KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

Prof. Dr. Tan Sooi Beng

Prof. Dr. Tan Sooi Beng is an Honorary Professor of Ethnomusicology at Universiti Sains Malaysia. A leading scholar of Malay opera (bangsawan), intercultural performance, and heritage revitalisation, she has authored and co-authored seminal works including Bangsawan: A Social and Stylistic History of Popular Malay Opera and Music of Malaysia (Routledge, 2017).

Currently President of the International Council for Traditions of Music and Dance (ICTMD), she is active in community-based arts and Potehi glove puppet theatre projects. In 2025, she received the Boh Cameronian Lifetime Achievement Award for the Arts.

President, ICTMD | 2025 Boh Cameronian Lifetime Achievement Awardee

Prof. MCM (Matthew Constancio Maglana) Santamaria

Here is the text from the second image: Prof. MCM Santamaria, Professor of Asian and Philippine Studies at UP Diliman, bridges academia and practices as a dancer, choreographer, and theatre artist. Trained in Western ballet, Japanese Buyoh, Okinawan dance and the Tausug Pangalay, his career embodies Asia's cultural cross-currents.

He has won two Aliw awards for choreography (The Death of Memory, Sintang Dalisay) and led the Bunga Arts Link in international festivals. His keynote traces how movement archives memory and identity across borders—and why dance remains a language of resistance and renewal.