A Filipino children’s story about family, loss and hope is making its way from the page to the stage, as “Sayaw ng mga Ilaw” opens at Tanghalang Ignacio Gimenez from September 18 to October 11.
Based on Cheeno Marlo Sayuno’s award-winning short story, the Tanghalang Pilipino production follows young Laya, a girl who dreams of learning the traditional Pandanggo with her older sister, Ate Kala. But when their father, a construction worker involved in the building of the Manila Film Center, fails to return home, their family is plunged into uncertainty and grief.
The original story, written by Sayuno and illustrated by Aaron Asis, was recently named a Best Read at the 9th National Children’s Book Awards by the National Book Development Board and the Philippine Board on Books for Young People. It was also included in the 2026 Honour List of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY).
A history seen through a child’s eyes
In an interview with Interaksyon, Sayuno said the recognition is especially meaningful after years of work on the book, which had been in development since 2021.
The IBBY recognition gives the book an international platform, while the National Children’s Book Awards recognition affirms its importance within the Philippine context, he said.
More importantly, Sayuno sees the response as validation of the need for stories that connect history to the lives of ordinary people.
Set during the Martial Law era, “Sayaw ng mga Ilaw” draws from the tragedy surrounding the construction of the Manila Film Center, where workers were killed after a portion of the building collapsed in November 1981.
Rather than recounting the tragedy as a historical event alone, Sayuno places it within the world of a child. Laya’s father disappears, leaving her family to contend with uncertainty while she holds on to her dream of learning the Pandanggo.
Sayuno said his decision to tell the story through a child’s perspective was partly shaped by the information gap between Metro Manila and rural communities during the period. Media restrictions and control of information meant that many people outside the capital did not have access to the full picture of events happening in the country.
“Children, and by extension the households, should be informed about pieces of history and how they actually happened,” Sayuno said.
The picture book allowed him to approach historical fiction through a child’s worldview, showing how personal experiences are shaped by the social, cultural and political circumstances around them.
That makes the story relevant beyond the historical event itself: Laya’s experience turns a chapter of national history into something more intimate — a child waiting for her father to come home.
From picture book to the stage
Tanghalang Pilipino now expands that world through theater.
Playwright Juan Ekis adapts Sayuno’s story for the stage, with Jonathan Tadioan directing and Krina Cayabyab providing the music. Through dialogue, movement and music, the production brings Laya’s story and the Pandanggo into a larger theatrical world.
The adaptation is part of Tanghalang Pilipino’s 40th anniversary season, “TP40: Past Forward,” which revisits works and stories connected to the company’s four decades of Filipino theater.
For Sayuno, the staging is another recognition of the story’s reach.
“When TP sought my and Tahanan Books’ permission to adapt the story, I realized that the work has breathed a new life,” he said.
He trusted Tanghalang Pilipino to expand the picture book into new characters, scenes, dance and music, while remaining involved through script consultations and rehearsals.
Seeing the story transformed for the stage, he said, has been exciting precisely because it opens the picture book into a “bigger and more nuanced world.”
At the same time, he said the production has remained faithful to the original intentions of the book.
Keeping the story’s light alive
For Sayuno, the adaptation demonstrates how a story can take on new forms once it reaches its audience.
Onstage, “Sayaw ng mga Ilaw” becomes not only a story to be read, but one to be experienced through performance, dance and music.
Sayuno hopes audiences will see how the production reimagines the dance, tragedy and grief at the heart of the story while retaining its themes of family, nation and hope amid a difficult period in Philippine history.
By bringing Laya’s personal story into a theatrical space, “Sayaw ng mga Ilaw” offers another way for a new generation to encounter the country’s past — not only through dates and events, but through the families and children whose lives were changed by them.
For Sayuno, that is part of the story’s purpose: to keep its light alive.