Aquamen, the Philippine Water Polo team
By Walter Ang
April-June 2006
Metro Him Magazine
The sun pierced the morning clouds with shafts of light that skimmed the water's surface. Across the pool were sinewy bodies, skin glistening, cutting figures that belied graceful strength.
These bronzed gods of the National Water Polo team broke the stillness of the air with their whoops of encouragement for each other. Through the motions of a training session, their exuberance was to be expected. Under the aegis of coach Reynaldo Galang, the team had just recently won the silver medal in the SEA (South East Asian) Games held in our country.
The triumph is testament to the commitment this group of hardy athletes has put in to the team. Meeting daily at 5am, the next four hours are purely dedicated to training. Every day is a heady dose of drills and swimming exercises, with weightlifting thrown in for good measure.
With an average age of 28, these men have come together from across the nation. Nine out of the thirteen members do double duty for our country by serving for either the military or navy. Discipline and obligation comes part and parcel of being a member of the team. Team captain Sherwin de la Paz spoke of sacrifices made, but that "if your heart is in it, you enjoy it a lot. It's feels good and it's fun."
Despite the cut muscles and towering presence, the team is less a squad of snobby power athletes than it is a fraternity of affable blokes. Smiles, smart one-liners, and guffaws punctuate everything they say. No one is spared good natured ribbing.
It's this apparent collegial group dynamic that made Tani Gomez and Roy Cañete transfer from another water sport. "They saw how much fun we were having," recounted Coach Galang. "So they joined the team."
Stronger the a siren's call, the sport is apparently difficult to give up. Co-captain Allan Cesar Payawan is so enamored with the sport that he's been trying to leave for the past few years to no avail. "I have finally graduated with an architecture degree while still being part of the team, but I'm having too much fun here."
The team is not all sport and social bonding, however. Part of their physical prowess is fittingly channeled into spiritual growth as well with once-a-week Bible study lessons. The shared efforts and common victories have forged an unseen yet highly palpable connection within the troupe. This band of brothers, in fact, fondly refers to their team-building sessions as "family-building."
DJ Montano yearns for old-world elan
Yearning for Old-World Elan
By Walter Ang
April-June 2006
Metro Him Magazine
"My favorite piece of clothing is my plain black Bench t-shirt," states DJ Montano in his paced, genteel manner. "It's so versatile. I can dress it up with a jacket or pair it with jeans for a casual look."
DJ credits grandmother, Virginia, for fostering his ability to mix and match. "She was a politician's wife and she was always so elegant. At our home, there was always a constant stream of visitors calling on my grandfather, former Cavite governor Delfino ? the "D" in DJ. As such, she was very particular about what we wore and how we behaved. My sense of style is greatly influenced by her."
Born into a family dedicated to public service (great grandfather, Justiano ? the "J" in DJ, was a senator), DJ's upbringing was steeped in propriety, etiquette and graciousness. It appropriately led to his calling as one of Manila's most happening restaurateurs.
Having had trained in Le Roches in Switzerland, when it comes to style and fashion, he's seen it all. "When I was studying, I traveled throughout Europe. I was exposed to so many different ways of dressing up. I could spend an entire afternoon in a Paris café just looking at what people were wearing. The street was their catwalk. The Europeans have a style that has a certain flair, a je ne sais quoi that I like."
Upon his return to Manila, DJ promptly gave birth to three of the most popular dining venues of the metropolis in the early 2000s. His international verve was clearly infused into Indian-cuisine restaurant Raj and Asian-cuisine restaurant Courtyard. Interestingly enough, it was a passion for water that inspired DJ to create one of the hottest places to be at during those years: the revolutionary chill-out lounge Acquario.
Fearless in pursuit of originality in both work and fashion, DJ's pet peeves are people who look like they replicated everything from a fashion magazine print ad down to the last detail. "Copying is fine, but you have to turn it into something that's your own. I myself am always inspired by film noir, the classics."
The nostalgia for a bygone era is grounded in fond memories of his grandfather. "He would always look so dignified in cream linen suits with a hat. Oh, if we could only bring back the stylish days of old Manila." This seminal yearning is probably the reason why, despite being on the forefront of the "it" scene, an old-world panache seems to organically envelope him.
Don't get him wrong though. Staid and antiquated is something he's definitely not. "I consider my style very, very eccentric. I'd wear an all black ensemble with a pair of snakeskin loafers." He points out, however, that while clothes make the man, how the man wears the clothes makes all the difference. "You have to carry yourself and your clothes appropriately. Attitude is important."
The delicate balance he achieves with his clothes carry over into his work as well. As a columnist for a national broadsheet and occasional stylist for Metro Him, DJ makes sure he finds the time to serve in his family's foundation that provides education for indigent students in Cavite. With regular visits to Boracay to get some downtime, DJ is currently cooking up a new dining establishment slated to open by the end of the year.
By Walter Ang
April-June 2006
Metro Him Magazine
"My favorite piece of clothing is my plain black Bench t-shirt," states DJ Montano in his paced, genteel manner. "It's so versatile. I can dress it up with a jacket or pair it with jeans for a casual look."
DJ credits grandmother, Virginia, for fostering his ability to mix and match. "She was a politician's wife and she was always so elegant. At our home, there was always a constant stream of visitors calling on my grandfather, former Cavite governor Delfino ? the "D" in DJ. As such, she was very particular about what we wore and how we behaved. My sense of style is greatly influenced by her."
Born into a family dedicated to public service (great grandfather, Justiano ? the "J" in DJ, was a senator), DJ's upbringing was steeped in propriety, etiquette and graciousness. It appropriately led to his calling as one of Manila's most happening restaurateurs.
Having had trained in Le Roches in Switzerland, when it comes to style and fashion, he's seen it all. "When I was studying, I traveled throughout Europe. I was exposed to so many different ways of dressing up. I could spend an entire afternoon in a Paris café just looking at what people were wearing. The street was their catwalk. The Europeans have a style that has a certain flair, a je ne sais quoi that I like."
Upon his return to Manila, DJ promptly gave birth to three of the most popular dining venues of the metropolis in the early 2000s. His international verve was clearly infused into Indian-cuisine restaurant Raj and Asian-cuisine restaurant Courtyard. Interestingly enough, it was a passion for water that inspired DJ to create one of the hottest places to be at during those years: the revolutionary chill-out lounge Acquario.
Fearless in pursuit of originality in both work and fashion, DJ's pet peeves are people who look like they replicated everything from a fashion magazine print ad down to the last detail. "Copying is fine, but you have to turn it into something that's your own. I myself am always inspired by film noir, the classics."
The nostalgia for a bygone era is grounded in fond memories of his grandfather. "He would always look so dignified in cream linen suits with a hat. Oh, if we could only bring back the stylish days of old Manila." This seminal yearning is probably the reason why, despite being on the forefront of the "it" scene, an old-world panache seems to organically envelope him.
Don't get him wrong though. Staid and antiquated is something he's definitely not. "I consider my style very, very eccentric. I'd wear an all black ensemble with a pair of snakeskin loafers." He points out, however, that while clothes make the man, how the man wears the clothes makes all the difference. "You have to carry yourself and your clothes appropriately. Attitude is important."
The delicate balance he achieves with his clothes carry over into his work as well. As a columnist for a national broadsheet and occasional stylist for Metro Him, DJ makes sure he finds the time to serve in his family's foundation that provides education for indigent students in Cavite. With regular visits to Boracay to get some downtime, DJ is currently cooking up a new dining establishment slated to open by the end of the year.
Melvin Mangada's disruptive soul
Disruptive Soul
By Walter Ang
November 2005
Metro Magazine
Melvin Mangada walks into the frame, his hair a lion's mane of wavy tendrils softening his tall frame. The background is his all-white lair, energy crackling in the air. The man is wearing a black sports jacket oh-so-casually paired with stone-washed jeans and blue Prada sneakers. A beam of red light shines against the wall behind him, sculpting a box with the letters "TBWA/SMP" for all to see. Everything looks and feels in place. The camera clicks away and you can almost hear him purr.
He's got every reason to preen. He is the "M" in those last three letters, the initials of a triumvirate who have been roaring loudly these past few years in the advertising industry. As executive creative director of this four-year old ad agency, Mangada has been leading his pack of copywriters and art directors towards one conquest after another.
"When I was approached to join TBWA, my only condition was that creative output must be regarded as the most important aspect if we were to build this agency from the ground up," shares Mangada. His singular focus for creative excellence has certainly paid off. On its first few months of existence alone, the agency had already won an Ad of the Year award from the Creative Guild (a group run by and for creative professionals in the ad industry).
Mangada is an apt candidate to execute the agency's guiding principle of "disruption" as a form of advertising communication since he imbibes this concept on a seminal level. A case in point is their address. With his partners Tong Puno and Jimmy Santiago, Mangada set up shop away from the maddening crowd of the Makati central business district. "That's one of the first things we did to shake things up," volunteers Mangada.
The result is a warehouse's shell transformed into a pristine space where, unlike ubiquitous offices filled to the rafters with rigid cubicles, people work together on interconnected desk spaces or a long table anchored in the middle of the floor. "We tore down walls and doors. We wanted an open, transparent space conducive for sharing great, creative ideas."
With their home based all prepped up, the agency was poised to disrupt jaded Filipino television junkies who'd seen it all. Under the leadership of Mangada, the agency's commercials got people talking. Sneakers, fried chicken, filmfests, pain relievers, anti- fungal creams are just some of the many products that have shot to stardom (and corresponding sales) due to Mangada and his team's touch. Bottomlines notwithstanding, he has also spearheaded donating the agency's talents to causes such as Hands On Manila, Buwan ng Wika, Mindanao Council for Women and Eye Bank.
Acknowledgements, accolades and new accounts started pouring in, but so did the long hours and lost weekends. However, with winning Agency of the Year the second time in a row this year, Mangada has decreed a slight pace change at the workplace. "Work is no longer allowed during weekends," he offers. "We'd like to relish what we have worked so hard for."
He treated himself to a well-deserved vacation in Europe recently and, true to form, did not go to the popular tourist areas. "I spent more time in the small villages outside Barcelona and the Tuscan countryside. Travel is a form of education you can't get from any institution, especially if you live with the locals. It helps with my creativity."
Also, he now has a little more time devoted to picking out artworks and paintings for the office. Original plans to turn the ground floor of their warehouse into an art gallery were scrapped when the agency had to expand exponentially with the number of new clients coming in. The gallery may not have come to fruition, but artworks are still generously spread out over the space, mostly from Mangada's own collection. "[The] ones that don't fit in my apartment anymore!" he laughs.
Down time is also spent scouring garage sales in the city for original mid-20th century designer chairs. "I'm fascinated by the concept and design of these functional items," he intimates. As he moves to perch on one of his finds (discovered in a sari-sari store), Magnada announces his latest work-related endeavor: chairing this year's Creative Committee for the bi-annual Advertising Congress.
To be held in Cebu, Mangada's committee is in charge of the Araw Awards, the "Oscars" of the local ad industry. He's no stranger to this milieu, having been invited as a judge for several international advertising competitions already, not to mention romping off with the most number of awards in the previous Ad Congress in 2003. And that was the just first one his agency had attended. When asked how he think TBWA/SMP will fare this year, an impish, feline smile spreads across his lips and his eyes sparkle.
By Walter Ang
November 2005
Metro Magazine
Melvin Mangada walks into the frame, his hair a lion's mane of wavy tendrils softening his tall frame. The background is his all-white lair, energy crackling in the air. The man is wearing a black sports jacket oh-so-casually paired with stone-washed jeans and blue Prada sneakers. A beam of red light shines against the wall behind him, sculpting a box with the letters "TBWA/SMP" for all to see. Everything looks and feels in place. The camera clicks away and you can almost hear him purr.
He's got every reason to preen. He is the "M" in those last three letters, the initials of a triumvirate who have been roaring loudly these past few years in the advertising industry. As executive creative director of this four-year old ad agency, Mangada has been leading his pack of copywriters and art directors towards one conquest after another.
"When I was approached to join TBWA, my only condition was that creative output must be regarded as the most important aspect if we were to build this agency from the ground up," shares Mangada. His singular focus for creative excellence has certainly paid off. On its first few months of existence alone, the agency had already won an Ad of the Year award from the Creative Guild (a group run by and for creative professionals in the ad industry).
Mangada is an apt candidate to execute the agency's guiding principle of "disruption" as a form of advertising communication since he imbibes this concept on a seminal level. A case in point is their address. With his partners Tong Puno and Jimmy Santiago, Mangada set up shop away from the maddening crowd of the Makati central business district. "That's one of the first things we did to shake things up," volunteers Mangada.
The result is a warehouse's shell transformed into a pristine space where, unlike ubiquitous offices filled to the rafters with rigid cubicles, people work together on interconnected desk spaces or a long table anchored in the middle of the floor. "We tore down walls and doors. We wanted an open, transparent space conducive for sharing great, creative ideas."
With their home based all prepped up, the agency was poised to disrupt jaded Filipino television junkies who'd seen it all. Under the leadership of Mangada, the agency's commercials got people talking. Sneakers, fried chicken, filmfests, pain relievers, anti- fungal creams are just some of the many products that have shot to stardom (and corresponding sales) due to Mangada and his team's touch. Bottomlines notwithstanding, he has also spearheaded donating the agency's talents to causes such as Hands On Manila, Buwan ng Wika, Mindanao Council for Women and Eye Bank.
Acknowledgements, accolades and new accounts started pouring in, but so did the long hours and lost weekends. However, with winning Agency of the Year the second time in a row this year, Mangada has decreed a slight pace change at the workplace. "Work is no longer allowed during weekends," he offers. "We'd like to relish what we have worked so hard for."
He treated himself to a well-deserved vacation in Europe recently and, true to form, did not go to the popular tourist areas. "I spent more time in the small villages outside Barcelona and the Tuscan countryside. Travel is a form of education you can't get from any institution, especially if you live with the locals. It helps with my creativity."
Also, he now has a little more time devoted to picking out artworks and paintings for the office. Original plans to turn the ground floor of their warehouse into an art gallery were scrapped when the agency had to expand exponentially with the number of new clients coming in. The gallery may not have come to fruition, but artworks are still generously spread out over the space, mostly from Mangada's own collection. "[The] ones that don't fit in my apartment anymore!" he laughs.
Down time is also spent scouring garage sales in the city for original mid-20th century designer chairs. "I'm fascinated by the concept and design of these functional items," he intimates. As he moves to perch on one of his finds (discovered in a sari-sari store), Magnada announces his latest work-related endeavor: chairing this year's Creative Committee for the bi-annual Advertising Congress.
To be held in Cebu, Mangada's committee is in charge of the Araw Awards, the "Oscars" of the local ad industry. He's no stranger to this milieu, having been invited as a judge for several international advertising competitions already, not to mention romping off with the most number of awards in the previous Ad Congress in 2003. And that was the just first one his agency had attended. When asked how he think TBWA/SMP will fare this year, an impish, feline smile spreads across his lips and his eyes sparkle.
Maria Taniguchi's 'Grave Findings: A Reclamation Project'
On Taniguchi's Trail
By Walter Ang
October-December 2005
Metro Home & Entertaining
You enter a slim corridor. Flanking the walls are two glass-paneled cabinets. The air is still. The path is stark. You perceive a wider space at the end of the hall. The effect is almost ethereal.
As you enter the first part of the latest exhibit at the Lopez Memorial Museum (ground floor of Benpres Building along Julio Vargas in Pasig City), it feels as if you are being led to somewhere not of this earth. In the two vitrines found on your left and right, however, are objects that ground you to the essence of "Grave Findings: A Reclamation Project."
Brown, glazed stone effigies no bigger than your palm are placed side by side in single-file in each display case. At first glance, you may assume that they are from some sort of unearthed collection.
That's until you realize these are miniature replicas of very modern stuff ? creature comforts like laptops, pillows, cellphones and even the most intimate of possessions: a pair of boxer briefs and a pair of high-heel shoes.
These sculptures serve as a way to ease you into the source of their inspired creation: the museum's permanent collection of earthenware excavated from Calatagan, Batangas. Commissioned to interact with this particular assortment, Maria Taniguchi created the ceramic pieces as her take on "pabaon," keepsake-wishes for the afterlife.
The 24-year old artist leads you to several installations that are cleverly woven into the existing inventory of pottery from the Calatagan dig. Her lacquered bust of Dr. Robert Fox, responsible for
excavating a majority of the displayed items, stands together with the cornucopia of unpolished plates and coarse jarlets. Her video interviews of the present dig-site caretakers shine their otherworldly glow onto the polished and smooth surfaces of traded and locally crafted dishes and bowls.
Taniguchi blurs the lines that keep old and new apart, perhaps pointing out the impermanence of these tangible objects or maybe nudging us to dig deeper within ourselves so we can be more than what we leave behind.
Call Lopez Memorial Museum at 631-2417.
By Walter Ang
October-December 2005
Metro Home & Entertaining
You enter a slim corridor. Flanking the walls are two glass-paneled cabinets. The air is still. The path is stark. You perceive a wider space at the end of the hall. The effect is almost ethereal.
As you enter the first part of the latest exhibit at the Lopez Memorial Museum (ground floor of Benpres Building along Julio Vargas in Pasig City), it feels as if you are being led to somewhere not of this earth. In the two vitrines found on your left and right, however, are objects that ground you to the essence of "Grave Findings: A Reclamation Project."
Brown, glazed stone effigies no bigger than your palm are placed side by side in single-file in each display case. At first glance, you may assume that they are from some sort of unearthed collection.
That's until you realize these are miniature replicas of very modern stuff ? creature comforts like laptops, pillows, cellphones and even the most intimate of possessions: a pair of boxer briefs and a pair of high-heel shoes.
These sculptures serve as a way to ease you into the source of their inspired creation: the museum's permanent collection of earthenware excavated from Calatagan, Batangas. Commissioned to interact with this particular assortment, Maria Taniguchi created the ceramic pieces as her take on "pabaon," keepsake-wishes for the afterlife.
The 24-year old artist leads you to several installations that are cleverly woven into the existing inventory of pottery from the Calatagan dig. Her lacquered bust of Dr. Robert Fox, responsible for
excavating a majority of the displayed items, stands together with the cornucopia of unpolished plates and coarse jarlets. Her video interviews of the present dig-site caretakers shine their otherworldly glow onto the polished and smooth surfaces of traded and locally crafted dishes and bowls.
Taniguchi blurs the lines that keep old and new apart, perhaps pointing out the impermanence of these tangible objects or maybe nudging us to dig deeper within ourselves so we can be more than what we leave behind.
Call Lopez Memorial Museum at 631-2417.
