HARAYA Storytelling Festival Returns to Museo Pambata This May
The HARAYA Storytelling Festival returns to Museo Pambata from May 14 to 16, 2026, bringing with it a three-day celebration of storytelling, theater, imagination, and creative play for children, families, educators, and communities.
Carrying the theme “Binago. Binuo. Binuhay.” (Reimagined. Reconstructed. Revived.), this year’s edition invites audiences to rediscover familiar stories through a distinctly Filipino lens—highlighting values such as bayanihan, kapwa, and care. The festival emphasizes participatory performance and immersive environments, positioning children not just as spectators but as active co-creators of meaning.
HARAYA Storytelling Festival is a cultural and educational initiative based at Museo Pambata that brings together storytelling, theater, workshops, and interactive environments to support children’s imagination and cultural identity. Rooted in Filipino narratives and participatory practices, it creates spaces where stories become lived, shared, and embodied experiences.
In its latest edition, HARAYA transforms Museo Pambata into an interactive landscape of story worlds where children can watch, listen, move, imagine, make, and play.
Audiences can get a glimpse of last year’s festivities through the 2025 highlights video below:
At the heart of HARAYA 2026 are three original performance works that reinterpret well-loved fables through socially responsive and localized perspectives:
- BINAGO (Reimagined): Isa, Dalawa, Takbo!
Inspired by The Tortoise and the Hare, this adaptation transforms competition into collaboration, reframing the story through the spirit of fiesta, play, and bayanihan. - BINUO (Reconstructed): Bag(Y)o
Drawing from The Ant and the Grasshopper, this piece reconstructs the narrative around resilience, community care, and collective rebuilding after a storm. - BINUHAY (Revived): Si Amihan at Apolaki
Inspired by The North Wind and the Sun, this puppet performance revives the story through gentleness, empathy, and the quiet strength of malasakit.
Beyond the stage, HARAYA 2026 highlights scenography as pedagogy—where space, objects, sound, light, and audience interaction become part of the storytelling experience. Families can explore interactive installations, reading and play corners, and hands-on activities designed to spark curiosity and creativity.
The festival will also feature workshops for children, parents, teachers, artists, and facilitators, including storytelling for educators, improvisation for children, puppetry, and devising original stories.
More than a festival, HARAYA is a call to rethink the stories we inherit. Through its central theme, it asks: how might narratives change when told through kapwa, bayanihan, and care? And how can performance empower children to imagine new ways of relating to others and the world around them?
The event is expected to gather a wide range of participants—from families and educators to social workers, artists, and partner communities—over its three-day run. HARAYA originated from the MA creative research of Kei Mamangun Sison on performative storytelling for children’s development, and has since evolved into an ongoing research platform in partnership with Museo Pambata and the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts through Dulaang Laboratoryo.
Tickets are available for P950 (regular) and P760 (teachers, PWDs, and seniors) via the festival’s Google Form and Ticket2Me.
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