The vitality of the Philippine Normal University’s tradition of the performing arts, a cornerstone of its leadership training, can be seen in the wealth of co-curricular activities on campus. On any given day, on may see students or staff in performance or in rehearsal. A class might be practicing for a speech choir, or for a play. Another class runs through a dance routine. A young man polishes the rhetoric on a winning oratorical piece. A concert fills up a hall. Any of the music unit’s performing groups might be pacing them in: the annual kundiman festivals or the Rondalla and Angklung Ensembles organized by Prof. Pacita Narzo. Most notable of the music groups is the merged Koro Sampaguita and Male Vocal Ensemble, organized by Prof. Luzviminda Modelo in 1991 and known today as the PNU Chorale.

Another PNU cultural arm with a proud history and a lustrous name is the PNU Kislap-Sining Dance Troupe. Formerly known as the PNU Dance Troupe, founded by former Physical Education Department chair Virginia Oyco, Kislap-Sining traces its roots further back to the dance group begun in July 1946 by Paz Cielo Belmonte, head of the then Philippine Normal School’s PE Department. Belmonte’s mentor at at the University of the Philippines was Francisca Reyes Tolentino, who with composer Antonino Buenaventura, had gone on research all over the Philippines recording indigenous dances and music.

Belmonte formally organized her dance group in 1959 as the Baranggay Folk Dance Troupe. When the dance troupe became a private dance company, its cultural ambassadorship passed on to the PNU Dance Troupe, then to the its present identity as Kislap-Sining. Dr. Larry Gabao, who revitalized the breakthrough program that combines the disciplines of physical education, dance education, theater arts, and music education into one umbrella graduate course, PEDETAME, is Kislap-Sinig’s artistic director. Kislap-Sining carries on its predecessor’s rediscovery of indigenous dances and music and strives to blend folk-culture authenticity with the demands of theater staging.