Dan Lichauco opts for old furniture for instant character
Segunda Mano
By Walter Ang
October-December 2005
Metro Him Magazine
Architect Dan Lichauco contends that nothing beats old furniture for adding instant character to a new place. "The first place I bring my clients to shop for furniture is their parents' house," he shares. "If there's nothing there, that's when we go antique stores or second-hand stores."
For this METRO HIM expedition, Dan ends up in Channalli, an antiques and furniture store tucked away in the ground floor of an office building in Makati. After a few minutes of scouring, he picks out a few pieces to demonstrate how a simple sleight-of-hand (and some imagination) can turn second-hand furniture into a thoroughly modern masterpiece.
Instant character
Dan found a pair of Argentinian wooden chairs bound with leather, aged to a perfect brown, to create instant gentrification for a room. The arms of the chair are actually barber shop strops, adding a sudden sense of whimsy and nostalgia for any guest. A great conversation starter, for sure.
To keep the look from feeling too dated and heavy, Dan uses modern lighting fixtures. "Don't be afraid to mix the old and the new," he encourages. By way of example, he then places a square white tile on top of a 1960s Vietnamese footstool to create a side table. The undulating pole of a shiny antique silver candelabra provides a cool foil for this stately look.
Eclectic elements
Now what bachelor would not want to have a leather-and-chrome recliner to complete his crib? Unfortunately, an industrial atmosphere can be a little too cold and daunting if not cushioned with a few softening elements.
Dan counters the horizontal line of the recliner with vertical accents like the single blade of leaf in a glass vase, a carved wooden totem (recycled from a door frame) leaned on the wall, and an antique lamp stand. The stand's translucent shaft gives the illusion of carved glass, complementing the recliner's aluminum frame. The red tassel adds a splash of color and fun.
The table lamp adds to the industrial look with its boxy frame, but since it's made of wood, provides a nice contrast as well. Wood is also the material that makes up a parabolic side table that mimics the curves of the recliner.
Color combo
Using his tile trick once more, Dan gives a low wooden Chinese side table from the 50s an instant update. He then frames it with plastic seats that evoke the 60s and 70s, playing with red and white as the color motif for this living room or seating area.
The color motif is repeated back and forth by placing a crimson cushion on the white seat and red funky ornamental glass vases (again from the 50s) on the white table-top tile. Notice how he staggers the heights of the vases to create layers and variety, but still maintains a unified look because all of them are the same color.
Channalli is at G/F Benlife Bldg., 166 Salcedo St., Makati City. Across the street from the Indonesian Embassy.
By Walter Ang
October-December 2005
Metro Him Magazine
Architect Dan Lichauco contends that nothing beats old furniture for adding instant character to a new place. "The first place I bring my clients to shop for furniture is their parents' house," he shares. "If there's nothing there, that's when we go antique stores or second-hand stores."
For this METRO HIM expedition, Dan ends up in Channalli, an antiques and furniture store tucked away in the ground floor of an office building in Makati. After a few minutes of scouring, he picks out a few pieces to demonstrate how a simple sleight-of-hand (and some imagination) can turn second-hand furniture into a thoroughly modern masterpiece.
Instant character
Dan found a pair of Argentinian wooden chairs bound with leather, aged to a perfect brown, to create instant gentrification for a room. The arms of the chair are actually barber shop strops, adding a sudden sense of whimsy and nostalgia for any guest. A great conversation starter, for sure.
To keep the look from feeling too dated and heavy, Dan uses modern lighting fixtures. "Don't be afraid to mix the old and the new," he encourages. By way of example, he then places a square white tile on top of a 1960s Vietnamese footstool to create a side table. The undulating pole of a shiny antique silver candelabra provides a cool foil for this stately look.
Eclectic elements
Now what bachelor would not want to have a leather-and-chrome recliner to complete his crib? Unfortunately, an industrial atmosphere can be a little too cold and daunting if not cushioned with a few softening elements.
Dan counters the horizontal line of the recliner with vertical accents like the single blade of leaf in a glass vase, a carved wooden totem (recycled from a door frame) leaned on the wall, and an antique lamp stand. The stand's translucent shaft gives the illusion of carved glass, complementing the recliner's aluminum frame. The red tassel adds a splash of color and fun.
The table lamp adds to the industrial look with its boxy frame, but since it's made of wood, provides a nice contrast as well. Wood is also the material that makes up a parabolic side table that mimics the curves of the recliner.
Color combo
Using his tile trick once more, Dan gives a low wooden Chinese side table from the 50s an instant update. He then frames it with plastic seats that evoke the 60s and 70s, playing with red and white as the color motif for this living room or seating area.
The color motif is repeated back and forth by placing a crimson cushion on the white seat and red funky ornamental glass vases (again from the 50s) on the white table-top tile. Notice how he staggers the heights of the vases to create layers and variety, but still maintains a unified look because all of them are the same color.
Channalli is at G/F Benlife Bldg., 166 Salcedo St., Makati City. Across the street from the Indonesian Embassy.
Speaking Chinese in Manila
Speaking in tongues
By Walter Ang
June 6, 2005
Philippine Star
"Speak in Chinese!" is a line from my aunt every so often when she visits. When I talk to grandmother, I sometimes have to ask her to define what she just said or I'll turn to my sister for a quick translation. If friends have t-shirts with Chinese characters written on it and ask what it means, my answer is always punctuated with the word "something." For example, "This says, `The wind is something something power something something."
After being raised in a household where Fujian Chinese was one of the spoken languages and attending a school with some classes taught in Mandarin Chinese for thirteen years, this is what my mastery of the language is reduced to.
I am representative of a large chunk of the Chinoy population, usually third or fourth generation descendants of immigrants from Fujian, China, who were born and raised in the Philippines. We don't flinch when we swallow exotic Chinese dishes (unlike so many contestants on American reality shows), however, what comes out of our mouths usually causes a lot of flinching and frowns from relatives who are able to speak the Chinese dialects with mastery.
Mind you, my broken Chinese is not something I am very proud of. Of course, who would not want to be well versed in more than one language? Parents are forever trumpeting about lucrative job offers. I know of people from my high school who are now holding down great jobs in China, Hongkong and Taiwan. On local shores, we have the likes of wedding host Michael Lim who has captured a sizeable niche market with his ability to emcee parties in Tagalog and English, as well as both Fujian and Mandarin Chinese dialects.
For more practical reasons, knowing another language makes traveling less intimidating. I made it a point to remember the really vital Chinese phrases like "Save me!" and "Where is the bathroom?" Also, you can always gossip about another person in the same room as long as he or she doesn't know Chinese!
Knowing at least the basics of Chinese, I have also been lucky enough to be granted access to more nuanced emotions that only language can subtly convey. Watching Chinese films subtitled in English is the best example where this aspect comes into play. I always prefer to watch Chinese films in their original Chinese soundtracks instead of dubbed versions.
Living with the language
Growing up while having to learn Chinese makes for interesting memories. I remember instances in my childhood when I would pause in mid-sentence while speaking so I could process what language I needed to use for a certain word.
I once read somewhere that linguists know for a fact that languages are best learned as a child. The tongue and brain are still flexible and impressionable enough to acquire "sound units" as foundations to more complex word structures. Different languages have different "sound units," and after a certain age, it becomes harder for the brain to learn sound units of another language. This may explain why most adult Chinoys I meet are prone to pronouncing my name as "Wart."
There was no conscious decision for me to develop my affinity to English and ignore learning Chinese, it just gradually ended up that way. In the environment where I grew up (which I presume applies to many Chinoy households), it's not uncommon to hear four different languages in one sentence. Imagine Taglish and with two Chinese dialects spliced in.
Learning the language
Lest everyone assume my parents wasted tuition money on me, I do wish I were better at the Chinese dialects, but the opportunities to use it are, realistically speaking, few and far in between. Exposure to Chinese dialects is not prevalent as well. We used to have TV shows like Sesame Street and Batibot to help kids learn English and Filipino, but there was no counterpart for the Chinese dialects.
How the language is learned poses part of the problem as well. You first have to contend with the fact that you can't learn Chinese the same way you learn English or Filipino. It's not made up of letters that you string into words. You have to learn the characters that make up the words, at one or two characters per word.
One really must learn the language by rote. This becomes a trap for some as they never move on to learning by comprehension.
Let me illustrate: in kindergarten, we learned the Chinese names of things(house, pillow, tootbrush, etc.) and moved on to complete stories (much like Reading & Literature class) in elementary school. That's when the learning starts to falter. Students retain the learning process of "simply memorizing" when they must begin to learning through "understanding through context." But there lies the rub, if you don't remember the words, how can you understand?
While I'm not an educator and am not an expert on language instruction, I've always felt that the curriculum we had was designed on an assumption that Chinese is spoken fluently at home. It relies on the notion that there is repetition and reinforcement after school hours, two key ingredients in learning a language.
But real life is not so clean cut: "My parents don't speak it all the time anyway," "We're living in the Philippines, not China," "Since you don't use it in your everyday life, why learn it?" These resentments also become barriers in learning the language.
Learning and studying Chinese can cause many a heartache for most students who have to take it up. In the school I attended, you had to pass your Chinese classes otherwise you'd be held back in that grade level. With a full English curriculum load to tackle, the extra Chinese classes can take its toll.
Since I was never really very good at it, I spent half my high school summer vacations attending remedial classes for the Chinese subjects that I'd failed. I remember a few times during final examinations where I would break down in tears while reviewing. I would get so frustrated at the endless and pointless memorizing I had to do just to pass a class. Sure, I had classmates who passed Chinese, but it seemed to me that the ones who had a hard time with it far outnumbered those who actually understood the lessons.
Life after school
I did a mini-survey of my high school batchmates on their thoughts of having learned Chinese in school. For all the mental and emotional torture we had to endure, a lot of us don't really regret having taken up the language. We only wish the curriculum had been more suited to our needs. "The lessons should've been more conversational in nature," is usually the comment.
There's been a trend of Chinoy college graduates taking up further Mandarin studies in China. While their parents are glad to have the children take up the language albeit late, is it really such a good thing that you have to re-learn something you've spent 13 years learning already?
The curriculum and the teaching methods should be evaluated if they are working for the students for the right reasons. It doesn't make sense to keep old ways just because X percent of the students pass it anyway ("If your classmate can pass it, then so should all of you.") or because they have to match the standards with, say, Taiwan or China.
I suspect one problem is that teaching Chinese is considered "just another subject" when it ought to be taught as a foreign language. I've heard that some local schools have already incorporated the Pinyin system ? the official romanization system of Chinese devised for, among other uses, as a tool for non-Chinese media (thus "Fujian" instead of "Fookien") and as a pronunciation tool for language learners.
To be fair, most of my Chinese teachers were real troopers. They did the best they could and had a sincere desire for the students to learn. But hackneyed teaching methods (maybe a little more classroom role-playing and Chinese cartoon screenings would help?) and an ineffective curriculum (the need to make it less rigid and more conversational) doesn't really help much.
The local Chinese school system has to acknowledge the fact that they are teaching a language to Chinese-Filipinos in a Westernized milieu. Not until then can they unlock the potential of the Chinese language for their students.
By Walter Ang
June 6, 2005
Philippine Star
"Speak in Chinese!" is a line from my aunt every so often when she visits. When I talk to grandmother, I sometimes have to ask her to define what she just said or I'll turn to my sister for a quick translation. If friends have t-shirts with Chinese characters written on it and ask what it means, my answer is always punctuated with the word "something." For example, "This says, `The wind is something something power something something."
After being raised in a household where Fujian Chinese was one of the spoken languages and attending a school with some classes taught in Mandarin Chinese for thirteen years, this is what my mastery of the language is reduced to.
I am representative of a large chunk of the Chinoy population, usually third or fourth generation descendants of immigrants from Fujian, China, who were born and raised in the Philippines. We don't flinch when we swallow exotic Chinese dishes (unlike so many contestants on American reality shows), however, what comes out of our mouths usually causes a lot of flinching and frowns from relatives who are able to speak the Chinese dialects with mastery.
Mind you, my broken Chinese is not something I am very proud of. Of course, who would not want to be well versed in more than one language? Parents are forever trumpeting about lucrative job offers. I know of people from my high school who are now holding down great jobs in China, Hongkong and Taiwan. On local shores, we have the likes of wedding host Michael Lim who has captured a sizeable niche market with his ability to emcee parties in Tagalog and English, as well as both Fujian and Mandarin Chinese dialects.
For more practical reasons, knowing another language makes traveling less intimidating. I made it a point to remember the really vital Chinese phrases like "Save me!" and "Where is the bathroom?" Also, you can always gossip about another person in the same room as long as he or she doesn't know Chinese!
Knowing at least the basics of Chinese, I have also been lucky enough to be granted access to more nuanced emotions that only language can subtly convey. Watching Chinese films subtitled in English is the best example where this aspect comes into play. I always prefer to watch Chinese films in their original Chinese soundtracks instead of dubbed versions.
Living with the language
Growing up while having to learn Chinese makes for interesting memories. I remember instances in my childhood when I would pause in mid-sentence while speaking so I could process what language I needed to use for a certain word.
I once read somewhere that linguists know for a fact that languages are best learned as a child. The tongue and brain are still flexible and impressionable enough to acquire "sound units" as foundations to more complex word structures. Different languages have different "sound units," and after a certain age, it becomes harder for the brain to learn sound units of another language. This may explain why most adult Chinoys I meet are prone to pronouncing my name as "Wart."
There was no conscious decision for me to develop my affinity to English and ignore learning Chinese, it just gradually ended up that way. In the environment where I grew up (which I presume applies to many Chinoy households), it's not uncommon to hear four different languages in one sentence. Imagine Taglish and with two Chinese dialects spliced in.
Learning the language
Lest everyone assume my parents wasted tuition money on me, I do wish I were better at the Chinese dialects, but the opportunities to use it are, realistically speaking, few and far in between. Exposure to Chinese dialects is not prevalent as well. We used to have TV shows like Sesame Street and Batibot to help kids learn English and Filipino, but there was no counterpart for the Chinese dialects.
How the language is learned poses part of the problem as well. You first have to contend with the fact that you can't learn Chinese the same way you learn English or Filipino. It's not made up of letters that you string into words. You have to learn the characters that make up the words, at one or two characters per word.
One really must learn the language by rote. This becomes a trap for some as they never move on to learning by comprehension.
Let me illustrate: in kindergarten, we learned the Chinese names of things(house, pillow, tootbrush, etc.) and moved on to complete stories (much like Reading & Literature class) in elementary school. That's when the learning starts to falter. Students retain the learning process of "simply memorizing" when they must begin to learning through "understanding through context." But there lies the rub, if you don't remember the words, how can you understand?
While I'm not an educator and am not an expert on language instruction, I've always felt that the curriculum we had was designed on an assumption that Chinese is spoken fluently at home. It relies on the notion that there is repetition and reinforcement after school hours, two key ingredients in learning a language.
But real life is not so clean cut: "My parents don't speak it all the time anyway," "We're living in the Philippines, not China," "Since you don't use it in your everyday life, why learn it?" These resentments also become barriers in learning the language.
Learning and studying Chinese can cause many a heartache for most students who have to take it up. In the school I attended, you had to pass your Chinese classes otherwise you'd be held back in that grade level. With a full English curriculum load to tackle, the extra Chinese classes can take its toll.
Since I was never really very good at it, I spent half my high school summer vacations attending remedial classes for the Chinese subjects that I'd failed. I remember a few times during final examinations where I would break down in tears while reviewing. I would get so frustrated at the endless and pointless memorizing I had to do just to pass a class. Sure, I had classmates who passed Chinese, but it seemed to me that the ones who had a hard time with it far outnumbered those who actually understood the lessons.
Life after school
I did a mini-survey of my high school batchmates on their thoughts of having learned Chinese in school. For all the mental and emotional torture we had to endure, a lot of us don't really regret having taken up the language. We only wish the curriculum had been more suited to our needs. "The lessons should've been more conversational in nature," is usually the comment.
There's been a trend of Chinoy college graduates taking up further Mandarin studies in China. While their parents are glad to have the children take up the language albeit late, is it really such a good thing that you have to re-learn something you've spent 13 years learning already?
The curriculum and the teaching methods should be evaluated if they are working for the students for the right reasons. It doesn't make sense to keep old ways just because X percent of the students pass it anyway ("If your classmate can pass it, then so should all of you.") or because they have to match the standards with, say, Taiwan or China.
I suspect one problem is that teaching Chinese is considered "just another subject" when it ought to be taught as a foreign language. I've heard that some local schools have already incorporated the Pinyin system ? the official romanization system of Chinese devised for, among other uses, as a tool for non-Chinese media (thus "Fujian" instead of "Fookien") and as a pronunciation tool for language learners.
To be fair, most of my Chinese teachers were real troopers. They did the best they could and had a sincere desire for the students to learn. But hackneyed teaching methods (maybe a little more classroom role-playing and Chinese cartoon screenings would help?) and an ineffective curriculum (the need to make it less rigid and more conversational) doesn't really help much.
The local Chinese school system has to acknowledge the fact that they are teaching a language to Chinese-Filipinos in a Westernized milieu. Not until then can they unlock the potential of the Chinese language for their students.
Close to Perfection: Jodi Santamaria, Angel Jacob and Rosanne Prieto
Jodi Santamaria, Angel Jacob and Rosanne Prieto
All set to make your perfect moment
By Walter Ang
Metro Magazine
(Cover Story)
In 'Perfect Moments,' Rosanne Prieto, Jodi Santamria and Angel Jacob aren't just helping fellow women--along the way, they're also discovering new things about themselves.
IT'S ONLY BEEN a few hours since
REVIEW: Tanghalang Pilipino's staging of Pirandello's 'It is so! (If you think so)'
Rumors, facts and humor
By Walter Ang
Jan. 24, 2005
Philippine Daily Inquirer
What Filipino's day is not peppered through and through with discussions on who's doing what and who's doing who and what have you? While it is part and parcel of the Filipino way of life, rumor mongering is not exactly something that should fall under the category of national pride. It is a little comforting, therefore, that Tanghalang Pilipino's latest production reminds us that gossiping is not necessarily an exclusive Filipino pastime.
It is something that cuts across countries and cultures, as evidenced by Luigi Pirandello's comedy "Cosi e (se vi pare!)" or "It is so! (If you think so)." This tale revolving around juicy gossip and malicious rumors has been translated by Jerry Respeto as "'Yun na nga! (Kung yun na nga)" for local audiences to relish.
Pirandello is a Nobel laureate whose 1921 play "Six Characters in Search of an Author," was recently proclaimed "the most original play of the 20th-century." Even if "It is so!" was written in Italy 1918, TP's adaptation provokingly shows how it could very be Manila 2005.
Their world
The TP Actors' Company deftly fills the roles of the Agazzi family and a whole plethora of characters who do nothing but dissect the goings on of the new neighbors in town: Signor Ponza, his wife and his mother-in-law Signora Frola. These gossips wonder why Signora Frola lives alone and is never seen with her daughter.
