratty, a representative from UNESCO. The FACP provides a platform for the member cities to gather in an annual conference to network, connect, exchange ideas, discuss issues concerning the arts and entertainment industries in the Asia-Pacific region, and to forge greater cooperation among member cities.
The CCP
The Cultural Center of the Philippines was created in 1966 through Executive Order No. 30 with the purpose of establishing a national theater for the promotion, preservation, and enhancement of Filipino arts and culture in various art forms. It was formally inaugurated on September 8, 1969 and started featuring local and national performing companies as part of the CCP regular program.
It houses resident companies such as Ballet Philippines, Philippine Ballet Theatre, the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group and the Bayanihan Philippine National Folk Dance Company, Tanghalang Pilipino, Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, the UST Symphony Orchestra, the Philippine Madrigal Singers and the National Music Competitions for Young Artists Foundation (NAMCYA).
In addition, the CCP has also established ties with various international organizations such as the Federation for Asian Cultural Promotions (FACP), Philippine Association of Theatre Designers and Technicians (PATDAT), Association of Asia Pacific Performing Arts Centres (AAPPAC), Asian Cultural Council (ACC), Arts Network Asia (ANA), the Conseil International des Organisations de Festivals de Folklore et d'Arts Traditonnels (CIOFF), the World Dance Alliance (WDA) and the International Theater Institute (ITI). As the CCP perseveres to further enhance culture and arts development, encourage and support exchanges, through these organizations and with other institutions, Filipinos have been able to experience different cultures all over the world.
History of FACP
During the midsummer of the year 1979, Dr. Lucrecia R. Kasilag, the then chairman of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex and President of New Aspect Promotion Corporation, Mr. Hsu Po-Yun, had an in depth discussion about the cultural interactions on performing and visual arts amongst regions in Asia, and realized that many of the communications were limited with rare alliances or networks. In particular to the cross-continental activities between the east and west, the exchange at that time was very low; therefore, the effects of cultural events were minimal, costly, and inefficient. The flow of communication between each Asian region was of great deficit when compared to the interactions between Europe or America, and needless to say, the promotion of Asian cultures to the west was very scarce. Hence, Dr. Kasilag and Mr. Hsu initiated the organization of the "Federation for Asian Cultural Promotion", and set out to propose their mission to important people in Asia in the cultural promotion industry, and they hoped that a kinship between these members could be formed. Mr. Hsu was in charge of connecting the areas of North Eastern Asia. Dr. Kasilag was in charge of the South Eastern regions. Through out two years' span, they had visited Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and also cultural sectors of the United Nations. On August 11, 1981 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex, the Federation for Asian Cultural Promotion was officially formed. Its founding representatives included Dr. Kasilag of Manila, Mr. Hsu Po-Yun of Taipei, Mr. Tadashi Yokoyama of the Nippon Cultural Center, Mr. Seong-Tae Kim of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and also representative from UNESCO, Mr. Apratty. In the meeting, they came up with the following six prominent decisions:
- Came to agreement that the organization will be named Federation for Asian Cultural Promotion (FACP). FACP shall be a non-political and non-profitable international cultural organization.
- The Constitution was drafted by Dr. Kasilag and Mr. Hsu. (The content was passed during the 2nd FACP meeting in Taipei.), and the final version was set after a editing and drafting process that took three years to complete.
- Due to special and complicated political situations for the political and economical aspects for different regions and nations in Asia, it was a resolution that the Federation will be culturally based, and each region will be represented by its capital city; in order to avoid controversies due to political associations.
Dr. Kasilag was nominated as the first chairman, Mr. Hsu as the secretary general, Mr. Kim as the international governor and Mr. Yokoyama as the treasurer, and President Marcoswas invited to be the Honorary Chair. Each position was in office of three years. (Dr. Kasilag was elected again to be the chairman for the second term. Dr. Jeanne Tchong Koei Li of Taipei was elected for the 3rd, 4th and 5th terms. Mr. Kang Suk-Heung of Seoul was elected for the 6th term, and Mr. Baltazar N. Endriga for the 7th term, Mr. Yoshiro Kambara of Tokyo for the 8th term and Mr. Zhang Yu of Beijing for the 9th term.For the past 28 years, Mr. Hsu Po-Yun, Mr. John Duffs of Hong Kong, Mr. Tadashi Yokoyama were appointed as the secretary generals respectively.)
- Assertively encourage important guests of honor and observers from Europe, America, Africa, Australia, etc... to participate.
- Fortify the interaction between regions in Asia.
- Agreed that the second annual conference would be held in Taipei, the 3rd in Tokyo, and the 4th in Seoul.
In the following years, its members increased exponentially with members from Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Macau and Jakarta. In 1983, Beijing also appointed two observing guests to take part in the 3rd annual conference in Tokyo, and in year 1990 at the 9th annual FACP conference, Melbourne representative was welcomed into the organization to become a member of FACP. (Melbourne applied to become a member in 1985 and after 5 years of vigorous discussion, the region’s membership was finally approved).
In the 90’s, a mid-term governor meeting would be held annually taking place in a different city each time, and some of the hosting cities were Bali Island, Lisbon of Portugal, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and Gyeongju and etc... After the advancement in technology, the meeting was replaced by fax and e-mail correspondences and discussions were conducted via these modes of communications and brought forth to the Federation.
In 2001, the region of China with Beijing being the regional representative officially became FACP member. Following this, FACP began to include many subjects for discussion on Chinese cultural events, resources, information, and developments. Additionally, FACP also expanded its connections to the further eastern regions, and an example of this could be seen from the last annual conference in Urumqi, which is located at the eastern part of China and famous for its silk road. The representatives of FACP hoped that through this congregation at this location, a modern cultural silk road could be embarked.
The 25th FACP is being held at Taiwan's southern harbor city, Kaohsiung. Kaohsiung is a city with immense potentials, and similar to Osaka of Japan, it's also building its first multi-complex cultural perk, Wei-wu-ying Center for the Performing Arts. The venue will consist of a grand theater with 2500 capacity, and a 2000 capacity concert hall, 1000 capacity play house, and a 400 capacity experimental theater. It will also have an outdoor venue that can hold up to 1000 people and is located in the 70 hectare art park. The venue is surrounded by school, commercial condominiums and leisure districts. Furthermore, Kaohsiung city is also building a 1000 capacity popular music center, and will be hosting the World Games in the year 2009.
In the past nearly 30 years of FACP's history, our federation strives to be one of the most important international performing arts and cultural promoting conference and one of the vital cultural organizations globally with emphasis on connecting the east and west. We hope that each participating members and observers can benefit from FACP with increase in their cultural productions annually and enrich the art life in Asia.
