A contingent from the Cebu Technological University performs during last year’s Sinulog opening salvo.
CDN FILE PHOTO
This year’s Sinulog is a return to basics with live music and floats to be used instead of recorded music and sports cars for the 3 p.m. kickoff parade today.
Ricky Ballesteros, executive director of the Sinulog Foundation Inc. (SFI) said the drum and bugle corps will play the Sinulog theme during the 1.3 kilometer kickoff parade from the Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño to the Cebu City Sports Center (CCSC).
“We are doing this for a change. It’s been a long time since we haven’t used live music during the launching parade,” he said.
Ballesteros said they also decided to use floats to transport the Festival Queen 2017 candidates instead of the sports cars used in the past years to transport Ms. Cebu candidates to the sports center.
“We are going back to basics. We will feature 13 groups from different colleges and universities (during the kickoff parade). They will perform (their) Sinulog (dances with the) live (accompaniment of) drum and bugle unlike in the past where we put the sound system along the parade route,” Ballesteros told Cebu Daily News.
But performers will still use recorded music when they perform at the grandstand stage, as they arrive at the sports center.
The Sinulog 2018 kickoff activity starts with a Mass at the basilica’s pilgrim center at 1 p.m. to be followed by the street parade to the sports center.
Ballesteros said they are cutting short this year’s parade route from three kilometers to only 1.3 kilometers to limit “traffic disruptions.”
Last year, the street parade reached Fuente Osmeña Circle before heading for the sports center.
“(This year), we have a shorter parade route from the basilica to the Cebu City Sports Center. There will be no more Fuente O. to avoid traffic,” he said.
Instead of using recorded music, performers coming from the different colleges and universities in the city will be dancing to the accompaniment of live music.
Ballesteros said they resorted to the use of traditional drums and wind instruments to give the 38th Sinulog celebration a “different flavor.”
He said Sinulog organizers helped schools who don’t have their own drum and bugle corps to tap the services of one.
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