The Agazzi family and other townsfolk feign hospitality and concern when the Ponzas call on them. However, as soon as the Ponzas are barely out of the door, suspicion, doubt, skepticism, fabrication and fibbing become the order of the day. The only voice of reason amidst this buffet of lies is Signora Agazzi's brother Lamberto Laudisi, who watches and listens on the side. Laudisi is the Greek chorus with a conscience, more so after everyone is thrown into a doozy when Signor Ponza and Signora Frola independently accuse the other of being insane.
The look of the production builds on the characters' "plastikan" toward the Ponza family by bedecking everyone in plastic, literally. Costume designer John Abul ingeniously transforms linoleum tablecloth (the kind sold in Divisoria that comes in tacky, gaudy designs) into flamboyant, eye-candy couture.
Details come alive as he repeats motifs found in the tablecloth patterns as accent pieces, demonstrated by Signora Agazzi's butterfly ring and hairpin. Set consultant Riz Herbosa, on the other hand, complements the costumes with kitschy furniture still wrapped in plastic. She turns the same tacky linoleum tablecloths used for the costumes into wallpaper.
Our world
This is the synthetic, pathetic world where director Herbert Go and assistant director John Victor Villareal pokes fun at the Pinoy's penchant for tsismis and satirizes victims of the nouveau riche syndrome.
One of the most hilarious devices they use in this production is making the entire cast eat constantly throughout the play. Every single person who comes into the Agazzi household brings a customary pasalubong of merienda. Everyone who happens to be in the household gamely partakes of the food while saying their lines. The menu starts off with shingaling and goes on to include siopao, broas, suman, popcorn, even melon seeds. The smorgasbord of Pinoy delicacies ends with what may be a symbolic kamote-cue. Highlighting symbiotic partnership of food and gossip definitely packed a creative wallop.
The ensemble cast had great energy and constantly elicited howls of laughter. They obviously seemed to have fun with their roles, gamely hamming it up for the audience. We even caught Signora Agazzi using her water goblet as a finger bowl ? nonchalantly rinsing her fingers in her own drink and then, without batting an eyelash, proceeded to drink from the same goblet. Skyzx Shannah Labastilla, playing the Gobernor who later on appears in the play to mediate the confusion, does a spot-on impersonation of Miriam Defensor Santiago.
It's wonderful to see how this production does not simply present a translation of Pirandello's play, but a very tongue-in-cheek adaptation that comes alive with very Filipino quirks and references to modern Pinoy pop culture. The original butler in the original script is transformed into a scene-stealing, jaded katulong who, at one point in the play, brings out a folding chair into the family dining room and sits down to watch the telenovela-esque proceedings ? while eating watermelon seeds, of course. As the play nears its poignant end, a cross-dressing neighbor adds to the confusion of rumors with his version of the events in cryptic swardspeak. This prompted a lady behind me to comment in exasperation, "We need a translator!"
These two seemingly marginal characters provide an interesting foil to the spirit of Pirandello's farce. At the end of the day, when it comes to the truth and its many tangents and convolutions, are we really just a little lost, watching on the sidelines, trying to make sense of it all?
"'Yun na nga! (Kung 'yun na nga)" runs until Feb. 6. Call 832-3661 or 832-1125 loc. 1620/21.
Also published online:
http://news.inq7.net/lifestyle/index.php?index=1&story_id=25945
By Walter Ang
Jan. 24, 2005
Philippine Daily Inquirer
What Filipino's day is not peppered through and through with discussions on who's doing what and who's doing who and what have you? While it is part and parcel of the Filipino way of life, rumor mongering is not exactly something that should fall under the category of national pride. It is a little comforting, therefore, that Tanghalang Pilipino's latest production reminds us that gossiping is not necessarily an exclusive Filipino pastime.
It is something that cuts across countries and cultures, as evidenced by Luigi Pirandello's comedy "Cosi e (se vi pare!)" or "It is so! (If you think so)." This tale revolving around juicy gossip and malicious rumors has been translated by Jerry Respeto as "'Yun na nga! (Kung yun na nga)" for local audiences to relish.
Pirandello is a Nobel laureate whose 1921 play "Six Characters in Search of an Author," was recently proclaimed "the most original play of the 20th-century." Even if "It is so!" was written in Italy 1918, TP's adaptation provokingly shows how it could very be Manila 2005.
Their world
The TP Actors' Company deftly fills the roles of the Agazzi family and a whole plethora of characters who do nothing but dissect the goings on of the new neighbors in town: Signor Ponza, his wife and his mother-in-law Signora Frola. These gossips wonder why Signora Frola lives alone and is never seen with her daughter.
The Agazzi family and other townsfolk feign hospitality and concern when the Ponzas call on them. However, as soon as the Ponzas are barely out of the door, suspicion, doubt, skepticism, fabrication and fibbing become the order of the day. The only voice of reason amidst this buffet of lies is Signora Agazzi's brother Lamberto Laudisi, who watches and listens on the side. Laudisi is the Greek chorus with a conscience, more so after everyone is thrown into a doozy when Signor Ponza and Signora Frola independently accuse the other of being insane.
The look of the production builds on the characters' "plastikan" toward the Ponza family by bedecking everyone in plastic, literally. Costume designer John Abul ingeniously transforms linoleum tablecloth (the kind sold in Divisoria that comes in tacky, gaudy designs) into flamboyant, eye-candy couture.
Details come alive as he repeats motifs found in the tablecloth patterns as accent pieces, demonstrated by Signora Agazzi's butterfly ring and hairpin. Set consultant Riz Herbosa, on the other hand, complements the costumes with kitschy furniture still wrapped in plastic. She turns the same tacky linoleum tablecloths used for the costumes into wallpaper.
Our world
This is the synthetic, pathetic world where director Herbert Go and assistant director John Victor Villareal pokes fun at the Pinoy's penchant for tsismis and satirizes victims of the nouveau riche syndrome.
One of the most hilarious devices they use in this production is making the entire cast eat constantly throughout the play. Every single person who comes into the Agazzi household brings a customary pasalubong of merienda. Everyone who happens to be in the household gamely partakes of the food while saying their lines. The menu starts off with shingaling and goes on to include siopao, broas, suman, popcorn, even melon seeds. The smorgasbord of Pinoy delicacies ends with what may be a symbolic kamote-cue. Highlighting symbiotic partnership of food and gossip definitely packed a creative wallop.
The ensemble cast had great energy and constantly elicited howls of laughter. They obviously seemed to have fun with their roles, gamely hamming it up for the audience. We even caught Signora Agazzi using her water goblet as a finger bowl ? nonchalantly rinsing her fingers in her own drink and then, without batting an eyelash, proceeded to drink from the same goblet. Skyzx Shannah Labastilla, playing the Gobernor who later on appears in the play to mediate the confusion, does a spot-on impersonation of Miriam Defensor Santiago.
It's wonderful to see how this production does not simply present a translation of Pirandello's play, but a very tongue-in-cheek adaptation that comes alive with very Filipino quirks and references to modern Pinoy pop culture. The original butler in the original script is transformed into a scene-stealing, jaded katulong who, at one point in the play, brings out a folding chair into the family dining room and sits down to watch the telenovela-esque proceedings ? while eating watermelon seeds, of course. As the play nears its poignant end, a cross-dressing neighbor adds to the confusion of rumors with his version of the events in cryptic swardspeak. This prompted a lady behind me to comment in exasperation, "We need a translator!"
These two seemingly marginal characters provide an interesting foil to the spirit of Pirandello's farce. At the end of the day, when it comes to the truth and its many tangents and convolutions, are we really just a little lost, watching on the sidelines, trying to make sense of it all?
"'Yun na nga! (Kung 'yun na nga)" runs until Feb. 6. Call 832-3661 or 832-1125 loc. 1620/21.
Also published online:
http://news.inq7.net/lifestyle/index.php?index=1&story_id=25945
Ballet Philippines is getting to the pointe in its 35th season
Getting to the pointe
By Walter Ang
November 2004 (not published)
submitted to Unwind Magazine
We can't all afford to travel or have enough guts to jump out of a plane with a parachute, but it's not so hard to inject a little more fun into life. For example, one can always try new cuisines or explore new ways to have a good time ? like, oh say, watching something we wouldn't normally watch.
After I'd been broken into the world of ballet, I realized it's not such a bore. It's not that expensive to get tickets and it's definitely not difficult to understand. What's there to have a headache about anyway? These people aren't talking in a strange foreign language. Movement, choreography and body language are as universal as Coca-Cola.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fanatic who quivers with excitement when I hear about another upcoming production of a flying boy who doesn't want to grow up or a princess who turns into a bird with a long neck. However, my interest does get piqued if I hear about a ballet that deals with something unusual like Dracula (yes, there's a ballet about this bloodsucking creature) or a world classic being adapted into local flavor.
The great thing about watching foreign material that's been localized is that it becomes more familiar and accessible, yet at the same time, fresh and revitalized. Ballet Philippines does this by transforming and condensing the full-length ballet "La Fille Mal Gardee (The Ill-Guarded Girl)" into "Ang Pilya" for the opening show of its 35th season, "On Pointe." With this information on hand, off I marched to the Manuel Conde Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Instead of French costumes or the traditional tutus, the dancers wear traditional Filipino costumes like the kimona and patadyong. A village setting gives way to a rustic barrio. Even the dances are Filipinized: what should have been a clog-dance turns into the maglalatik (that dance where guys have coconut shells strapped to their torsos).
The simple plot has Mama Simeona, hilariously performed by Anatoly Panasyukov (yes, a man ? so you can imagine how funny the character looked), wanting to marry off her daughter Lisa to Alan, the son of the town's biggest landowner. Just like classic love stories, it's no surprise that Lisa's heart pines for someone else.
So it's lighthearted fun throughout the show until we end with a triple wedding: Lisa gets the man she wants, Alan ends up with someone who doesn't mind his penchant for chasing butterflies and even Mama Simeona gets a man for herself. The cast injects much energy into their characters, hamming it up for the audiences but never holding back in executing the choreography.
After showing how Filipinos can successfully "indigenize" a world- classic and making it into our very own, Ballet Philippines proves that our dancers certainly have the abilities to meet global standards head-on by performing several short pieces with foreign inspiration or choreography for the second act.
With these pieces, the look and feel of the whole second act becomes a dramatic counterpoint to the cheery and celebratory first act. Lighting designer Jonjon Villareal provides the audience a darker, edgier and contemporary atmosphere and deftly adds emphasis and drama with his subtle yet highly effective color schemes. With his pulse for dance and aesthetic sensibilities, Villareal's work is always an added pleasure to watch.
The curtains open once again with award-winning Alden Lugnasin's "Accidental Swans." Dancers dancers Clark Rumabayon and Kris-Belle Paclibar set the stage on fire with this mesmerizing contemporary pas de deux inspired by the classical "Swan Lake". A visually delightful piece, costume designer Gino Gonzales creates an incredibly sensual look by having both dancers wear black straps strategically placed on their bodies, showing off their sinewy and toned builds.
Then, with his entire body covered in shimmering body paint, Rumbayon makes a final encore in Marius Petipa's "Bronze Idol" inspired from "La Badayere." The whole shebang ends with a powerful piece that captures the many facets of femininity riding on an undercurrent of elegant strength. Five sultry women emerge from the shadows and proceed to dance "Je Tu Elle," a sexy, assertive and sensual piece by Redha Benteifour.
The mix of Filipino and foreign elements in this show is actually a great way to introduce the art form to novices. A sampler plate of different styles and persuasions, audiences get a taste of how fun dance can be. The pieces piece are short enough to sustain attention, but long and varied enough so that the audience leaves the theater a little hungry for more.
BP's next show "BP Goes Global" opens in October. Call 551-0211.
By Walter Ang
November 2004 (not published)
submitted to Unwind Magazine
We can't all afford to travel or have enough guts to jump out of a plane with a parachute, but it's not so hard to inject a little more fun into life. For example, one can always try new cuisines or explore new ways to have a good time ? like, oh say, watching something we wouldn't normally watch.
After I'd been broken into the world of ballet, I realized it's not such a bore. It's not that expensive to get tickets and it's definitely not difficult to understand. What's there to have a headache about anyway? These people aren't talking in a strange foreign language. Movement, choreography and body language are as universal as Coca-Cola.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fanatic who quivers with excitement when I hear about another upcoming production of a flying boy who doesn't want to grow up or a princess who turns into a bird with a long neck. However, my interest does get piqued if I hear about a ballet that deals with something unusual like Dracula (yes, there's a ballet about this bloodsucking creature) or a world classic being adapted into local flavor.
The great thing about watching foreign material that's been localized is that it becomes more familiar and accessible, yet at the same time, fresh and revitalized. Ballet Philippines does this by transforming and condensing the full-length ballet "La Fille Mal Gardee (The Ill-Guarded Girl)" into "Ang Pilya" for the opening show of its 35th season, "On Pointe." With this information on hand, off I marched to the Manuel Conde Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Instead of French costumes or the traditional tutus, the dancers wear traditional Filipino costumes like the kimona and patadyong. A village setting gives way to a rustic barrio. Even the dances are Filipinized: what should have been a clog-dance turns into the maglalatik (that dance where guys have coconut shells strapped to their torsos).
The simple plot has Mama Simeona, hilariously performed by Anatoly Panasyukov (yes, a man ? so you can imagine how funny the character looked), wanting to marry off her daughter Lisa to Alan, the son of the town's biggest landowner. Just like classic love stories, it's no surprise that Lisa's heart pines for someone else.
So it's lighthearted fun throughout the show until we end with a triple wedding: Lisa gets the man she wants, Alan ends up with someone who doesn't mind his penchant for chasing butterflies and even Mama Simeona gets a man for herself. The cast injects much energy into their characters, hamming it up for the audiences but never holding back in executing the choreography.
After showing how Filipinos can successfully "indigenize" a world- classic and making it into our very own, Ballet Philippines proves that our dancers certainly have the abilities to meet global standards head-on by performing several short pieces with foreign inspiration or choreography for the second act.
With these pieces, the look and feel of the whole second act becomes a dramatic counterpoint to the cheery and celebratory first act. Lighting designer Jonjon Villareal provides the audience a darker, edgier and contemporary atmosphere and deftly adds emphasis and drama with his subtle yet highly effective color schemes. With his pulse for dance and aesthetic sensibilities, Villareal's work is always an added pleasure to watch.
The curtains open once again with award-winning Alden Lugnasin's "Accidental Swans." Dancers dancers Clark Rumabayon and Kris-Belle Paclibar set the stage on fire with this mesmerizing contemporary pas de deux inspired by the classical "Swan Lake". A visually delightful piece, costume designer Gino Gonzales creates an incredibly sensual look by having both dancers wear black straps strategically placed on their bodies, showing off their sinewy and toned builds.
Then, with his entire body covered in shimmering body paint, Rumbayon makes a final encore in Marius Petipa's "Bronze Idol" inspired from "La Badayere." The whole shebang ends with a powerful piece that captures the many facets of femininity riding on an undercurrent of elegant strength. Five sultry women emerge from the shadows and proceed to dance "Je Tu Elle," a sexy, assertive and sensual piece by Redha Benteifour.
The mix of Filipino and foreign elements in this show is actually a great way to introduce the art form to novices. A sampler plate of different styles and persuasions, audiences get a taste of how fun dance can be. The pieces piece are short enough to sustain attention, but long and varied enough so that the audience leaves the theater a little hungry for more.
BP's next show "BP Goes Global" opens in October. Call 551-0211.
Tanghalang Pilipino's "Ang Romansa ni Magno Rubio" (The Romance of Magno Rubio)
Ruby of a Rubio
By Walter Ang
October 2004
In these days of instant communication, who hasn't heard of LDRs? Cutting across continents, cultures and, sometimes, common sense, Long Distance Relationships have become part and parcel of the Filipino life of immigration and overseas contractual work.
Tangahalang Pilipino's staging of "Ang Romansa ni Magno Rubio" speaks of this phenomenon (among other things) though the connecting medium is not the internet nor cellphones. Instead, the correspondence between Magno Rubio and his sweetheart Clarabelle blossoms from the pen-pal section of a movie magazine and unfolds over the course of several years.
The audience gets to see how Magno, a Filipino migrant farm worker in Depression-era California, attempts to woo the object of his affection (a girl in Arkansas he has never met, save for a lone photograph and lock of hair). It is this search for love that takes place in American playwright Lonnie Carter's adaptation of blacklisted writer and political activist Carlos Bulosan's short story.
The words
First premiered in Manila by the New York City-based Ma-Yi Theater Company last year, it has been translated by Joi Barrios to Filipino for a fresh staging. Comparing the English verse (projected onto a screen as supertitles) to the Filipino text is akin to choosing between apples and pineapples, but oh how the spoken Filipino lines soar and resonate throughout the theater! At once lyrical and earthy, at turns poignant and bawdy, it rings closer to the ear and strikes closer to the heart than any other language could.
Director Loy Arcenas and choreographer Jack Yabut deftly replicates the motion of the words by having Magno and his fellow workers do rhythmic and, at times aggressive, choreography as they chant their lines. They use the very Filipino arnis in several scenes to great effect. Here, the martial arts weapon becomes their tools of oppression and instruments of distress.
Yes, oppression. For the story of these migrant farm workers are not the success stories of OFWs today. Magno and his companions do not have the perks of free visa processing, free airfare and assured greencard status that nurses enjoy today. Instead, theirs is the story of our unfortunate countrymen who end up being forced to work inhumane hours for a pittance.
Despite Magno's small income, he sends Clarabelle gifts at her every beck and call. Everyone realizes he's being taken for a ride, but who can blame him for creating his own fantasy lovelife? Our protagonist is lonely, poor, uneducated. When you're being screwed by almost everything else in your life, what else have you got left except hope?
Made flesh
Paolo Rodriguez plays the titular role and imbues his character with the perfect blend of pathos, naiveté and ne'er-give-up demeanor. A strong ensemble cast includes Roeder Camanag as the restrained narrator, Paolo O'Hara as the resident bully, Noely Rayos as one of the group comics (doubling as the voice of Clarabelle), and Soliman Cruz as the avuncular senior of the group. All the actors breathe life and emotion into what could have become generic stereotypes in lesser hands.
Apart from guiding the actors as their director, multi-awarded Arcenas also gave birth to their acting space ? a drab and lifeless warehouse interior. Although he pushes this set towards the edge of the stage to bring it closer to the audience, he seals off the characters with horizontal wires that simulate the slats between planks of wood. These wires, together with lighting stands placed within close proximity of the walls, become the subliminal prison bars of the lives that have trapped our characters.
