Archive - Arts & Culture

ROCK and roll legends never cease to hog the limelight. After sold out concerts and composing more music that multitudes love, they transform into other adorable personas.

PHILIPPINE-made decorative candles were a big hit at one of the biggest products exhibitions in the world held at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibit Center last month.

IT was a festival that had the child as the center of the universe. Six films - Nino Bonito, Debut, Kapogs, Lumang Kahoy, Kinulayang Kiti, and Sweet Mandy- looked at the world through the children’s smiles and tears in the recent 3rd CinePambata Film Festival held at SM Centerpoint.

THE Diliman Book Club, which meets every Saturday at the ROC Restaurant at UP Balay ng Alumni at the Quezon City campus, usually discusses social sciences and politics with the author of the moment.

“ON Years and Songs” was a glimpse of the life of Rachelle Gerodias, one of the country’s leading sopranos, on and off the stage.

HER story of literal heartbreak deserves its own teleserye with the end lesson of how art can be one's salvation. But that is getting ahead of foremost feminist visual artist Brenda Fajardo's true-life tale.

"PLAY lightens one's load." Somehow that sentence in English doesn't quite approximate this almost heartbreaking statement of a child of an overseas Filipino worker who deeply misses a parent: "Pag naglalaro, gumagaang ang loob (Playing lightens the feelings)."

LUSH. Lovely. Lanzones. These are silky words that roll in one’s mouth once anyone begins to tell tales of the rainforest island of Camiguin, lying 10 kilometers north of central Mindanao.

HOW did soprano Rachelle Gerodias, tenors Arthur Espiritu, Lemuel de la Cruz and baritone Andrew Fernando get to where they are now -- world-class and much-sought after here and abroad?

SALMA Matias, 19, a member of the Muslim-Christian Youth for Peace and Unity, longs for peace in the island province of Basilan in southern Philippines where she was born. There she had lost many relatives to rido (clan feud).

IT was a good day for a physical and spiritual workout. A group of men and women wearing black-sleeved white T-shirts and black trousers silently performed what seemed to be a slow dance of coordinated arm and leg movements. Meanwhile, a man in dark pants and matching jacket scrutinized them, filming them as they moved in unison.

A philosopher once acknowledged that women hold up half the sky but their narratives are often neglected. They are not as privileged as their male counterparts and their contributions generally unappreciated.

IF numbers is a reflection of love, the Philippines should be a nation that loves children. There are more than 31 million Filipino children, comprising 31percent of the country’s total population of over 101 million. But many of these children suffer violation of their rights.

SINCE most Filipinos have yet to develop the habit of visiting museums regularly, the Metropolitan Museum of Manila and the SM Malls have joined hands to bring genuine art from the museums to the malls.

WHEN he walks towards the stage, young pianist Oliver Salonga traipses on light toes despite his heft. One wonders if the name he uses for his email, keroberong, is a sound-alike Filipinized version of care bears.

THERE'S a Singaporean restaurant in Quezon City that serves a Malaysian dish as its specialty. The restaurant is Singapore Chicken Rice and the dish is Nasi Lemak.

WHEN a foreign circus troupe comes over bringing its own theater complex and props consisting of two million pounds of equipment transported in 55 container vans, not to mention its own tent or Grand Chapiteau worth $1.6 million, the audience can be sure a dazzling treat awaits them.

MUSICIAN and advertising executive Dennis Garcia said there are five simple reasons why you should be at Dusit Thani on July 26, Tuesday, 8 p.m.: One, you will enjoy one and a half hours of fond memories

“HERE comes the rain again, falling on my head like a memory…” This 80’s song by Eurythmix could very well be the anthem of the recent Mudpack Festival at Mambukal Resort in Murcia, Negros Occidental. “There must be rain,” said festival director Rudy Reveche, “for mud comes with the rain. That’s why the festival is scheduled in June, when the rains come.”

TIME was when Ilonggos looked down on Antiqueños because in contrast to Iloilo and Negros, Antique is not as materially blessed. Not anymore. Antique has blazed trails in the most unexpected arena.

"DON'T just call your print a print. Call it by its specific name---a lithograph, a computer-generated serigraph, a woodcut." This is the guiding principle of printmaker Lenore Raquel Santos Lim, who had a retrospective exhibition, "Full Circle," at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main Gallery recently.

FILIPINOS are no strangers to the music of Andrew Lloyd Weber. “Don’t cry for me Argentina”, “Memory”, “I don’t know how to love him” are standard numbers in musical extravaganzas in the country.

MARK Twain once said: “Truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction, after all, has to make sense.” But what happens when fiction, sensible it may be, is cloaked as truth in order to deceive? How does one evaluate truth---by reason or by faith? Which one should prevail?

THE recent emergence of Philippine Pop or P-Pop phenomenon, wherein local artists are packaged very similarly to famous Korean Pop groups in terms of fashion and music style, might have been the country’s attempt to lure listeners back to Pinoy music.