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MassKara Festival, now on its 32nd year this 2011.

Bacolod City, dubbed the “City of Smiles,” celebrates the world-famous MassKara Festival from October 1 to 19..

The festival theme this year is “Celebrating the New Icons of Bacolod.” These new icons are landmarks, structures, institutions, and personalities that have dramatically transformed Bacolod in recent years.

This year’s theme will also pitch Bacolod’s invitation to its citizens from abroad to come back in October and celebrate the festival together as one big community.

This is also an invitation to tourists all over world to come to Bacolod and celebrate with her the goodness of life, through food, music, sights and pageantry.

Starting August, this website will be updated regularly to inform you of the exciting events leading to October, the official month of the MassKara Festival.

Why Masskara?

MassKara is coined from two words: Mass, which means “many, or multitude,” and Kara, a Spanish word for “face,” thus

MassKara is “a mass or multitude of smiling faces.” For Bacolodnons, MassKara is a celebration and expression of thanks for the abundance of blessings life brings them.

One of the most famous festivals in the Philippines today, the MassKara Festival in Bacolod City was born 31 years ago.

Perhaps the happiest festival in the country, it rose from the gloom that enveloped the city in 1980s, a period of tragedy and economic dislocation.

During this period, the prices of sugar in the world market were at an all-time low. Negrenses, including Bacolodnons, were in a crisis as the province only relied in the sugar industry then.

The depression was further aggravated when passenger vessel Don Juan sank on April 22, where an estimated 700 Negrenses, including prominent families, perished.

In the midst of these tragic events, the city’s artists, local government and civic groups decided to hold a festival of smiles, because the city at that time was also known as the “City of Smiles.”

They reasoned that a festival was also a good opportunity to pull the residents out of the pervasive gloomy atmosphere. The initial festival was therefore, a declaration by the people of the city that no matter how tough and bad the times were, Bacolod City is going to pull through, survive, and in the end, triumph.

During the highlight week, the festive mood in Bacolod becomes contagious as masked dancers line the streets during the three-day streetdancing competition, dancing along with the music from the major streets all the way to the Bacolod public plaza.

Another highlight is the Electric MassKara at the Tourism Strip in Lacson Street where dancers, whose bodies are colorfully lighted, gyrate to the infectious rhythm of festival music.*

Source:themasskarafestival.com