Barbie Tan-Tiongco's lighting design illuminates the set just so, adding to the foreboding feel of the space. The claustrophobic set actually serves a dual purpose. It has to be small enough so that it can be transported around when the production migrates away from Manila to spread the story of Filipino immigration away from the Philippines. A production tour across the country is a timely way to nudge audiences into evaluating how we view and deal with our search for identity (cultural and otherwise), for love, for a sense of belonging, for a better life.
Watching a stage incarnation of the Filipino diaspora as a third generation Chinoy struck many a chord. Brought to my mind were my (and my generation's) personal struggles to reconcile our polycultural upbringing and the continuing efforts to bridge the gap between my generation's cultural quirks with our parents' own (somewhat dated) worldview. A situation that is, I am certain, shared by families that carry labels such as Fil-Ams, Fil-Ozzies, Fil- Europeans and Fil-what-have-yous. Even, yes, Chinoy-Ams (Chinoys who have immigrated to America)!
Despite the bleak premise, the play is replete with humor and light moments. The songs and dancing are fun (and funny) to watch, while the banter and chemistry of the ensemble keep the audience rolling in the aisles. Watch out for the fantastically funny fight scene between Magno and a fellow farmhand. Social, cultural, educational, and business organizations in the country that want to experience this ruby of a production (that has won 8 Obie Awards in 2003) ought to book the show now before the production's touring itinerary is set.
By Walter Ang
October 2004
In these days of instant communication, who hasn't heard of LDRs? Cutting across continents, cultures and, sometimes, common sense, Long Distance Relationships have become part and parcel of the Filipino life of immigration and overseas contractual work.
Tangahalang Pilipino's staging of "Ang Romansa ni Magno Rubio" speaks of this phenomenon (among other things) though the connecting medium is not the internet nor cellphones. Instead, the correspondence between Magno Rubio and his sweetheart Clarabelle blossoms from the pen-pal section of a movie magazine and unfolds over the course of several years.
The audience gets to see how Magno, a Filipino migrant farm worker in Depression-era California, attempts to woo the object of his affection (a girl in Arkansas he has never met, save for a lone photograph and lock of hair). It is this search for love that takes place in American playwright Lonnie Carter's adaptation of blacklisted writer and political activist Carlos Bulosan's short story.
The words
First premiered in Manila by the New York City-based Ma-Yi Theater Company last year, it has been translated by Joi Barrios to Filipino for a fresh staging. Comparing the English verse (projected onto a screen as supertitles) to the Filipino text is akin to choosing between apples and pineapples, but oh how the spoken Filipino lines soar and resonate throughout the theater! At once lyrical and earthy, at turns poignant and bawdy, it rings closer to the ear and strikes closer to the heart than any other language could.
Director Loy Arcenas and choreographer Jack Yabut deftly replicates the motion of the words by having Magno and his fellow workers do rhythmic and, at times aggressive, choreography as they chant their lines. They use the very Filipino arnis in several scenes to great effect. Here, the martial arts weapon becomes their tools of oppression and instruments of distress.
Yes, oppression. For the story of these migrant farm workers are not the success stories of OFWs today. Magno and his companions do not have the perks of free visa processing, free airfare and assured greencard status that nurses enjoy today. Instead, theirs is the story of our unfortunate countrymen who end up being forced to work inhumane hours for a pittance.
Despite Magno's small income, he sends Clarabelle gifts at her every beck and call. Everyone realizes he's being taken for a ride, but who can blame him for creating his own fantasy lovelife? Our protagonist is lonely, poor, uneducated. When you're being screwed by almost everything else in your life, what else have you got left except hope?
Made flesh
Paolo Rodriguez plays the titular role and imbues his character with the perfect blend of pathos, naiveté and ne'er-give-up demeanor. A strong ensemble cast includes Roeder Camanag as the restrained narrator, Paolo O'Hara as the resident bully, Noely Rayos as one of the group comics (doubling as the voice of Clarabelle), and Soliman Cruz as the avuncular senior of the group. All the actors breathe life and emotion into what could have become generic stereotypes in lesser hands.
Apart from guiding the actors as their director, multi-awarded Arcenas also gave birth to their acting space ? a drab and lifeless warehouse interior. Although he pushes this set towards the edge of the stage to bring it closer to the audience, he seals off the characters with horizontal wires that simulate the slats between planks of wood. These wires, together with lighting stands placed within close proximity of the walls, become the subliminal prison bars of the lives that have trapped our characters.
Barbie Tan-Tiongco's lighting design illuminates the set just so, adding to the foreboding feel of the space. The claustrophobic set actually serves a dual purpose. It has to be small enough so that it can be transported around when the production migrates away from Manila to spread the story of Filipino immigration away from the Philippines. A production tour across the country is a timely way to nudge audiences into evaluating how we view and deal with our search for identity (cultural and otherwise), for love, for a sense of belonging, for a better life.
Watching a stage incarnation of the Filipino diaspora as a third generation Chinoy struck many a chord. Brought to my mind were my (and my generation's) personal struggles to reconcile our polycultural upbringing and the continuing efforts to bridge the gap between my generation's cultural quirks with our parents' own (somewhat dated) worldview. A situation that is, I am certain, shared by families that carry labels such as Fil-Ams, Fil-Ozzies, Fil- Europeans and Fil-what-have-yous. Even, yes, Chinoy-Ams (Chinoys who have immigrated to America)!
Despite the bleak premise, the play is replete with humor and light moments. The songs and dancing are fun (and funny) to watch, while the banter and chemistry of the ensemble keep the audience rolling in the aisles. Watch out for the fantastically funny fight scene between Magno and a fellow farmhand. Social, cultural, educational, and business organizations in the country that want to experience this ruby of a production (that has won 8 Obie Awards in 2003) ought to book the show now before the production's touring itinerary is set.
Asian Youth Orchestra in Manila
Asian Youth Orchestra in Manila
By Walter Ang
Sept. 8, 2004
Philippine Daily Inquirer
I'm one of the very few people I know who can mess up singing the Alphabet Song. This is probably why, after announcing to friends that I would be watching the Asian Youth Orchestra, I was met with a multitude of eyebrows rising to the heavens.
I smiled, asked them to tug their eyebrows back into place and defended myself.
"Just because I can't sing doesn't mean I can't appreciate music," I said. So on a muggy Wednesday evening, I made a beeline to the Manuel Conde Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines to catch the orchestra's second day performance in Manila.
Coming together
The Asian Youth Orchestra is an annual six-week undertaking. Musicians from all over the region (namely China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) audition to win spots in the orchestra. Those who are chosen go through a three week Rehearsal Camp under internationally renowned musicians and conductors. The remaining three weeks is slated for their performance tour.
Filipinos in this year's line up include Maria Victoria Regalario and Maurice Ivan Saraza (Violins); Ariston Payte III and Joven Tidon (Double Basses); Floyd Ricafrente (Flutes), with Rodel Hernandez and Saturnino Tiamson (Percussion).
Founded by Yehudi Menhuhin (Musical Director) and Richard Pontzious (Artistic Director and Conductor), the AYO had already completed performances in China, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia this year before arriving in Manila. The group will then move on to Hong Kong and end their rigorous 15th anniversary tour with a 4-city performance in Japan.
Making music
For the first act, the orchestra peformed Dmitri Shostakovich's "Festive Overture" and Richard Strauss's "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks." The pieces were light and fun, reminiscent of Looney Tunes and Disney cartoons. The music had a different effect, however, on my companion.
About five minutes into the first piece, she leaned in and, with much gusto and said, sotto voce, "At nahawi ang kurtina papunta sa kaharian!" This hilarious line caused us to have the giggles throughout the first hour. Good thing we knew ourselves well enough to have sat ourselves at the very last row when we came in the theater.
We made our own fun and peppered the piece with annotations like, "At eto na si Prinsipe Amante!" or "Road Runner 2, Wily Coyote 0." You get the idea. Occasionally, we would watch Pontzious as he conducted (Menhuhin conducted the evening before), his body swaying this way and that, with much energy and passion. The evening was off to a great start.
The universe had other ideas, though, and the night had decidedly taken a turn from thereon. The first act would have gone smoothly if not for the lady seated in front of us who seemed to have doused an entire bottle of perfume on herself. Her stench became so unbearable that we had to transfer seats.
Ladies and gentlemen, please keep in mind that while overindulging in fragrances is not against any theater etiquette rules, it is, however, a crime against general good taste and the civil liberties of oxygen-loving people!
Accidental lullaby
Then came the second act's piece, Gustav Mahler' Symphony No. 1 in D, "Titan." The souvenir program describes the first part of this piece as "Slow. Dragging."
It was. So slow and dragging, in fact, that people (horror of horrors) started dozing off. One person in our row even started (embarrassment of embarrassments) snoring! Strangely enough, who ever he was with didn't seem to think it necessary to wake him up.
This seemed to be the case in several rows of seats throughout the theater, causing two ushers to keep going up and down the aisles, trying to find the guilty parties. This would have been fine if they had tried to wake the snoring individuals, but they didn't. Add to that the annoying squishy sound of the usherette's skirt rubbing against itself as she repeatedly sashayed by and you can imagine how things were starting to sound.
Too bad for me and my friend. We could no longer stand it and snuck out before reaching the last part of the piece. It would have been fun since the program describes it as "With violent movement," but we were afraid that if we had to sit through the snoring and the squishy skirt sounds any longer, we would be the ones causing violent movements.
Fun for all
Despite the unexpected and unintentional audience participation, the evening was still a lot of fun. The bright beaming faces of the young musicians and their enthusiastic performance was very inspiring. And who would not be awed by the whole concept of bringing together different nations for the sharing of music?
Also impressive was the long list of corporate sponsorships that gave life to the show. Splashed on the posters and souvenir programs were entities like Cathay Pacific (Tour Patron) and JP Morgan (Manila performance sponsor). Of note is worldwide superstar Jackie Chan sponsoring scholarships through his charitable foundation. This becomes a challenge to local businesses: to support the performing arts more. Aside from the obvious tax write-offs, helping homegrown talents shine is definitely a noble investment in community relations. Hey, if Jackie Chan thinks it's cool to support the arts, why can't we?
By Walter Ang
Sept. 8, 2004
Philippine Daily Inquirer
I'm one of the very few people I know who can mess up singing the Alphabet Song. This is probably why, after announcing to friends that I would be watching the Asian Youth Orchestra, I was met with a multitude of eyebrows rising to the heavens.
I smiled, asked them to tug their eyebrows back into place and defended myself.
"Just because I can't sing doesn't mean I can't appreciate music," I said. So on a muggy Wednesday evening, I made a beeline to the Manuel Conde Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines to catch the orchestra's second day performance in Manila.
Coming together
The Asian Youth Orchestra is an annual six-week undertaking. Musicians from all over the region (namely China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) audition to win spots in the orchestra. Those who are chosen go through a three week Rehearsal Camp under internationally renowned musicians and conductors. The remaining three weeks is slated for their performance tour.
Filipinos in this year's line up include Maria Victoria Regalario and Maurice Ivan Saraza (Violins); Ariston Payte III and Joven Tidon (Double Basses); Floyd Ricafrente (Flutes), with Rodel Hernandez and Saturnino Tiamson (Percussion).
Founded by Yehudi Menhuhin (Musical Director) and Richard Pontzious (Artistic Director and Conductor), the AYO had already completed performances in China, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia this year before arriving in Manila. The group will then move on to Hong Kong and end their rigorous 15th anniversary tour with a 4-city performance in Japan.
Making music
For the first act, the orchestra peformed Dmitri Shostakovich's "Festive Overture" and Richard Strauss's "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks." The pieces were light and fun, reminiscent of Looney Tunes and Disney cartoons. The music had a different effect, however, on my companion.
About five minutes into the first piece, she leaned in and, with much gusto and said, sotto voce, "At nahawi ang kurtina papunta sa kaharian!" This hilarious line caused us to have the giggles throughout the first hour. Good thing we knew ourselves well enough to have sat ourselves at the very last row when we came in the theater.
We made our own fun and peppered the piece with annotations like, "At eto na si Prinsipe Amante!" or "Road Runner 2, Wily Coyote 0." You get the idea. Occasionally, we would watch Pontzious as he conducted (Menhuhin conducted the evening before), his body swaying this way and that, with much energy and passion. The evening was off to a great start.
The universe had other ideas, though, and the night had decidedly taken a turn from thereon. The first act would have gone smoothly if not for the lady seated in front of us who seemed to have doused an entire bottle of perfume on herself. Her stench became so unbearable that we had to transfer seats.
Ladies and gentlemen, please keep in mind that while overindulging in fragrances is not against any theater etiquette rules, it is, however, a crime against general good taste and the civil liberties of oxygen-loving people!
Accidental lullaby
Then came the second act's piece, Gustav Mahler' Symphony No. 1 in D, "Titan." The souvenir program describes the first part of this piece as "Slow. Dragging."
It was. So slow and dragging, in fact, that people (horror of horrors) started dozing off. One person in our row even started (embarrassment of embarrassments) snoring! Strangely enough, who ever he was with didn't seem to think it necessary to wake him up.
This seemed to be the case in several rows of seats throughout the theater, causing two ushers to keep going up and down the aisles, trying to find the guilty parties. This would have been fine if they had tried to wake the snoring individuals, but they didn't. Add to that the annoying squishy sound of the usherette's skirt rubbing against itself as she repeatedly sashayed by and you can imagine how things were starting to sound.
Too bad for me and my friend. We could no longer stand it and snuck out before reaching the last part of the piece. It would have been fun since the program describes it as "With violent movement," but we were afraid that if we had to sit through the snoring and the squishy skirt sounds any longer, we would be the ones causing violent movements.
Fun for all
Despite the unexpected and unintentional audience participation, the evening was still a lot of fun. The bright beaming faces of the young musicians and their enthusiastic performance was very inspiring. And who would not be awed by the whole concept of bringing together different nations for the sharing of music?
Also impressive was the long list of corporate sponsorships that gave life to the show. Splashed on the posters and souvenir programs were entities like Cathay Pacific (Tour Patron) and JP Morgan (Manila performance sponsor). Of note is worldwide superstar Jackie Chan sponsoring scholarships through his charitable foundation. This becomes a challenge to local businesses: to support the performing arts more. Aside from the obvious tax write-offs, helping homegrown talents shine is definitely a noble investment in community relations. Hey, if Jackie Chan thinks it's cool to support the arts, why can't we?
REVIEW: Women and war onstage--Lysistrata and Trojan Women
Women and War Onstage
By Walter Ang
September 2004
THOSE born in the first half of September fall under Virgo, a zodiac sign associated with deities such as the Egyptian goddess Isis or the Greek goddess Demeter. Perhaps it is Virgo's cosmic influence this month that has spurred two theater companies to stage productions that feature quite opposite renderings of the same theme from ancient Greek drama: women and war.
First is Aristophanes' comedy "Lysistrata," revived by the University of the Philippines' Dulaang U.P. For a company that thinks nothing of full frontal nudity, director Ameil Lenoardia has staged a surprisingly restrained and straightforward version of this sex satire.
In the English run, Missy Maramara injects Lysistrata (whose name means "breaker of the army") with an almost masculine authority as she leads the Athenian women to hold a sex strike to force their husbands to end the Peloponnesian war. The energetic cast attempt to stick to their vow of abstinence on a classically designed set by Tuxqs Rutaquio at the Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater.
While the women convince their husbands to "make love, not war" with hilarious encounters, opening night jitters may have made the cast seem guarded with the usual cheeky attitude and bawdy body language expected of a Greek comedy. The cast's dynamic should blossom though by the time they start performing the new Filipino translation by Jerry Respeto.
In contrast, the Cultural Center of the Philippines' Tanghalang Pilipino does not merely resurrect Euripede's tragedy "Trojan Women," it thoroughly deconstructs it. When you enter the Aurelio Tolentino Theater, the look alone of the set design tells you this won't be the usual Greek drama where characters wear togas and wave olive branches above their heads.
Production designer Gino Gonzales has created a harsh, off-kilter space. He sets a vast raked (theaterspeak for inclined) platform biased against the actual stage's edge. The backdrop is a towering wall of corrugated metal sheets punctuated by industrial light fixtures and barbed wire.
Foregoing her signature ornate gobo (light shone through cut-out patterns) designs, lighting designer Shoko Matsumoto orchestrates the light fixtures so that they alternately shine with menace or glow with sorrow. By illuminating mostly from the side of the stage, Matsumoto adds to the sense of imbalance required by this play that deals with the aftermath of the fall of Troy.
Gonzales and Matsumoto have done an outstanding job of casting a foreboding atmosphere for director Jose Estrella's interpretation of women left in the wake of war. To set the tone, Estrella begins the tragedy with her cast prostrate on strewn clothing that covers every available surface.
To further draw the audience into the confusion and dread caused by warfare, the disjointed elements keep on coming. Here is an ancient Greek tragedy where women wear kimonos over their evening gowns and male soldiers are in fatigues. The characters speak in Filipino and Taglish while making modern references to electricity and Princeton University. Then the cast merges Euripedes' text with lines from Charles Mee's modern interpretation, "Trojan Women: A Love Story."
Jose Capino's Filipino translation makes the lines sound visceral and earthy, yet it was also delicious to hear Helene (played by Kalila Aguilos) speak in straight English and even sing in French. She is a foreigner after all and unlike the popular movie "Troy" which portrays the face that launched a thousand ships as an oh-so-delicate innocent, here she is despised and reviled as the root of much strife.
Bearing the brunt of all this strife is the central character Hekabe (Hecube) alternately played by Divina Cavestany and Madeleine Nicolas. Cavestany leads a strong ensemble with her compelling performance as the Trojan queen. Never leaving the stage throughout the two-hour run, she epitomizes anguish while anchoring the wretched stories of her daughters, whose miserable fates are made known one by one.
The cast's suffering is made flesh by the nuanced but striking choreography of married tandem Nonoy and Edna Vida Froilan. This unyielding inventory of pain, misery and humiliation culminates in a powerful ending not to be missed.
The enduring power of these Greek dramas shows us the universality of striving for human dignity amidst discord and dismay. With current world socio-econo-politics the way it is, Lysistrata and Hekabe are the everywoman in our lives. So it was in the 400s B.C., so it still is in the 2000s A.D.
By Walter Ang
September 2004
THOSE born in the first half of September fall under Virgo, a zodiac sign associated with deities such as the Egyptian goddess Isis or the Greek goddess Demeter. Perhaps it is Virgo's cosmic influence this month that has spurred two theater companies to stage productions that feature quite opposite renderings of the same theme from ancient Greek drama: women and war.
First is Aristophanes' comedy "Lysistrata," revived by the University of the Philippines' Dulaang U.P. For a company that thinks nothing of full frontal nudity, director Ameil Lenoardia has staged a surprisingly restrained and straightforward version of this sex satire.
