Archive - Arts & Culture

By NORMAN SISON
RONNIE Quizon may be a fan of Andres Bonifacio, the father of the Philippine Revolution, but he immediately snapped up the offer to play a role in the big-budget biopic about Bonifacio nemesis Emilio Aguinaldo, the Philippines' first president.

Text and photos by ELIZABETH LOLARGA
EDITORS today generally spend less time in editing because time is money. This is the observation that novelist Ken Spillman gave at a panel discussion on "Uncut: Issues in Editing" at the recent "Read Lit District," the Third Philippine International Literary Festival in Makati City's Ayala Museum.

By WINNIE VELASQUEZ
FROM the Sixties to the Seventies, schoolchildren in the barrios rose at the crack of dawn as the cock crowed. They started their day thus because after a simple breakfast they made their way to school crossing rivers and trekking for miles to their classrooms which were located nearer the centers of town. Their city counterparts woke up to a different set of "croakers" from Monday to Friday.

Text and photos by ELIZABETH LOLARGA
FOR writers, whether they are in journalism or in the literary arts, one source of creativity is the company of other writers. Tim Tomlinson, co-founder of the New York Writers Workshop, shared this observation at "Read Lit District," the Third Philippine International Literary Festival, at the Ayala Museum in Makati City.

By PABLO A. TARIMAN
THE latest Dante Brillante Mendoza film,"Thy Womb," has reverberations of the 1957 Lamberto Avellana film "Badjao" and in another sense, Marilou Diaz-Abaya's "Sa Pusod Ng Dagat."

Text and photos by ELIZABETH LOLARGA
THE question "Why?" can also be the simplest editing and censoring tool. This was the consensus of the speakers at the panel on "All the Way: Writers expose remaining taboos, how to break them and why they must be broken" at the Third Philippine International Literary Festival at the Ayala Museum sponsored by the National Book Development Board.

Text and photos by ELIZABETH LOLARGA
ALTHOUGH the recent Third Philippine International Literary Festival, subtitled "Read Lit District" (a pun to sound like red-light district), gathered the country's literary lights in Makati City's Filipinas Heritage Library and Ayala Museum for three days, it was Nigerian-American author Chris Abani who virtually stole the show.

By PATRICK KING PASUCAL
ON Nov. 20 the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and their allies around the world will commemorate Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDoR) in honor of people killed due to anti-transgender hatred and prejudice.

By JOSEPH CORTES
IF there is anything that man fears more than death, it is loneliness. Death comes at the end of a life, or suddenly as in an accident. But loneliness stares you in the face your whole life. It is hard to evade its gaze. The thought of growing old and dying alone is the reason behind the need to be a couple. It is this longing for companionship, driven by the desire for self-preservation, which fuels all relationships.

By PABLO A. TARIMAN
"IT is a long arduous wait for justice and freedom." Thus says former UP Collegian editor Ericson Acosta describing his one year and eight months in the Calbayog sub-provincial jail in Samar Island. For the record, he is one of the more than 354 political prisoners detained under the new Aquino administration as of August 2011.

By PABLO A. TARIMAN
THE cream of Manila’s opera lovers showed up in an all-Wagner program Saturday night and gave its guest soprano, Claire Primrose, a standing ovation along with the Manila Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Russian conductor Alexander Vikulov.

By PABLO A. TARIMAN
FILIPINO tenor Rodell Rosel who will have his debut performance at the Los Angeles Opera as Goro in Madama Butterfly on November 14 admitted he was into karaoke singing and nearly tried American Idol.

By ELIZABETH LOLARGA
ART lover Enrico Manlapaz died quietly in April this year, but left an enormous material and spiritual legacy that has kept his near and dear ones busy classifying, indexing, collating and re-arranging things in the late collector's Antipolo City house. They have designated his bedroom the Enrico JL Manlapaz gallery by appointment.

BY PABLO A. TARIMAN
CECILE Licad, the Philippines’s most celebrated pianist, is again circling the USA commuting between Liszt and Chopin in a series of recitals and orchestral engagements that had critics swooning. once again.

By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
THE family and friends of entertainment icon Armida Siquion-Reyna and her son, movie director Carlos Siguion-Reyna, gathered last Sunday to celebrate the famous mother-and-son’s “taking kindly the counsel of the years.”

By PABLO A. TARIMAN
FOR sure, theater audiences will have different ways of reacting to Mario O’Hara’s “Stage Show” which will open the National Theater Festival on November 7 and 8.

By PATRICK KING PASCUAL
UNDENIABLY handsome. Talented and passionate football players. Committed advocates of a healthy lifestyle. They are brothers James and Phil Younghusband. The brothers, along with other members of the Azkals team, became an overnight sensation in Philippine sports after their successful stint at the recent 2012 Asian Football Confederation (or the AFC Challenge Cup).

By PABLO TARIMAN
Rarely seen in Manila but prominent in the international ballet scene is Cebu-born Nicolas Pacaña who -- like Lisa Macuja – is staging his own swan song starting with his last performances of Romeo and Juliet last August and September in Cebu City where he is co-artistic director of the city’s BalletCenter.