Archive - Arts & Culture

  By YOLANDA L. PUNSALAN THE noisier, the better, the more prosperous.  This has been part of the cultural conditioning in welcoming the New  Year. But a canon of inspirational stories centering on New Year’s Day itself should  form part of the celebration arsenal as one looks forward to twelve months  of living dangerously or

By NORMAN SISON HUNDREDS troop to the Antipolo Cathedral in Antipolo City for the 8 p.m. mass, one of the many of marathon masses held in Catholic churches across the Philippines, celebrating Christmas. Flickering at the entrance are three Christmas lanterns in the shape of a star, known locally as parols. Meanwhile, about five kilometers

  By YOLANDA PUNZALAN THE theme of Christmas, the everlastingly great narrative of Christ’s nativity has become the inspiration of major creative works. Here are some of them, perfect gifts for loved ones and for yourself: The most popular Christmas–themed story is Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, immortalized by now and retold over generations, even

  By ELIZABETH LOLARGA Photos by CYNTHIA PAZ AND TONY LACABA LIGAYA Amilbangsa, cultural researcher and conservationist par excellence, dancer and doubtless a living national treasure, found a good way to pass on her dance instruction method to a new generation through the AlunAlun Dance Circle’s (AADC) Yuletide performance “Pangalay sa Boys’ Town” in Parang,

  By NORMAN SISON WITH a conductor’s baton in his right hand, a boy – no more than 12 years of age – leads a 40-piece orchestra to the cheerful tune of “Sleigh Ride”. Mind you, this is at a Christmas concert. But, no, the boy isn’t a child prodigy. About two minutes later, his

  By JOSEPH CORTES THE Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra’s recent concert “Deleon & Arutiunian” was a mixed bag of sorts. All the works performed that night were technically premieres because the PPO has no record of having played these pieces in its 39 years of existence. Two were tone poems, while the other two were virtuoso

  By PATRICK KING PASCUAL THE success story of  Socorro Cancio Ramos includes incidents of failure. Ramos is known more as Nanay Coring, founder and general manager of National Book Store, the leading retailer of school supplies, academic and  various kinds of books and everything in between. “I think it’s everybody’s purpose to achieve more,”

Text and photos by ELIZABETH LOLARGA IF the once moribund fine arts program of the Philippine Women’s University at the main campus on Taft Avenue, Manila, now enjoys a high profile, a lot of it has to do with its overhauled curriculum, marketing chops and the fairly new PWU School of Fine Arts and Design

  By PABLO A. TARIMAN IF Lola  Rosa were alive, she would have been 85 today. One of the unrealized film projects of Marilou Diaz-Abaya was one touching on the story of Ma. Rosa Luna Henson,  known as Lola Rosa, the first Filipina to tell her story as a comfort woman for the Imperial Japanese

  By WINNIE  VELASQUEZ THE Printmakers Association of the Philippines  opened its studios at the back of the Folk Arts Theater to give the public a peek at the fascinating world of printmaking in “Art by the Bay”  for the past three  Saturdays and will continue to do so this Saturday, Dec. 8. From 5

BY PABLO A. TARIMAN BALLET Manila has an interesting twin-bill for its holiday treat and with contrasting flavors at that. It opened with an austere, if, poignant Sonata (choreographed by Osias Barroso) to the full music of Elgar’s Sonata in E Minor, Opus 82 for violin and piano. Providing live music is British violinist Robert

  By PATRICK KING PASCUAL CEBU’S son comes home. Last Friday, Cebu held a National Thanksgiving Mass, to welcome back the statue San Pedro Calungsod after it was canonized last Oct. 21 by Pope Benedict XVI. An estimated 1.2 people filled the 27- hectare reclaimed South Road Properties (SRP) open field where a small temple

   By PABLO A. TARIMAN FILIPINO pianist Cecile Licad continued her phenomenal mastery of the Chopin and Liszt repertoire with yet another electrifying recital at the Calderwood Hall of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston last Sunday afternoon. American music critic David Patterson of the Boston Musical Intelligencer wrote that the pianist’s arresting velocity

By JOSEPH CORTES IN every part of the world that Iraqi oud master Naseer Shamma goes to, he makes an effort to familiarize himself with the local culture and music. By getting to know the traditional music of a country, he hopes to find ways of introducing the Arabic instrument into the local sound mix

By WINNIE VELASQUEZ
IT all started on a lark but sometimes the best ideas come from a restless mind that finds stimulation in a new environment. Public defender Xilca (pronounced Chill-ka) Alvarez-Protacio, 31, was at a crossroads in her life two years ago when she attended a forum organized by the Gawad Kalinga Center for Social Innovation (GK-CSI).

By ELIZABETH LOLARGA
"STROMBOTIC spectacle," to borrow gay lingo, is the only phrase that can describe Tanghalang Ateneo's production of Sintang Dalisay which had a short, move-over engagement at the Asian Center Auditorim at the University of the Philippines Diliman after it was staged anew at the recent National Theater Festival. It received accolades and a prolonged standing ovation at the Belarus International Theater Festival in Eastern Europe in July this year.

By PABLO A. TARIMAN
IN town for a short visit is choreographer and Ballet Philippines founder Alice Reyes who is re-staging her work, "Rama Hari" which will open at the CCP main theater on November 30.

By WINNE D. VELASQUEZ
BEST known for her book The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron is hardly the person readers would associate with a weight-loss program but as she says in the prologue of the book The Writing Diet subtitled Write Yourself Right-Size, she accidentally stumbled upon a weight-loss regimen that works.