In the English run, Missy Maramara injects Lysistrata (whose name means "breaker of the army") with an almost masculine authority as she leads the Athenian women to hold a sex strike to force their husbands to end the Peloponnesian war. The energetic cast attempt to stick to their vow of abstinence on a classically designed set by Tuxqs Rutaquio at the Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater.
While the women convince their husbands to "make love, not war" with hilarious encounters, opening night jitters may have made the cast seem guarded with the usual cheeky attitude and bawdy body language expected of a Greek comedy. The cast's dynamic should blossom though by the time they start performing the new Filipino translation by Jerry Respeto.
In contrast, the Cultural Center of the Philippines' Tanghalang Pilipino does not merely resurrect Euripede's tragedy "Trojan Women," it thoroughly deconstructs it. When you enter the Aurelio Tolentino Theater, the look alone of the set design tells you this won't be the usual Greek drama where characters wear togas and wave olive branches above their heads.
Production designer Gino Gonzales has created a harsh, off-kilter space. He sets a vast raked (theaterspeak for inclined) platform biased against the actual stage's edge. The backdrop is a towering wall of corrugated metal sheets punctuated by industrial light fixtures and barbed wire.
Foregoing her signature ornate gobo (light shone through cut-out patterns) designs, lighting designer Shoko Matsumoto orchestrates the light fixtures so that they alternately shine with menace or glow with sorrow. By illuminating mostly from the side of the stage, Matsumoto adds to the sense of imbalance required by this play that deals with the aftermath of the fall of Troy.
Gonzales and Matsumoto have done an outstanding job of casting a foreboding atmosphere for director Jose Estrella's interpretation of women left in the wake of war. To set the tone, Estrella begins the tragedy with her cast prostrate on strewn clothing that covers every available surface.
To further draw the audience into the confusion and dread caused by warfare, the disjointed elements keep on coming. Here is an ancient Greek tragedy where women wear kimonos over their evening gowns and male soldiers are in fatigues. The characters speak in Filipino and Taglish while making modern references to electricity and Princeton University. Then the cast merges Euripedes' text with lines from Charles Mee's modern interpretation, "Trojan Women: A Love Story."
Jose Capino's Filipino translation makes the lines sound visceral and earthy, yet it was also delicious to hear Helene (played by Kalila Aguilos) speak in straight English and even sing in French. She is a foreigner after all and unlike the popular movie "Troy" which portrays the face that launched a thousand ships as an oh-so-delicate innocent, here she is despised and reviled as the root of much strife.
Bearing the brunt of all this strife is the central character Hekabe (Hecube) alternately played by Divina Cavestany and Madeleine Nicolas. Cavestany leads a strong ensemble with her compelling performance as the Trojan queen. Never leaving the stage throughout the two-hour run, she epitomizes anguish while anchoring the wretched stories of her daughters, whose miserable fates are made known one by one.
The cast's suffering is made flesh by the nuanced but striking choreography of married tandem Nonoy and Edna Vida Froilan. This unyielding inventory of pain, misery and humiliation culminates in a powerful ending not to be missed.
The enduring power of these Greek dramas shows us the universality of striving for human dignity amidst discord and dismay. With current world socio-econo-politics the way it is, Lysistrata and Hekabe are the everywoman in our lives. So it was in the 400s B.C., so it still is in the 2000s A.D.
REVIEW: Tanghalang Ateneo's "An Enemy of the the People"
The Enemy Wears Floral Prints
By Walter Ang
July 12, 2004
Philippine Daily Inquirer
When Dr. Thomas Stockmann discovers that the waters from the spa of his native town are poisoned, he urges the town officials to close down the resort. When the citizens realize such a decision could drive them into economic ruin, the doctor becomes "An Enemy of the People."
I drank coffee to prepare for this play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. I wanted to make sure I could stay awake as I expected a drab, dark, brooding production. I assumed the characters would wear black turtlenecks and round spectacles while dishing out kilometric discourse on sociopolitcs. This is an Ibsen play, after all!
In Tanghalang Ateneo's staging, I realized I should have drank piña colada instead when I was led to my seat by a torch-carrying usher dressed in a loud red Hawaiian shirt. In quite an ingenious move, director Ricky Abad and production designer Gino Gonzales take off from the resort discussed (but never actually seen) in the play and uses it as the visual motif of the production. Gonzales bedecks the stage with a wall imprinted with a collage of tropical birds and foliage. Along this predominantly red wall are several doors from which the cast enter and exit while dressed in beachwear that explode with colors.
Passion
The loud floral prints and brightly hued sarongs set the tone for the action onstage. Abad complements the vibrant energy of the production design with equally dynamic direction. His cast does not converse with each other simply standing in place or seated by a table, instead they traverse the length of the Rizal Mini-Theater stage. The high-octane movements mirror the characters' passion for their beliefs.
Two actors in particular imbue their roles with broiling vigor. Yan Yuzon plays the titular character Dr. Stockmann and Neil De Mesa is major antagonist Mayor Stockmann, the doctor's brother. The tandem pulls off their characters with aplomb: Yuzon creates a doctor full of impassioned rage, while De Mesa fills the Mayor with seething resentment and anger. Yuzon's hot, fiery disposition juxtaposed with De Mesa's cool, steely demeanor makes for captivating sibling rivalry scenes.
Discourse on sociopolitics was present, but Abad incorporates entertaining devices to move the action along. Actors face the audience instead of each other when certain lines are emphasized. Intimate arguments between Dr. Stockmann and Mayor Stockmann transform into one-on-one basketball games. If you're not sure who's winning the fight, just check to see who gets the ball.
Bells and whistles
Just like the canned laughtrack we hear on television sitcoms, key statements by the characters are punctuated by bells, whistles and special lighting. Reggae music like Bob Marley's "Get up, stand up" aptly underscores the scenes.
Characters are given slapstick asides and funny quirks to add humor. Mrs. Aslaksen and Hovstad, two characters who represent the fluctuating principles of local journalism, are given great hammed-up characterizations by Shermaine Barlaan and AJ Constantino, respectively. The cute factor was provided by Elmo Magalona, son of lunchtime TV variety show host Francis Magalona, as the doctor's son Ejlif.
Do not be misled, however, by the seemingly light treatment of the material. The audience takes the ride only to skid into a dark and chilling ending when Dr. Stockmann must face the consequences of upholding his beliefs. At the wake of the recent (unconcluded as of yet) national elections, the revved up actions onstage will hopefully lead audiences to assess how they deal with issues of power and influence, truth and lies, principles and persuasion.
The fun of watching this timely production was tempered only by two students seated behind me who prattled on and on the whole night and a student in front of me who actually made a call on his cellphone. Professors really should make it a point to discuss theater etiquette with students before requiring them en masse to watch a show. And if enduring noisy students wasn't enough, the restroom closest to the theater was locked, forcing the audience to walk long lengths before they could find relief. It's enough to make one wonder: who's the real enemy here?
Tanghalang Ateneo restages Enemy to open its 26th season beginning July 1. Call 0916701-7563 or 0917205-5943.
By Walter Ang
July 12, 2004
Philippine Daily Inquirer
When Dr. Thomas Stockmann discovers that the waters from the spa of his native town are poisoned, he urges the town officials to close down the resort. When the citizens realize such a decision could drive them into economic ruin, the doctor becomes "An Enemy of the People."
I drank coffee to prepare for this play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. I wanted to make sure I could stay awake as I expected a drab, dark, brooding production. I assumed the characters would wear black turtlenecks and round spectacles while dishing out kilometric discourse on sociopolitcs. This is an Ibsen play, after all!
In Tanghalang Ateneo's staging, I realized I should have drank piña colada instead when I was led to my seat by a torch-carrying usher dressed in a loud red Hawaiian shirt. In quite an ingenious move, director Ricky Abad and production designer Gino Gonzales take off from the resort discussed (but never actually seen) in the play and uses it as the visual motif of the production. Gonzales bedecks the stage with a wall imprinted with a collage of tropical birds and foliage. Along this predominantly red wall are several doors from which the cast enter and exit while dressed in beachwear that explode with colors.
Passion
The loud floral prints and brightly hued sarongs set the tone for the action onstage. Abad complements the vibrant energy of the production design with equally dynamic direction. His cast does not converse with each other simply standing in place or seated by a table, instead they traverse the length of the Rizal Mini-Theater stage. The high-octane movements mirror the characters' passion for their beliefs.
Two actors in particular imbue their roles with broiling vigor. Yan Yuzon plays the titular character Dr. Stockmann and Neil De Mesa is major antagonist Mayor Stockmann, the doctor's brother. The tandem pulls off their characters with aplomb: Yuzon creates a doctor full of impassioned rage, while De Mesa fills the Mayor with seething resentment and anger. Yuzon's hot, fiery disposition juxtaposed with De Mesa's cool, steely demeanor makes for captivating sibling rivalry scenes.
Discourse on sociopolitics was present, but Abad incorporates entertaining devices to move the action along. Actors face the audience instead of each other when certain lines are emphasized. Intimate arguments between Dr. Stockmann and Mayor Stockmann transform into one-on-one basketball games. If you're not sure who's winning the fight, just check to see who gets the ball.
Bells and whistles
Just like the canned laughtrack we hear on television sitcoms, key statements by the characters are punctuated by bells, whistles and special lighting. Reggae music like Bob Marley's "Get up, stand up" aptly underscores the scenes.
Characters are given slapstick asides and funny quirks to add humor. Mrs. Aslaksen and Hovstad, two characters who represent the fluctuating principles of local journalism, are given great hammed-up characterizations by Shermaine Barlaan and AJ Constantino, respectively. The cute factor was provided by Elmo Magalona, son of lunchtime TV variety show host Francis Magalona, as the doctor's son Ejlif.
Do not be misled, however, by the seemingly light treatment of the material. The audience takes the ride only to skid into a dark and chilling ending when Dr. Stockmann must face the consequences of upholding his beliefs. At the wake of the recent (unconcluded as of yet) national elections, the revved up actions onstage will hopefully lead audiences to assess how they deal with issues of power and influence, truth and lies, principles and persuasion.
The fun of watching this timely production was tempered only by two students seated behind me who prattled on and on the whole night and a student in front of me who actually made a call on his cellphone. Professors really should make it a point to discuss theater etiquette with students before requiring them en masse to watch a show. And if enduring noisy students wasn't enough, the restroom closest to the theater was locked, forcing the audience to walk long lengths before they could find relief. It's enough to make one wonder: who's the real enemy here?
Tanghalang Ateneo restages Enemy to open its 26th season beginning July 1. Call 0916701-7563 or 0917205-5943.
Arrow menswear CEO Ian Ross impressed with Manila mall traffic
Straight as an arrow
By Walter Ang
June 18, 2004
Philippine Daily Inquirer
"I'm impressed with the phenomenal traffic. It's outstanding!" said the head of a worldwide menswear label when he visited the Philippines for the first time. Human traffic inside malls, that is.
Clearly, Philippine mall culture has delighted Ian Ross, president and CEO of Arrow, a brand known for its menswear that's sold in more than 90 countries. Ross recently undertook a Southeast Asian inspection tour of Arrow stores including countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. The Philippines was the last stop before he returned to headquarters in New York City.
The Philippine market is relatively new for Arrow in Asia, with countries like Thailand starting operations way back in 1974. However, Pinoy men have proven their mettle when it comes to metrosexual fashion sensibilities that match the rest of Asia. Arrow's growth has been steadily increasing since it opened its first store in SM City Manila in 2000. Now the brand is being sold in 10 department stores as well as 12 boutiques nationwide.
"The Philippine market is very good. It has posted double digit increases every year!" Ross credits the expansion to local licensee Benito Lim. "This guy is very aware of what's going on in the market. He has the capability to react to the needs of the market and be proactive," said Ross.
Hipper collection
This foresight for market demand has translated into this year's collection, decidedly hipper than last year's plain, formal designs. 2004's showcase of long sleeved polos and short sleeved polo shirts are adorned with candy color hues that come in patterns like stripes and checks. The fabric range includes cotton, polyester and a new material called Dryfit.
Ross points out that, "the Arrow brand may be 150 years old, but the image is getting younger and younger. The designs are a lot more fun here since people in Asia wear more color (compared to Europe and America)."
To anticipate fashion forecasts and stay on track trends, Arrow headquarters releases a style manual to all its licensees twice a year. "This guide lets our licensees in on the latest information on color, trends, fabrics ? everything!" enthused Ross.
Ross emphasizes that information sharing within the Arrow family of licensees is constant. "We have a global conference every year where there are workshops, updates and sharing of success stories. All our licensees attend with all our consultants ? from designers to suppliers and manufacturers of fabric, buttons and any other product related to clothing," Ross explained.
Valuable feedback
Plans for the year are laid out at these conferences, but nothing is set in stone. "We don't dictate. It doesn't work if you do business that way. Our business model is different from other brands because we give our licensees the freedom to do adjustments for their respective local markets."
This CEO who hails from Canada and joins marathons in his free time describes Arrow as "a market research and customer driven organization." Ross further explained, "Everything we do, we do for the customers. We have a lot of retail stores and it gives us the opportunity to process feedback right away. Its gives us a big leading edge in finding out if something is not working."
Keeping an eye on such a large network of licensees scattered all across the globe certainly keeps Ross busy. Proof of this is his already fully booked calendar. He's scheduled to visit even more licensees in other countries till the end of the year. However, it is this attention to preserving the network, these open channels of communication and the provisions for localization that enable Arrow to stay current and in tune with its market.
The company may be more than a century old, but its ability to evolve has kept it running alongside newer and younger labels. "We constantly test our products. If it doesn't work, (we) sweep it under the rug and do something new," said Ross.
The philosophy is evident when one sees how Arrow has grown and diversified. What started out in 1851 as a one-room workshop in New York churning out collars and cuffs for men has grown into full men's line as well as a broad assortment of apparel for women and children. The Philippine outlets have so far only introduced the menswear, but Ross confirmed that "plans are already being made to eventually bring out the lines for women and children, definitely something to look forward to."
Google Scan:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Ulc1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=iSUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=683%2C1170480
By Walter Ang
June 18, 2004
Philippine Daily Inquirer
"I'm impressed with the phenomenal traffic. It's outstanding!" said the head of a worldwide menswear label when he visited the Philippines for the first time. Human traffic inside malls, that is.
Clearly, Philippine mall culture has delighted Ian Ross, president and CEO of Arrow, a brand known for its menswear that's sold in more than 90 countries. Ross recently undertook a Southeast Asian inspection tour of Arrow stores including countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore. The Philippines was the last stop before he returned to headquarters in New York City.
The Philippine market is relatively new for Arrow in Asia, with countries like Thailand starting operations way back in 1974. However, Pinoy men have proven their mettle when it comes to metrosexual fashion sensibilities that match the rest of Asia. Arrow's growth has been steadily increasing since it opened its first store in SM City Manila in 2000. Now the brand is being sold in 10 department stores as well as 12 boutiques nationwide.
"The Philippine market is very good. It has posted double digit increases every year!" Ross credits the expansion to local licensee Benito Lim. "This guy is very aware of what's going on in the market. He has the capability to react to the needs of the market and be proactive," said Ross.
Hipper collection
This foresight for market demand has translated into this year's collection, decidedly hipper than last year's plain, formal designs. 2004's showcase of long sleeved polos and short sleeved polo shirts are adorned with candy color hues that come in patterns like stripes and checks. The fabric range includes cotton, polyester and a new material called Dryfit.
Ross points out that, "the Arrow brand may be 150 years old, but the image is getting younger and younger. The designs are a lot more fun here since people in Asia wear more color (compared to Europe and America)."
To anticipate fashion forecasts and stay on track trends, Arrow headquarters releases a style manual to all its licensees twice a year. "This guide lets our licensees in on the latest information on color, trends, fabrics ? everything!" enthused Ross.
Ross emphasizes that information sharing within the Arrow family of licensees is constant. "We have a global conference every year where there are workshops, updates and sharing of success stories. All our licensees attend with all our consultants ? from designers to suppliers and manufacturers of fabric, buttons and any other product related to clothing," Ross explained.
Valuable feedback
Plans for the year are laid out at these conferences, but nothing is set in stone. "We don't dictate. It doesn't work if you do business that way. Our business model is different from other brands because we give our licensees the freedom to do adjustments for their respective local markets."
This CEO who hails from Canada and joins marathons in his free time describes Arrow as "a market research and customer driven organization." Ross further explained, "Everything we do, we do for the customers. We have a lot of retail stores and it gives us the opportunity to process feedback right away. Its gives us a big leading edge in finding out if something is not working."
Keeping an eye on such a large network of licensees scattered all across the globe certainly keeps Ross busy. Proof of this is his already fully booked calendar. He's scheduled to visit even more licensees in other countries till the end of the year. However, it is this attention to preserving the network, these open channels of communication and the provisions for localization that enable Arrow to stay current and in tune with its market.
The company may be more than a century old, but its ability to evolve has kept it running alongside newer and younger labels. "We constantly test our products. If it doesn't work, (we) sweep it under the rug and do something new," said Ross.
The philosophy is evident when one sees how Arrow has grown and diversified. What started out in 1851 as a one-room workshop in New York churning out collars and cuffs for men has grown into full men's line as well as a broad assortment of apparel for women and children. The Philippine outlets have so far only introduced the menswear, but Ross confirmed that "plans are already being made to eventually bring out the lines for women and children, definitely something to look forward to."
Google Scan:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Ulc1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=iSUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=683%2C1170480
Flipping around with Ballet Philippines
Flipping around
By Walter Ang
Feb. 02, 2004
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Audiences interested in dance but who balk at the prospect of sitting through the classical form of ballet should make a beeline for Ballet Philippines' "Neo Filipino" this February. BP ends its 34th season with its annual showcase of experimental works and new choreography, this time titled, "Flip."
So none of the usual ballerinas in tutus or men in white tights for this show, unless it's tongue-in-cheek or under the guise of "deconstruction." Instead, the stage becomes a venue for fresh material or re-workings of existing choreography, interspersed with other art forms and media like video and computer graphics.
BP artistic director Denisa Reyes, who aims to "turn things around" by pushing her choreographers "to go further with exploration and experimentation," acknowledges that the term "Flip" is used in the US as a derogatory term for Filipinos. But she wants to transform the label by reclaiming it for our own use.
"There is no racial bent here for the word. I think it's cool to accept Pinoys being called 'Flips,'" she says.
True to her vision for this year's showcase, Reyes will be restaging "Asong Ulol Atbp." First staged in the '90s, this piece is a satire on Filipino traits and norms that attempts to find an answer to the question, "What's wrong with us Filipinos?"
Accompanying this piece is a new work, "In The Name of the Mother," a commentary on overpopulation.
