Maria Zavic Batarao connects kids with Filipino culture and heritage through dance | Local

Maria Zavic Batarao grew up at the Filipino Community Hall in Wapato after immigrating from the Philippines. There, she helped establish a folk dance group — Batang Wapato.

Now, more than two decades later, she is helping Batang Wapato find its feet again after the COVID-19 pandemic so today’s youth can have the same opportunities she did.

Batarao’s day job is an executive director of instructional technology and assessment at Wapato School District. It’s pretty busy, she said, but when she’s not there she’s helping youth from preschool all the way up through high school connect with Filipino culture and heritage.

The group is open to anyone and everyone, she added.

What is the history of Batang Wapato?

I’m one of the former members of the Filipino American Youth Group established in Wapato. We were involved in a youth group at the time, back in 1999.

It became inactive in 2001 and then that’s when my brother Rogelio and I proposed to the Filipino Hall to create a group for the Filipino American kids.

The then-current officers, Mr. Ray Pasqua used to be the president and Mrs. Dori Baker and Ms. Lorena Silva, they’ve been very supportive of us. Our goal at the time was just to provide the younger generation with the opportunities to understand our cultural heritage and traditions through learning Filipino traditional and folk dances, and the language, because some of the kids here speak Tagalog and then the Ilocano dialect.

At the time, we were very fortunate to receive funding from Mrs. Baker’s parents, which helps with our costumes. They were just very supportive of us during that time. We have about 50 students. That’s a lot. It’s very inclusive of all the ethnic groups in the community, which is much more fun.

Then, in 2019, I stepped down from leading the group because of schedule conflicts. … I was like ‘how do I do this?’ I think it was July when I told them I’m ready to step back again.

During those years, I think we had a volunteer who helped out. But I was not involved in the process. I know they’ve been performing, but now we’re reestablished. They performed for the event last month and at the school, too, they perform for our Filipino community assemblies.

What do the dances look like? And can you tell me at all where the dances come from?

They’re all traditional dance routines. But what my brother did before and what we’re going to start doing it this year again with our new generation, we categorize it in three areas: the tribal, the rural and the traditional.

Each category highlights the unique and diverse culture of the Philippines. The tribal are mostly based on when the Spanish conquered the Philippines, with the carinosa dance.

Then the rural ones, it’s more of like when our farmers celebrate their harvest, so we have the clay pot dance and then we have the traditional when we have the Tinikling, that’s our Filipino traditional dance with the poles, and then the Candle dance.

Why is it important to have these opportunities to learn dance and cultural heritage and language?

Batang Wapato holds a significant importance for the community, especially for our youth here as it serves as a bridge between generations.

Just preserving the rich culture of the Philippines or our heritage and through the Batang Wapato participation, (young people) have the opportunity to connect with their roots and just learn about the cultural traditions and understand the values that being shared with the community.

What’s so neat also is by engaging them to traditional folk dance, our students, our kids learned the spirit of teamwork and discipline, as well and leadership because we give them roles within their peer groups.

When we do performances, I want them to own it. They do introductions for their group and talk about the dances and that way they learn about our culture as well for those performances.

This is something you started and that you remember doing. What did it mean to you, as someone growing up here, to have this space, this place and then this opportunity in this group?

Our kids are young. If we can start teaching them, especially, the value of respect, because that’s pretty huge in the Filipino community. Respect to the elders and all.

If I can find this venue to teach our students, that’s pretty impactful. Then seeing them grow and be part of the greater community, involved in performances and all this stuff, because not all kids have that confidence and self-esteem to you know be part of the greater community wherein they can showcase their cultural heritage.

Those are really important for me. It makes me really proud of our younger generation, then seeing them coming back here and volunteering for the hall. It just makes a lot of difference because we need to keep building community and know our tradition.

If people are interested in watching Batang Wapato perform where are some good opportunities?

The Filipino Hall would be a good opportunity. We get invitations to perform for organizations and we do like nursing homes, schools or things like that. So those are good opportunities. But Auntie Dori does a really good job promoting events. Keep an eye on the social media – the Facebook page and the Filipino American page.