Reyes commends her choreographers "for being so brave with their choices." Erwin Flores, she points out, has embraced the challenge of using multimedia and technology in his piece "Wires." The piece uses "trigger" technology, similar to the Dance Revo machines usually found in arcades, where lights, music and video can be activated by certain movements.
While Flores' piece may incorporate technology, BP's associate artistic director Alden Lugnasin flips the theme around and explores environmentalism instead. Having grown up "sa may baybayin," Lugnasin's affinity for water and the environment is evident in his choice of topics for exploration and choreography.
But he dispels any highbrow definitions of his piece "Fluttering Disturbances."
"It is simply about my thoughts on appreciating the environment and animals as they are," he says.
Rounding up the flock of choreographers for this showcase is Raul Alcoseba, whose piece adds a tone of religiosity to the line-up.
"Uma-amen" finds its roots in the works of Rizal, "Noli Me Tangere" in particular, but has evolved into much more. The piece has been distilled to contain belief, faith and morality as its main ingredients.
If there is any commonality to the works for "Flip," it is that all are works in progress. All the choreographers are still fine-tuning their respective pieces at the time of this interview, flipping ideas on their heads and churning out movements and choreography for the audience come opening night.
"Neo-Filpino: Flip" goes onstage at the CCP Little Theater on Feb. 6, 7 & 8. Call 5511003.
Google Scan:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4aZjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aSUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=830%2C19178678
By Walter Ang
Feb. 02, 2004
Philippine Daily Inquirer
So none of the usual ballerinas in tutus or men in white tights for this show, unless it's tongue-in-cheek or under the guise of "deconstruction." Instead, the stage becomes a venue for fresh material or re-workings of existing choreography, interspersed with other art forms and media like video and computer graphics.
BP artistic director Denisa Reyes, who aims to "turn things around" by pushing her choreographers "to go further with exploration and experimentation," acknowledges that the term "Flip" is used in the US as a derogatory term for Filipinos. But she wants to transform the label by reclaiming it for our own use.
"There is no racial bent here for the word. I think it's cool to accept Pinoys being called 'Flips,'" she says.
True to her vision for this year's showcase, Reyes will be restaging "Asong Ulol Atbp." First staged in the '90s, this piece is a satire on Filipino traits and norms that attempts to find an answer to the question, "What's wrong with us Filipinos?"
Accompanying this piece is a new work, "In The Name of the Mother," a commentary on overpopulation.
Reyes commends her choreographers "for being so brave with their choices." Erwin Flores, she points out, has embraced the challenge of using multimedia and technology in his piece "Wires." The piece uses "trigger" technology, similar to the Dance Revo machines usually found in arcades, where lights, music and video can be activated by certain movements.
While Flores' piece may incorporate technology, BP's associate artistic director Alden Lugnasin flips the theme around and explores environmentalism instead. Having grown up "sa may baybayin," Lugnasin's affinity for water and the environment is evident in his choice of topics for exploration and choreography.
But he dispels any highbrow definitions of his piece "Fluttering Disturbances."
"It is simply about my thoughts on appreciating the environment and animals as they are," he says.
Rounding up the flock of choreographers for this showcase is Raul Alcoseba, whose piece adds a tone of religiosity to the line-up.
"Uma-amen" finds its roots in the works of Rizal, "Noli Me Tangere" in particular, but has evolved into much more. The piece has been distilled to contain belief, faith and morality as its main ingredients.
If there is any commonality to the works for "Flip," it is that all are works in progress. All the choreographers are still fine-tuning their respective pieces at the time of this interview, flipping ideas on their heads and churning out movements and choreography for the audience come opening night.
"Neo-Filpino: Flip" goes onstage at the CCP Little Theater on Feb. 6, 7 & 8. Call 5511003.
Google Scan:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=4aZjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=aSUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=830%2C19178678
REVIEW: Tanghalang Ateneo's "Don Juan: Ang Babaero ng Sevilla," Filipino translation of "Playboy of Seville"
Sex, lies and swordplay
By Walter Ang
December 15, 2003
Philippine Daily Inquirer
DURING the 1600s, there was no television, radio, internet, nor MMS- capable cellphones yet. So it's not surprising that comedia (which does not mean "comedy," but rather "drama" or `play") performed in public squares and marketplaces may have been all the rage. It was easy to please the audience with clear-cut portrayals of good triumphing over evil by showing plays such as Tirso De Molina's "El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra" (Playboy of Seville and the Stone Guest).
In this day and age where one is weaned on the fast-cuts of MTV and the thousand and one distractions of techno-gadgets, how does one catch and sustain the attention of an audience with a centuries-old morality play about a womanizing leach who gets his just desserts? Tangahalang Ateneo braves an attempt with "Don Juan: Ang Babaero ng Sevilla," a translation by Salvador Malig, Jr.
First, they bring in National Artist for Theater Design Salvador Bernal. He has created a false proscenium for the humongous stage of the Irwin Theater in the Ateneo campus. Covering almost a third of the stage, Bernal's facade contains the action to the center. In this facade, there are motifs of wings and an ominous all-seeing eye high above the stage, a celestial counterpoint to the devilish treachery that eventually unfolds onstage.
Then, director Ricardo Abad fills the space with lots of action. The Tanghalang Ateneo moderator and artistic director regales the audience with dancers darting in and out of scenes, singers punctuating the drama, and actors who have very large movements and walk about a lot as they scream their lines.
As Don Juan conquers one woman to the next and escapes the consequences each time, Bernal's large set pieces move about to create different locales. Three large curtained walls and two stair sets become the interiors of a house, the sidewalk of street, and a whole menagerie of other settings. These pieces do not move automatically as you would see in an expensive Broadway production. But they cleverly fall into place, as local theater practitioners put it endearingly, "mano-matically," powered by the cast hidden in the shadows.
Cheeky exposure
Now with all these components that help literally move the action along, we also have a very hunky Jay Españo playing Don Juan. Don Juan is, after all, a sexual fiend, so there are plenty of scenes where Españo takes off his shirt to reveal his pecs and six-pack abs glistening in the light. To the delight and muffled shrieks of the ladies in the audience, there is even one scene with some "cheeky" body exposure.
Unraveling the sexual undertones of the script does not end there. We have fights between the men with their long, stiff swords. Not the usual clumsy swordplay one sees onstage, these actors pulled off believable scenes under the guidance of fencing master Walter Torres.
Then we have the layered costumes of the women, also designed by Bernal. Cumbersome silhouettes that Don Juan's sneaky words melt to reveal the wearer's inner but very real sexual desires.
And, of course, we also have sex scenes choreographed by Dexter Santos. Highly acrobatic, we see Don Juan dragging his ladies all over the stage and ending up in some very contorted positions.
Contrasts
If there is a hunky leading man for the women, the men also get treated to beautiful leading ladies. If you keep an eye open, you can catch the Reese Witherspoon look-a-like in the chorus, as well as the sterling Missy Maramara as one of Don Juan's victims, the fisherwoman Tisbea. Maramara's throaty voice commands attention as she delivers her fiesty and earthy monologues. When Tisbea realizes Don Juan's deceit, Maramara erupts like a volcano and lets loose a fire-and-brimstone speech complete with cheerleader choreography.
However, not all the scenes are large and noisy. The production provides studies in contrast with light, intimate scenes. Fun moments are courtesy of the comic timing of Ogie Alcasid sound-a-like Chrisitan Verlarde II, playing Markes dela Mota, and Joseph de la Cruz, playing Don Juan's sidekick/conscience Catalinon.
In the scenes where Don Juan preys on his women, just like his flowery and twisted lies, the set design is usually detailed and busy. In contrast, when two women left in the wake of his duplicity air their grievances, the stage is stark and empty. Just like a heart betrayed, it is filled only with blinding white anger.
When we near the end of the play, this anger builds into a collective force when the victims come to collect from Don Juan. One is then led to ask, is the anger justified? Don Juan openly breaks the rules to act on his lust. The women, however, must break rules in secret to act on theirs. If they are all breaking rules anyway, is it really just a matter of not getting caught? Is the question just a matter of personal freewill versus social obligation? Will a 17th century play lead a 21st audience to ask, to paraphrase the title of a cable TV show, "Who's morality is it anyway?"
Google scan:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0ERaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZSUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1315%2C29908739
By Walter Ang
December 15, 2003
Philippine Daily Inquirer
DURING the 1600s, there was no television, radio, internet, nor MMS- capable cellphones yet. So it's not surprising that comedia (which does not mean "comedy," but rather "drama" or `play") performed in public squares and marketplaces may have been all the rage. It was easy to please the audience with clear-cut portrayals of good triumphing over evil by showing plays such as Tirso De Molina's "El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra" (Playboy of Seville and the Stone Guest).
In this day and age where one is weaned on the fast-cuts of MTV and the thousand and one distractions of techno-gadgets, how does one catch and sustain the attention of an audience with a centuries-old morality play about a womanizing leach who gets his just desserts? Tangahalang Ateneo braves an attempt with "Don Juan: Ang Babaero ng Sevilla," a translation by Salvador Malig, Jr.
First, they bring in National Artist for Theater Design Salvador Bernal. He has created a false proscenium for the humongous stage of the Irwin Theater in the Ateneo campus. Covering almost a third of the stage, Bernal's facade contains the action to the center. In this facade, there are motifs of wings and an ominous all-seeing eye high above the stage, a celestial counterpoint to the devilish treachery that eventually unfolds onstage.
Then, director Ricardo Abad fills the space with lots of action. The Tanghalang Ateneo moderator and artistic director regales the audience with dancers darting in and out of scenes, singers punctuating the drama, and actors who have very large movements and walk about a lot as they scream their lines.
As Don Juan conquers one woman to the next and escapes the consequences each time, Bernal's large set pieces move about to create different locales. Three large curtained walls and two stair sets become the interiors of a house, the sidewalk of street, and a whole menagerie of other settings. These pieces do not move automatically as you would see in an expensive Broadway production. But they cleverly fall into place, as local theater practitioners put it endearingly, "mano-matically," powered by the cast hidden in the shadows.
Cheeky exposure
Now with all these components that help literally move the action along, we also have a very hunky Jay Españo playing Don Juan. Don Juan is, after all, a sexual fiend, so there are plenty of scenes where Españo takes off his shirt to reveal his pecs and six-pack abs glistening in the light. To the delight and muffled shrieks of the ladies in the audience, there is even one scene with some "cheeky" body exposure.
Unraveling the sexual undertones of the script does not end there. We have fights between the men with their long, stiff swords. Not the usual clumsy swordplay one sees onstage, these actors pulled off believable scenes under the guidance of fencing master Walter Torres.
Then we have the layered costumes of the women, also designed by Bernal. Cumbersome silhouettes that Don Juan's sneaky words melt to reveal the wearer's inner but very real sexual desires.
And, of course, we also have sex scenes choreographed by Dexter Santos. Highly acrobatic, we see Don Juan dragging his ladies all over the stage and ending up in some very contorted positions.
Contrasts
If there is a hunky leading man for the women, the men also get treated to beautiful leading ladies. If you keep an eye open, you can catch the Reese Witherspoon look-a-like in the chorus, as well as the sterling Missy Maramara as one of Don Juan's victims, the fisherwoman Tisbea. Maramara's throaty voice commands attention as she delivers her fiesty and earthy monologues. When Tisbea realizes Don Juan's deceit, Maramara erupts like a volcano and lets loose a fire-and-brimstone speech complete with cheerleader choreography.
However, not all the scenes are large and noisy. The production provides studies in contrast with light, intimate scenes. Fun moments are courtesy of the comic timing of Ogie Alcasid sound-a-like Chrisitan Verlarde II, playing Markes dela Mota, and Joseph de la Cruz, playing Don Juan's sidekick/conscience Catalinon.
In the scenes where Don Juan preys on his women, just like his flowery and twisted lies, the set design is usually detailed and busy. In contrast, when two women left in the wake of his duplicity air their grievances, the stage is stark and empty. Just like a heart betrayed, it is filled only with blinding white anger.
When we near the end of the play, this anger builds into a collective force when the victims come to collect from Don Juan. One is then led to ask, is the anger justified? Don Juan openly breaks the rules to act on his lust. The women, however, must break rules in secret to act on theirs. If they are all breaking rules anyway, is it really just a matter of not getting caught? Is the question just a matter of personal freewill versus social obligation? Will a 17th century play lead a 21st audience to ask, to paraphrase the title of a cable TV show, "Who's morality is it anyway?"
Google scan:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=0ERaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=ZSUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1315%2C29908739
Getting a nipple ring
The (Nipple) Ring
By Walter Ang
November 2003 issue
MTV INK Magazine
February
I don't know when it was exactly that I decided I would get a nipple ring. But when I finally got my head to agree with my heart, I spent a few days scouring the internet to research body piercing. I figured if I was going to get it done, I'd better know what the hell I was getting into!
I got loads and loads of information and used my super editing skills to trim it down to a four pager summary. Prepared with my research, I proceeded to find an appropriate piercing parlor where I could have my procedure performed. (Don't you just love alliteration!?)
A friend tipped me off to a tattoo/piercing parlor in a Makati mall. I went to do a visual inspection, or more commonly termed in the Philippines as "ocular." It seemed clean enough. They had a Certificate from the Sanitation Department on the wall, which what I thought was a good thing. I asked a couple of questions and got suitable answers. It also helped that there were a lot of people getting tattooed that day and I could see the piercers in action. I decided I would return the following week to get the procedure done.
But first I had to find a ring. It was not an easy task! There are basically two types, rings and barbells. Most of the barbells I found were either too long or too thick, and I settled on an aptly sized stainless steel surgical ring. The stainless surgical steel sounds so ooh-la-la, but it serves a very important purpose. My research indicates that other metals (like silver and gold) will tarnish and the thought of me getting silver poisoning is definitely not ooh-la-la.
March
The day of the pierce (Wince rating: 3 out of 5. But you know you want to read on.)
I recruited my friend Donna to go hold my hand in case anything untoward happened. It didn't hurt when the needle went in. It hurt a little when it was coming out the other side. What hurt the most was when he was pulling the needle out while inserting the ring! It felt like a giant lead pipe was being dragged through my chest!
The embarrassing part is that after the ring was in place and just before the piercer screwed the bearing in, I started trembling and before I knew it, my whole head went numb, I couldn't hear anything and I had this overwhelming sensation of wanting to sleep.
It was so trippy! I had never fainted in my entire life before and the funny thing was, I had three different thoughts running through my mind simultaneously.
Thought # 1: Oh my God, I must not faint! I must not faint! It's not macho! It's so wussy!
Thought # 2: I *must* pay close attention and remember what fainting feels like so I can write about it in the future. I am a writer, after all.
Thought # 3: Oh boy! I'm going to faint! I have to tell them before I pass ouuuuuu . . .
A few minutes later When I came to, I could smell ammonia and felt a hand supporting my chin. And yes, my friend was holding my hand, bless her.
One final sweep of the piercer's hand screwed in the bearing to hold the ring in place. All done!
They let me keep the needle that was used to pierce me. How cool! It's like bringing home your own appendix after they take it out!
That afternoon
I walk around the mall with my two hands holding the front of my shirt away from my chest. I'm sure I looked like a total doofus, but my whole pec left was hurting so much. Even the wind made me cringe.
That night
I call my med student friend to ask why I fainted. He thinks it's because I was probably holding my breath too long from the pain and my body compensated by making me hyperventilate and faint. I suspect what he really wanted to say was, "The reason you fainted is simply because you're a wimpy geek!"
I am afraid to even take a shower. What if I faint when the water hits my ring?! What if I faint and fall on the cold tile floor and hit my head and die!?!
On Monday
I show my coworkers in the office. They all scream. Even the guys.
The following morning
I receive a text message from one of my officemates. "Sobrang ayaw ko sya. d ko makalimutan noh. ASAR ka talaga. U shldnt have showd me dat. Now i can't get it off my mind!"
A few minutes later, I get another text message from the same person. "NAIINIS AKO SA IYO!!!!! Naalala ko ung nipple mo. BWISIT KA!!!"
A few days later (Gross rating: 5 out of 5. You have been warned.)
There are mornings when I wake up and there are white crusty thingies around the holes where the ring goes through.
On some mornings, pus comes out of both holes. Blech! I have to squeeze my tit to get most of it out. Double blech! I warned you!
Months later
My nipple and areola were tender for about a week after the piercing. But after that it was pretty okay. Now that months have passed, icky stuff doesn't come out of the holes anymore and the ring doesn't hurt at all. In fact, when properly ? err, handled, the pleasurable sensations are more than doubled compared to my pre-ring days. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
When people ask me when I'm going to get my other nipple pierced, I say, "Fainting once in my life is enough. Thank you."
By Walter Ang
November 2003 issue
MTV INK Magazine
February
I don't know when it was exactly that I decided I would get a nipple ring. But when I finally got my head to agree with my heart, I spent a few days scouring the internet to research body piercing. I figured if I was going to get it done, I'd better know what the hell I was getting into!
I got loads and loads of information and used my super editing skills to trim it down to a four pager summary. Prepared with my research, I proceeded to find an appropriate piercing parlor where I could have my procedure performed. (Don't you just love alliteration!?)
A friend tipped me off to a tattoo/piercing parlor in a Makati mall. I went to do a visual inspection, or more commonly termed in the Philippines as "ocular." It seemed clean enough. They had a Certificate from the Sanitation Department on the wall, which what I thought was a good thing. I asked a couple of questions and got suitable answers. It also helped that there were a lot of people getting tattooed that day and I could see the piercers in action. I decided I would return the following week to get the procedure done.
But first I had to find a ring. It was not an easy task! There are basically two types, rings and barbells. Most of the barbells I found were either too long or too thick, and I settled on an aptly sized stainless steel surgical ring. The stainless surgical steel sounds so ooh-la-la, but it serves a very important purpose. My research indicates that other metals (like silver and gold) will tarnish and the thought of me getting silver poisoning is definitely not ooh-la-la.
March
The day of the pierce (Wince rating: 3 out of 5. But you know you want to read on.)
I recruited my friend Donna to go hold my hand in case anything untoward happened. It didn't hurt when the needle went in. It hurt a little when it was coming out the other side. What hurt the most was when he was pulling the needle out while inserting the ring! It felt like a giant lead pipe was being dragged through my chest!
The embarrassing part is that after the ring was in place and just before the piercer screwed the bearing in, I started trembling and before I knew it, my whole head went numb, I couldn't hear anything and I had this overwhelming sensation of wanting to sleep.
It was so trippy! I had never fainted in my entire life before and the funny thing was, I had three different thoughts running through my mind simultaneously.
Thought # 1: Oh my God, I must not faint! I must not faint! It's not macho! It's so wussy!
Thought # 2: I *must* pay close attention and remember what fainting feels like so I can write about it in the future. I am a writer, after all.
Thought # 3: Oh boy! I'm going to faint! I have to tell them before I pass ouuuuuu . . .
A few minutes later When I came to, I could smell ammonia and felt a hand supporting my chin. And yes, my friend was holding my hand, bless her.
One final sweep of the piercer's hand screwed in the bearing to hold the ring in place. All done!
They let me keep the needle that was used to pierce me. How cool! It's like bringing home your own appendix after they take it out!
That afternoon
I walk around the mall with my two hands holding the front of my shirt away from my chest. I'm sure I looked like a total doofus, but my whole pec left was hurting so much. Even the wind made me cringe.
That night
I call my med student friend to ask why I fainted. He thinks it's because I was probably holding my breath too long from the pain and my body compensated by making me hyperventilate and faint. I suspect what he really wanted to say was, "The reason you fainted is simply because you're a wimpy geek!"
I am afraid to even take a shower. What if I faint when the water hits my ring?! What if I faint and fall on the cold tile floor and hit my head and die!?!
On Monday
I show my coworkers in the office. They all scream. Even the guys.
The following morning
I receive a text message from one of my officemates. "Sobrang ayaw ko sya. d ko makalimutan noh. ASAR ka talaga. U shldnt have showd me dat. Now i can't get it off my mind!"
A few minutes later, I get another text message from the same person. "NAIINIS AKO SA IYO!!!!! Naalala ko ung nipple mo. BWISIT KA!!!"
A few days later (Gross rating: 5 out of 5. You have been warned.)
There are mornings when I wake up and there are white crusty thingies around the holes where the ring goes through.
On some mornings, pus comes out of both holes. Blech! I have to squeeze my tit to get most of it out. Double blech! I warned you!
Months later
My nipple and areola were tender for about a week after the piercing. But after that it was pretty okay. Now that months have passed, icky stuff doesn't come out of the holes anymore and the ring doesn't hurt at all. In fact, when properly ? err, handled, the pleasurable sensations are more than doubled compared to my pre-ring days. Wink wink, nudge nudge.
When people ask me when I'm going to get my other nipple pierced, I say, "Fainting once in my life is enough. Thank you."
Whispers and quivers: Walking tours of Manila's cemeteries
Whispers and quivers
By Walter Ang
November 2003 issue
MTV INK Magazine
As November loomed closer, I felt the earth quiver and heard it moan with whispers from souls beyond our world. Just kidding! I didn't really hear anything, but I did feel it was the perfect time to take a walking tour of the La Loma, Chinese and North cemeteries.
I've known my friends long enough not to invite the ones who'll look at me like I've taken crazy-pills, nor the ones who will cross themselves and sneak glances at my forehead, trying to see if horns are beginning to grow. Instead, I rounded up a bunch of morbid freaks, I mean, ehem, adventurous, curious and fun-loving individuals to join in this enterprise.
We met up with our tour guide Carlos Celdran, a bubbly and gregarious fellow, and began our journey at the La Loma Cemetery. Energized by the bright afternoon sun, we were eager to explore the earth and see what stories it would reveal.
Beginning at the end
Away from the city noise and clutter, the tombstones and statues of angels stood tall and erect, serene monuments calling our attention to the Netherworld. Carlos, who also does walking tours of Escolta Street in downtown Manila and Intramuros, started off with extremely insightful historical and architectural tidbits on how the cemeteries came to be. He wove in economics, politics and all sorts of trivia -- all without sounding like a droning teacher from Social Studies class.
In fact, seeing tangible remnants of what he was talking about made it so much fun and entertaining I wondered why we didn't have this tour as a field trip back during my student days. My tourmates got so into it that they were practically shouting out names of laws (feeling like game show contestants, I'm sure) that I had long buried in my brain like the Tydings-Mcduffie Law, Jones Law and some Hare Krishna Law. I, on the other hand, had flashbacks of terror teachers asking questions I didn't know how to answer. The past really does come back to haunt you!
Before we left La Loma, we tried to sneak into the church and stumbled upon a group of men having some sort of religious meeting. I was once told never to be afraid of dead people, "it's the live ones you should look out for." No words rang truer at that moment. Apparently, it was some secret exclusive men's faction and these guys wouldn't allow the women in our group to go in ? talk about freaky.
Next stop was the Chinese cemetery where Carlos gave us joss sticks (incense to the rest of us) and "wishing" paper money to burn so we could do ancestor worship. Just like the Chinese, how exciting! We solemnly did as instructed, watching smoke from the tips of our burning joss sticks float to the sky, our intents and desires along with those ethereal wisps, onwards and upwards.
The Chinese cemetery is a cornucopia of visual delights, with rows and rows of mausoleums that featured a mixture of Oriental and Christian motifs. As Carlos gave us an overview of Chinese death rituals and burial customs, we were led to a mausoleum with a glass façade and a velvet curtain keeping its innards away from prying eyes (like those of nosy, noisy tourists, ehem).
This particular mausoleum, according to a source, is the only one in the world to have been included in the Guinness Book of World Records for having an airconditioner. Lots of mausoleums have those now, but I suppose this one started the trend. These days, there is nothing beyond those floor to ceiling curtains, since its, uhrm, residents have been moved to another cemetery south of Manila.
The high cost of plots have spurred a steady migration, leaving a lot of the graves in this cemetery empty now (what our tour guide described as "desecrated tombs"). This strange fact, along with the stillness of the air and the sight of crumbling walls and fallen angels cracked in half added to the eerieness and sadness of it all. I have grandparents buried there so the place was not new to me, although I imagine it must have provided a surreal, otherworldly experience for the rest of the group.
A grave for everyone (and their dog, too)
Our last stop was the North Cemetery, a veritable melting pot of races, classes and religions. And stories -- this place is a treasure trove of lore and juicy, steamy tales.
We go to see the plot of the Thomasites, the Katipunans, the Freemasons, and yes, even our country's first World Flyweight Boxing Champion, Pancho Villa. The circumstances surrounding their deaths are as colorful as Pancho Villa's headstone and as textured as the intricate carvings on some of the statues punctuating the cemetery.
What surprised me was that this cemetery is apparently the final resting place of a lot of the former presidents of our country. So this is where they end up! For those of you who think dead presidents are only good for having their faces printed on money, this tour will definitely change your mind.
"Remember, it's not tsismis if it's true," Carlos began, and proceeded to dish out tales about our former heads of state that made our eyebrows arch and jaws drop. Affairs, conspiracy, murders ? twists of truth that would put any telenovela to shame.
Our last stop was the stately plot of former president Manuel Roxas. As we took time out to digest and relish all the information we had learned that quiet, lazy afternoon, we were challenged to find out where the Roxas's family dog had been buried. The night had begun to steal away the sun and the sky had turned a pale gray. Someone from our group finally found Bogie's little niche, a pet who left his family forever in his tenth year of life.
Feel like waking (stories of) the dead? Contact Carlos Celdran at 671-7726 or 0916-783-1383 or celdrantours@hotmail.com.
By Walter Ang
November 2003 issue
MTV INK Magazine
As November loomed closer, I felt the earth quiver and heard it moan with whispers from souls beyond our world. Just kidding! I didn't really hear anything, but I did feel it was the perfect time to take a walking tour of the La Loma, Chinese and North cemeteries.
I've known my friends long enough not to invite the ones who'll look at me like I've taken crazy-pills, nor the ones who will cross themselves and sneak glances at my forehead, trying to see if horns are beginning to grow. Instead, I rounded up a bunch of morbid freaks, I mean, ehem, adventurous, curious and fun-loving individuals to join in this enterprise.
We met up with our tour guide Carlos Celdran, a bubbly and gregarious fellow, and began our journey at the La Loma Cemetery. Energized by the bright afternoon sun, we were eager to explore the earth and see what stories it would reveal.
Beginning at the end
Away from the city noise and clutter, the tombstones and statues of angels stood tall and erect, serene monuments calling our attention to the Netherworld. Carlos, who also does walking tours of Escolta Street in downtown Manila and Intramuros, started off with extremely insightful historical and architectural tidbits on how the cemeteries came to be. He wove in economics, politics and all sorts of trivia -- all without sounding like a droning teacher from Social Studies class.
In fact, seeing tangible remnants of what he was talking about made it so much fun and entertaining I wondered why we didn't have this tour as a field trip back during my student days. My tourmates got so into it that they were practically shouting out names of laws (feeling like game show contestants, I'm sure) that I had long buried in my brain like the Tydings-Mcduffie Law, Jones Law and some Hare Krishna Law. I, on the other hand, had flashbacks of terror teachers asking questions I didn't know how to answer. The past really does come back to haunt you!
Before we left La Loma, we tried to sneak into the church and stumbled upon a group of men having some sort of religious meeting. I was once told never to be afraid of dead people, "it's the live ones you should look out for." No words rang truer at that moment. Apparently, it was some secret exclusive men's faction and these guys wouldn't allow the women in our group to go in ? talk about freaky.
Next stop was the Chinese cemetery where Carlos gave us joss sticks (incense to the rest of us) and "wishing" paper money to burn so we could do ancestor worship. Just like the Chinese, how exciting! We solemnly did as instructed, watching smoke from the tips of our burning joss sticks float to the sky, our intents and desires along with those ethereal wisps, onwards and upwards.
The Chinese cemetery is a cornucopia of visual delights, with rows and rows of mausoleums that featured a mixture of Oriental and Christian motifs. As Carlos gave us an overview of Chinese death rituals and burial customs, we were led to a mausoleum with a glass façade and a velvet curtain keeping its innards away from prying eyes (like those of nosy, noisy tourists, ehem).
This particular mausoleum, according to a source, is the only one in the world to have been included in the Guinness Book of World Records for having an airconditioner. Lots of mausoleums have those now, but I suppose this one started the trend. These days, there is nothing beyond those floor to ceiling curtains, since its, uhrm, residents have been moved to another cemetery south of Manila.
The high cost of plots have spurred a steady migration, leaving a lot of the graves in this cemetery empty now (what our tour guide described as "desecrated tombs"). This strange fact, along with the stillness of the air and the sight of crumbling walls and fallen angels cracked in half added to the eerieness and sadness of it all. I have grandparents buried there so the place was not new to me, although I imagine it must have provided a surreal, otherworldly experience for the rest of the group.
A grave for everyone (and their dog, too)
Our last stop was the North Cemetery, a veritable melting pot of races, classes and religions. And stories -- this place is a treasure trove of lore and juicy, steamy tales.
We go to see the plot of the Thomasites, the Katipunans, the Freemasons, and yes, even our country's first World Flyweight Boxing Champion, Pancho Villa. The circumstances surrounding their deaths are as colorful as Pancho Villa's headstone and as textured as the intricate carvings on some of the statues punctuating the cemetery.
What surprised me was that this cemetery is apparently the final resting place of a lot of the former presidents of our country. So this is where they end up! For those of you who think dead presidents are only good for having their faces printed on money, this tour will definitely change your mind.
"Remember, it's not tsismis if it's true," Carlos began, and proceeded to dish out tales about our former heads of state that made our eyebrows arch and jaws drop. Affairs, conspiracy, murders ? twists of truth that would put any telenovela to shame.
Our last stop was the stately plot of former president Manuel Roxas. As we took time out to digest and relish all the information we had learned that quiet, lazy afternoon, we were challenged to find out where the Roxas's family dog had been buried. The night had begun to steal away the sun and the sky had turned a pale gray. Someone from our group finally found Bogie's little niche, a pet who left his family forever in his tenth year of life.
Feel like waking (stories of) the dead? Contact Carlos Celdran at 671-7726 or 0916-783-1383 or celdrantours@hotmail.com.
REVIEW: Ballet Philippines' "Carmina Burana," choreography by Alice Reyes
Horror music, live!
By Walter Ang
Oct. 29, 2003
Philippine Daily Inquirer
All I know about classical music, I heard from the cartoons that I watched growing up. I know all the music aficionados out there are now cringing and beating their breasts in frustration. Don't worry, at least I know how to pronounce Chopin. Smile.
Also, thanks to Ballet Philippines' production of "Icons," I now know the title of a certain piece of music often used in horror and suspense films, usually in apocalyptic scenes where humankind perishes in a huge fireball. This piece of music was most recently used in the opening scene of MTV's "Jackass: The Movie."
"Icons" went onstage at the Main Theater of the CCP and featured the Philippine Madrigal Singers and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra. The first act was filled with lighthearted song and dance with the Madrigals singing three songs and the dancers performing two pieces with the orchestra.
Tony Fabella's choreography of "Bahay Kubo Atbp." was at turns funny and solemn, but always celebratory in tone. It was a great counterpoint to what the audience was to see in the second act: Alice Reyes' choreography of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana."
As the curtains went up, it was a breathtaking and awesome sight that greeted the audience. Rows of choral singers in black robes and yarmulkes flanked the stage as guest conductor Maestro Eugene Castillo raised his baton. The stage revealed towering rock formations with the ballet dancers in formation, veiled with smoke emerging from a central cauldron.
When the music began as the singers hit the first note and the dancers executed their first gesture, you could actually hear gasps from the audience. I was absolutely enthralled. It was a powerful moment that showed how such enduring yet fleeting beauty could be created within the confines of a stage.
Delicious shivers went down my spine as I recognized the music as something I had always heard on TV or in the movies, but never in real life before. It was amazing to hear it for the first time with a full chorus and orchestra. Whenever those kettle drums and cymbals went off together, it was rousing good fun that made my heart quicken.
Assembly
This time around, Ballet Philippines was able to pull off a successful assembly of collaborators. National Artist for Set Design Salvador Bernal's set, imposing rock formations against a striking backdrop of diagonal lines, elicited a refrain of wows from the ladies seated behind me. Production supervisor Santiago Galvero's expert rendering of the textures resulted in a simple yet ominous piece.
Castillo was every bit the conductor of my animation memories, with long hair that flapped as he vigorously coaxed and guided the music out of his orchestra and the chorus of singers that included the San Beda College Chorale, University of the East Chorale, Our Lady of Fatima University Chorale, Asian Youth Singing Ambassadors, soprano Maria Katrina Saporsantos, and baritone Ramone Acoymo (alternating with Noel Azcona). The cute factor was supplied by the Kilyawan Boys Choir filling the box seats in their schoolboy glory.
The text of the music was taken from the poems of 13th century wandering students of England, France and Germany known as the Goliards. It's interesting and hilarious to note that the Goliards were known more for their shenanigans and tomfoolery like getting drunk, gambling, and rioting.
The music, voices, text and set laid the groundwork for the dancing. Dark and brooding choreography started the piece, but as the movements progressed, it also showcased intimate, graceful scenes, as well as some definitely Bacchanalian displays of eroticism and a finale filled with hope and renewal. Lighting designer Jonjon Villareal's simple colors and subtle light changes effectively complemented and heightened the emotions onstage.
Re-stager Ida Beltran-Lucilla must have certainly had her hands full resurrecting the dance steps that were first performed way back in 1974, eons before I was even born. Her efforts were not for naught, the dancers filled the theater with their massive energy and graceful legwork. Of note was Kris-Belle Paclibar. This young lady who played the title role in last month's Darna imbued so much anguish and torment into her role that it was almost painful to watch.
Google Scan:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BLljAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eyUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2919%2C30947893
By Walter Ang
Oct. 29, 2003
Philippine Daily Inquirer
All I know about classical music, I heard from the cartoons that I watched growing up. I know all the music aficionados out there are now cringing and beating their breasts in frustration. Don't worry, at least I know how to pronounce Chopin. Smile.
Also, thanks to Ballet Philippines' production of "Icons," I now know the title of a certain piece of music often used in horror and suspense films, usually in apocalyptic scenes where humankind perishes in a huge fireball. This piece of music was most recently used in the opening scene of MTV's "Jackass: The Movie."
"Icons" went onstage at the Main Theater of the CCP and featured the Philippine Madrigal Singers and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra. The first act was filled with lighthearted song and dance with the Madrigals singing three songs and the dancers performing two pieces with the orchestra.
Tony Fabella's choreography of "Bahay Kubo Atbp." was at turns funny and solemn, but always celebratory in tone. It was a great counterpoint to what the audience was to see in the second act: Alice Reyes' choreography of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana."
As the curtains went up, it was a breathtaking and awesome sight that greeted the audience. Rows of choral singers in black robes and yarmulkes flanked the stage as guest conductor Maestro Eugene Castillo raised his baton. The stage revealed towering rock formations with the ballet dancers in formation, veiled with smoke emerging from a central cauldron.
When the music began as the singers hit the first note and the dancers executed their first gesture, you could actually hear gasps from the audience. I was absolutely enthralled. It was a powerful moment that showed how such enduring yet fleeting beauty could be created within the confines of a stage.
Delicious shivers went down my spine as I recognized the music as something I had always heard on TV or in the movies, but never in real life before. It was amazing to hear it for the first time with a full chorus and orchestra. Whenever those kettle drums and cymbals went off together, it was rousing good fun that made my heart quicken.
Assembly
This time around, Ballet Philippines was able to pull off a successful assembly of collaborators. National Artist for Set Design Salvador Bernal's set, imposing rock formations against a striking backdrop of diagonal lines, elicited a refrain of wows from the ladies seated behind me. Production supervisor Santiago Galvero's expert rendering of the textures resulted in a simple yet ominous piece.
Castillo was every bit the conductor of my animation memories, with long hair that flapped as he vigorously coaxed and guided the music out of his orchestra and the chorus of singers that included the San Beda College Chorale, University of the East Chorale, Our Lady of Fatima University Chorale, Asian Youth Singing Ambassadors, soprano Maria Katrina Saporsantos, and baritone Ramone Acoymo (alternating with Noel Azcona). The cute factor was supplied by the Kilyawan Boys Choir filling the box seats in their schoolboy glory.
The text of the music was taken from the poems of 13th century wandering students of England, France and Germany known as the Goliards. It's interesting and hilarious to note that the Goliards were known more for their shenanigans and tomfoolery like getting drunk, gambling, and rioting.
The music, voices, text and set laid the groundwork for the dancing. Dark and brooding choreography started the piece, but as the movements progressed, it also showcased intimate, graceful scenes, as well as some definitely Bacchanalian displays of eroticism and a finale filled with hope and renewal. Lighting designer Jonjon Villareal's simple colors and subtle light changes effectively complemented and heightened the emotions onstage.
Re-stager Ida Beltran-Lucilla must have certainly had her hands full resurrecting the dance steps that were first performed way back in 1974, eons before I was even born. Her efforts were not for naught, the dancers filled the theater with their massive energy and graceful legwork. Of note was Kris-Belle Paclibar. This young lady who played the title role in last month's Darna imbued so much anguish and torment into her role that it was almost painful to watch.
Google Scan:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BLljAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eyUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=2919%2C30947893
A Death in a Chinoy Family
A Death in the Family
By Walter Ang
Oct. 29, 2003
Philippine Daily Inquirer
I was all of 13 years old. I was juggling the twin hurdles of puberty and high school --my body was growing faster than my skin and I was barely a month into my freshman year -- when I'm woken by my aunt one morning, her face full of sadness. Then I hear the news that pulls the rug from under my feet, and I begin a long arduous fall.
My mother had died. The hours and days (and years even) that came after was an unreal blur. First things first, I had to have my head shaved. It's a custom followed by Chinoys since you can't have your hair cut for 40 days. I'm not sure if you're supposed to get a haircut for practical reasons because you can't get it cut again for sometime, or if the act in itself is some sort of prescribed tradition. Someone accompanied my two brothers and me to the barbershop and minutes later, the manicure ladies were murmuring hushed tones of "Kawawa naman sila." while my hair fell in clumps to the floor.
When we arrive at the funeral parlor, we're greeted by requisite banners with Chinese characters bearing messages of condolence strung across the hall. People who are already there don't know how quite to look at us. The smell of incense smoke, wilting flowers, and the sweat and perfumes of visitors combined into a heady, sickly sweet mixture in the air. My head spun.
The next few days were filled with so many people coming and going, gingerly offering their soft condolences, pronouncing the word only we Pinoys can: "kondolens." I began to revile the word and the saccharine tone with which it was delivered!
My siblings and I went to a Catholic school and they sent over a priest to say mass. My mother had turned into a Born Again Chrisitan before she died and her group sent over a pastor or whatever they're called. My relatives, of course, had Chinese monks and nuns come over as well to chat and pray. All I could think of back then was thank heavens they didn't all come on the same day! I don't know if it's okay to think of funny things when someone has just died. I suppose it's one of the mind's defense mechanisms.
Sometimes I recall the internment day filled with clouds, sometimes I remember how hot the sun was, I'm not sure what it really was anymore. I do remember how my sister almost wasn't allowed to attend. She was born on the year of the monkey, and apparently, for that particular day people born under certain birth animals weren't allowed to join in things like burials. If there's one thing I've learned about Chinese customs there is always a loophole. They simply had my sister turn her back to the funeral procession at the gates of the cemetery. Problem solved.
I had never seen nor hear so many people crying, but there was something that I saw that was more surreal that that. Someone had been hired to videotape the ceremony! No one had told me about it and part of me wanted to strangle the guy. I don't know if videotaping funerals still happens now, but it's still one of the craziest things I'd ever seen in my entire life. Eons from now, if for some reason the archives of the National Geographic Channel's documentaries on death are ever destroyed, archeologists who need to study funeral rituals of Chinoys can come to my house and dig that tape up.
After they slid in my mother's coffin into its concrete niche, they started burning paper effigies of a house, a car, and other representations of worldly pleasures. This was to ensure my mom would have all these things in the afterlife. Then, being the eldest child, I was tasked to hold my mom's portrait in my scrawny arms and was whisked away into a car. I was made to sit in front, my family at the back. We were promptly driven off to a Chinese temple, leaving everyone behind.
I had stored these memories in the closets of my mind, but they rattled noisily again when I recently took a historical and architectural walking tour of the La Loma, Chinese and North cemeteries. During the tour, which I wrote about in detail for the November issue of MTV INK (shameless plug!), our tour guide had recounted some Chinese burial customs that made me think back.
I remembered wondering how my siblings and cousins and I -- our generation, would handle things when the time came for us to deal with our other loved ones' deaths. No one explains things like death rituals and customs to you. I impishly thought that one day maybe I could write a manual of sorts and earn a lot of money. A Chinoy Book of the Dead, so to speak. No first draft as of yet.
Despite the lighter moments that I recall, I also remember how deeply overwhelming everything was. How angry, lost, sad, scared and frightened I felt, sometimes sliding from one emotion to the other, sometimes straddling all together at the same time. How irritating it was to have all these strangers intrude on such a personal tragedy, telling you what to do and what not to do. Not being able to just grieve in your own space and in on your own terms.
Years went by and I eventually learned about the value of ritualized grieving and the five steps of dealing with trauma. I began to slowly appreciate what I had to go through, the cudgels of academic and logical thought easing the confused heart. I also learned to appreciate how time erodes the hard edges of painful memories into fuzzy mute images, so that one no longer has to remember with clarity and vividness whenever one thinks back.
Google Scan:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BLljAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eyUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1929%2C30913561
By Walter Ang
Oct. 29, 2003
Philippine Daily Inquirer
I was all of 13 years old. I was juggling the twin hurdles of puberty and high school --my body was growing faster than my skin and I was barely a month into my freshman year -- when I'm woken by my aunt one morning, her face full of sadness. Then I hear the news that pulls the rug from under my feet, and I begin a long arduous fall.
My mother had died. The hours and days (and years even) that came after was an unreal blur. First things first, I had to have my head shaved. It's a custom followed by Chinoys since you can't have your hair cut for 40 days. I'm not sure if you're supposed to get a haircut for practical reasons because you can't get it cut again for sometime, or if the act in itself is some sort of prescribed tradition. Someone accompanied my two brothers and me to the barbershop and minutes later, the manicure ladies were murmuring hushed tones of "Kawawa naman sila." while my hair fell in clumps to the floor.
When we arrive at the funeral parlor, we're greeted by requisite banners with Chinese characters bearing messages of condolence strung across the hall. People who are already there don't know how quite to look at us. The smell of incense smoke, wilting flowers, and the sweat and perfumes of visitors combined into a heady, sickly sweet mixture in the air. My head spun.
The next few days were filled with so many people coming and going, gingerly offering their soft condolences, pronouncing the word only we Pinoys can: "kondolens." I began to revile the word and the saccharine tone with which it was delivered!
My siblings and I went to a Catholic school and they sent over a priest to say mass. My mother had turned into a Born Again Chrisitan before she died and her group sent over a pastor or whatever they're called. My relatives, of course, had Chinese monks and nuns come over as well to chat and pray. All I could think of back then was thank heavens they didn't all come on the same day! I don't know if it's okay to think of funny things when someone has just died. I suppose it's one of the mind's defense mechanisms.
Sometimes I recall the internment day filled with clouds, sometimes I remember how hot the sun was, I'm not sure what it really was anymore. I do remember how my sister almost wasn't allowed to attend. She was born on the year of the monkey, and apparently, for that particular day people born under certain birth animals weren't allowed to join in things like burials. If there's one thing I've learned about Chinese customs there is always a loophole. They simply had my sister turn her back to the funeral procession at the gates of the cemetery. Problem solved.
I had never seen nor hear so many people crying, but there was something that I saw that was more surreal that that. Someone had been hired to videotape the ceremony! No one had told me about it and part of me wanted to strangle the guy. I don't know if videotaping funerals still happens now, but it's still one of the craziest things I'd ever seen in my entire life. Eons from now, if for some reason the archives of the National Geographic Channel's documentaries on death are ever destroyed, archeologists who need to study funeral rituals of Chinoys can come to my house and dig that tape up.
After they slid in my mother's coffin into its concrete niche, they started burning paper effigies of a house, a car, and other representations of worldly pleasures. This was to ensure my mom would have all these things in the afterlife. Then, being the eldest child, I was tasked to hold my mom's portrait in my scrawny arms and was whisked away into a car. I was made to sit in front, my family at the back. We were promptly driven off to a Chinese temple, leaving everyone behind.
I had stored these memories in the closets of my mind, but they rattled noisily again when I recently took a historical and architectural walking tour of the La Loma, Chinese and North cemeteries. During the tour, which I wrote about in detail for the November issue of MTV INK (shameless plug!), our tour guide had recounted some Chinese burial customs that made me think back.
I remembered wondering how my siblings and cousins and I -- our generation, would handle things when the time came for us to deal with our other loved ones' deaths. No one explains things like death rituals and customs to you. I impishly thought that one day maybe I could write a manual of sorts and earn a lot of money. A Chinoy Book of the Dead, so to speak. No first draft as of yet.
Despite the lighter moments that I recall, I also remember how deeply overwhelming everything was. How angry, lost, sad, scared and frightened I felt, sometimes sliding from one emotion to the other, sometimes straddling all together at the same time. How irritating it was to have all these strangers intrude on such a personal tragedy, telling you what to do and what not to do. Not being able to just grieve in your own space and in on your own terms.
Years went by and I eventually learned about the value of ritualized grieving and the five steps of dealing with trauma. I began to slowly appreciate what I had to go through, the cudgels of academic and logical thought easing the confused heart. I also learned to appreciate how time erodes the hard edges of painful memories into fuzzy mute images, so that one no longer has to remember with clarity and vividness whenever one thinks back.
Google Scan:
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=BLljAAAAIBAJ&sjid=eyUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1929%2C30913561
Making performance art in Manila
Performance What?
By Walter Ang
October 2003 issue
MTV INK Magazine
Like a virgin The first time I ever saw performance art was via a documentary on Yoko Ono. The TV screen flickered with black and white images of her seated in the middle of a room while, horrors of horrors, people from the audience armed with scissors snipped away at her kimono!
Like a virgin ? live! Later that year, I got to catch a performance art festival in Penguin Café, Malate. Intrigued by what I had seen on TV, I wasn't going to let the real thing pass me by!
Just some of what I saw: Two shirtless guys, one slumped over the other, crawling all over the place ? on the floor, tabletops, the bar.
A guy who washed people's feet with a basin of beer.
And the weirdest one of all, a guy who put his hands in his pants and either 1) pretended to spank the monkey or 2) really spanked the monkey.
The friend I had Tom Sawyered into going with me and I fancied ourselves adventurous and open minded. We tried to see the art in performance art. We really did. We liked some of the stuff we saw. The rest just made us either laugh or roll our eyeballs. But it was loads of fun, and that's what counts.
Party Crashing While drinking free wine (and making pa-sosi) at a party I'd crashed, I'm introduced to this man with large, round eyes and an intense stare. Turns out he organized the performance art show I'd seen years back. "So what is performance art exactly?" I ask. He answers me indirectly by telling me stories of performance art that he has seen, but not giving an articulated dictionary definition. I stare into my glass and wonder if I'd had enough to drink for the night.
How party crashing makes you part of an event you didn't even know about Toreador ringtone goes off. "Hello?" I say into my cellphone. "Hi Walter! This is Mor'o!" Slight pause as I searched my memory banks. Ah yes, Yuan Mor'o, the performance art artist who I met last year! "I have something exciting to tell you. Let's meet."
So we meet and I find out I've already been included in the official list of performers for the 3rd Philippine International Performance Art Festival (PIPAF) dubbed "LAKARAN 2003." Why do I feel like my life is a sitcom?
Although I felt honored and excited (and important and glamorous and artistic), I asked, "Why me?" Mor'o answered, "Why not?" This is the part where I heard the canned laughter, like I was a character on "Will and Grace." He went on to explain that he included a line up of performers from different disciplines, writers included.
I'd done theater work, so I wasn't nervous about performing in front of a crowd. But I was coming from a totally different milieu and I wanted to clarify what it was exactly that I had to do. So I asked again, "What is performance art exactly?"
This time he tells me what it means by negating other performing arts forms. "It's not theater, it's not spoken poetry, it's not dance. We use props, but we don't call them props. We can talk, but we don't use a script." He concluded with a flourish, "Just do what is in your heart and be true to yourself!"
Okay. I can dig being true to myself. "So I'm scheduled for one performance, right?" I asked. "Two!" Mor'o smiled with glee. Now I really know my life is a sitcom! Groan.
A few hours before the opening performance Tonight, all 40 or so artists from several countries will be performing at the festival opening at the Kanlungan ng Sining in Luneta Park. It is humid and I am stuck in traffic!
Have thought long and hard about what to perform. The thing with performance art is that you either pick up on the performance's Very Deep Thought (as travel guide "Fodor's Up Close New York City" calls it) or all you see is a bunch of wackos who look like they've taken crazy pills. In short, you either see the art, or all you see is ka- fuck-you-han (pronounced "kapakyuhan" for full effect.)
But as Oscar Wilde puts it, art is in the eye of the beholder (a.k.a. the audience), or something to that effect. He says it so much more eloquently in the prologue of "The Picture of Dorian Gray," check it out on the internet.
Opening night Just some of what I saw: 3 guys and a girl tied together by packaging tape. (And no, there is no nudity nor leather straps!) The guy on one end screamed into a radio, the guy on the other end passed out polvoron wrapped in cellophane to the audience.
A Thai artist spread stuff from his backpack (notebook, water bottle, pens, etc.) on the ground, wore a raincoat, then walked around and around and around his seat repeatedly saying, "I'm so tired." Then he sat down, drank water from his bottle, and put the stuff back in his bag.
And the funniest one: A guy who made the audience hold up strips of tissue paper over his head while he attempted to step on two soda cans. After he squished the cans, he cut the strips by tried by burning them with a lighter. However, the first strip didn't stop burning and prompted the crowd to give out a collective gasp of fear. The guy had to stomp out the mini-fire he'd made.
What I did: I cut a hole in a 8.5 by 11.5 piece of bond paper that was big enough for bodies to go through. Neat huh?!
Like a virgin ? no more! A few nights later, Penguin Café is filled to the rafters with a motley crew of colorful characters. How exciting to be doing a piece of performance art in the same place where I first saw it live!
I chatted with the other performers while waiting for my turn. I found out that most of them where visual artists (painters, sculptors, etc.) with a peppering of theater actors and ballet dancers. We shared beer and stories of our backgrounds. Some artists brought along their families, some had friends in the audience.
It was fun evening full of people who wanted to share their art and, well, their Very Deep Thought. I did a variation of my piece for the opening night, hoping that the Very Deep Thought of my piece would be well conveyed. If not, I just hoped the audience had fun. Afterwards, I promptly melted into the crowd and partied the night away.
By Walter Ang
October 2003 issue
MTV INK Magazine
Like a virgin The first time I ever saw performance art was via a documentary on Yoko Ono. The TV screen flickered with black and white images of her seated in the middle of a room while, horrors of horrors, people from the audience armed with scissors snipped away at her kimono!
Like a virgin ? live! Later that year, I got to catch a performance art festival in Penguin Café, Malate. Intrigued by what I had seen on TV, I wasn't going to let the real thing pass me by!
Just some of what I saw: Two shirtless guys, one slumped over the other, crawling all over the place ? on the floor, tabletops, the bar.
A guy who washed people's feet with a basin of beer.
And the weirdest one of all, a guy who put his hands in his pants and either 1) pretended to spank the monkey or 2) really spanked the monkey.
The friend I had Tom Sawyered into going with me and I fancied ourselves adventurous and open minded. We tried to see the art in performance art. We really did. We liked some of the stuff we saw. The rest just made us either laugh or roll our eyeballs. But it was loads of fun, and that's what counts.
Party Crashing While drinking free wine (and making pa-sosi) at a party I'd crashed, I'm introduced to this man with large, round eyes and an intense stare. Turns out he organized the performance art show I'd seen years back. "So what is performance art exactly?" I ask. He answers me indirectly by telling me stories of performance art that he has seen, but not giving an articulated dictionary definition. I stare into my glass and wonder if I'd had enough to drink for the night.
How party crashing makes you part of an event you didn't even know about Toreador ringtone goes off. "Hello?" I say into my cellphone. "Hi Walter! This is Mor'o!" Slight pause as I searched my memory banks. Ah yes, Yuan Mor'o, the performance art artist who I met last year! "I have something exciting to tell you. Let's meet."
So we meet and I find out I've already been included in the official list of performers for the 3rd Philippine International Performance Art Festival (PIPAF) dubbed "LAKARAN 2003." Why do I feel like my life is a sitcom?
Although I felt honored and excited (and important and glamorous and artistic), I asked, "Why me?" Mor'o answered, "Why not?" This is the part where I heard the canned laughter, like I was a character on "Will and Grace." He went on to explain that he included a line up of performers from different disciplines, writers included.
I'd done theater work, so I wasn't nervous about performing in front of a crowd. But I was coming from a totally different milieu and I wanted to clarify what it was exactly that I had to do. So I asked again, "What is performance art exactly?"
This time he tells me what it means by negating other performing arts forms. "It's not theater, it's not spoken poetry, it's not dance. We use props, but we don't call them props. We can talk, but we don't use a script." He concluded with a flourish, "Just do what is in your heart and be true to yourself!"
Okay. I can dig being true to myself. "So I'm scheduled for one performance, right?" I asked. "Two!" Mor'o smiled with glee. Now I really know my life is a sitcom! Groan.
A few hours before the opening performance Tonight, all 40 or so artists from several countries will be performing at the festival opening at the Kanlungan ng Sining in Luneta Park. It is humid and I am stuck in traffic!
Have thought long and hard about what to perform. The thing with performance art is that you either pick up on the performance's Very Deep Thought (as travel guide "Fodor's Up Close New York City" calls it) or all you see is a bunch of wackos who look like they've taken crazy pills. In short, you either see the art, or all you see is ka- fuck-you-han (pronounced "kapakyuhan" for full effect.)
But as Oscar Wilde puts it, art is in the eye of the beholder (a.k.a. the audience), or something to that effect. He says it so much more eloquently in the prologue of "The Picture of Dorian Gray," check it out on the internet.
Opening night Just some of what I saw: 3 guys and a girl tied together by packaging tape. (And no, there is no nudity nor leather straps!) The guy on one end screamed into a radio, the guy on the other end passed out polvoron wrapped in cellophane to the audience.
A Thai artist spread stuff from his backpack (notebook, water bottle, pens, etc.) on the ground, wore a raincoat, then walked around and around and around his seat repeatedly saying, "I'm so tired." Then he sat down, drank water from his bottle, and put the stuff back in his bag.
And the funniest one: A guy who made the audience hold up strips of tissue paper over his head while he attempted to step on two soda cans. After he squished the cans, he cut the strips by tried by burning them with a lighter. However, the first strip didn't stop burning and prompted the crowd to give out a collective gasp of fear. The guy had to stomp out the mini-fire he'd made.
What I did: I cut a hole in a 8.5 by 11.5 piece of bond paper that was big enough for bodies to go through. Neat huh?!
Like a virgin ? no more! A few nights later, Penguin Café is filled to the rafters with a motley crew of colorful characters. How exciting to be doing a piece of performance art in the same place where I first saw it live!
I chatted with the other performers while waiting for my turn. I found out that most of them where visual artists (painters, sculptors, etc.) with a peppering of theater actors and ballet dancers. We shared beer and stories of our backgrounds. Some artists brought along their families, some had friends in the audience.
It was fun evening full of people who wanted to share their art and, well, their Very Deep Thought. I did a variation of my piece for the opening night, hoping that the Very Deep Thought of my piece would be well conveyed. If not, I just hoped the audience had fun. Afterwards, I promptly melted into the crowd and partied the night away.
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