What's with all the hearts around?

Cupid, again take his yearly task of wandering around the world every 14th of February for Valentine season, hitting the stores, classrooms, offices, and houses with his magical arrow. It has been a fashion throughout many countries in the world to exchange love notes, valentine presents, flowers, chocolates and the like. For couples and lovers, this is the traditional day, in which they express their love to one another, means of celebrating like going for a dinner date, or spending the whole day together or to some romantic places are being set.

Valentine's day is not only for adult, as we can see, little children also take part to this special occasion. Thanks to our gradeschool teachers for encouraging our kids to design special, colorful cards for their 'special someone'. These are one of the days that parents remember and cherish, they are yet the one and only apple to their children's eyes at the moment. Written in a folded bond paper, inside a large disfigured shape of heart are words like, 'i lov you mama, papa', ' happy valentin',. A lots of love and kisses, in a piece of colorful paper, sometimes with designs of beads or ribbons are being kept at some special corner of every houses every month of February.

Traditional symbols of Valentine's Day including hearts, dove, Cupid and love notes usually dominate the shopping windows, someone else's table and stores come every 2nd month of the year. This is all same with lanterns and Christmas lights adorning the surrounding every Christmas season.

The spirit of romantic sweetness fills the air and roses and red colors flood the places. ..whoa, so nice to be in love. But we must not forget, that Valentine's day is not only for the love partners and couples...this is for everyone's chance to feel the love that Cupid send to each others'heart...

Art: the way of life

Art as the way of life

R.G.C

A man borrowed only a single life. Living it only for own self is a life lived in a complete bankruptcy. Nothing is made for nothing, because as everything is created, he or she or it is created for something. In the book of God, a human was created for the life here on earth and right after his creation another human was created to be with him. The world that goes through continuous revolution and evolution carries along with it the unchanging reality of a “life” being lived for another’s “life” and vice versa. The society grows more complicated as the world grows older, and so is the human being who lives herein. As human society becomes more complicated, the role of one another becomes more defined, meaning more specific. And so, the interdependency for social survival increases. People in continuous social interaction within a geographical area formed a community, thus, in building it come the authority of the builders, in the authority come the power, and in the power come the responsibility. We are the builders of the community, we have the authority, we have the power, and we all share the same social responsibility. Social responsibility is the duty that bound every one of us to love the bare society, and that is to know, to understand and to respect it. Moreover, it is to come along with all the help and support we can give. Loving with all the sincerity means no rejection, no judgment, and no abandonment but rather means to inspire, give hopes, strengthen faith, endures failures, hardship and frustration, stands for what is right but never condemn, criticize constructively, seek the light and always aiming to bring out the positive and the best.

As we mentioned here the specific role, of which the people play in the society, I would like to stress now the specific role of which our organization chose to perform in the community, and that is Youth and Community empowerment thru the Arts. Youth are the hopes of the nation. And it is the society that holds responsibility for their future as the next leaders of the community. One consistent among youth today whether in cities or suburb areas is their yearning to have a healthy future and a better life, but it often happen that their aspiration turned bitter and warped due to the unfavorable things that they are experiencing from their surroundings. The absence of positive attitudes toward hard trials, tragedies and unfortunate conditions, results to a worse state of depression on the youngsters’ part. Youth development is apparently crucial, they are compelled to make adjustments as they grow, and during this stage, they develop rapidly as they are exposed to different attitudes and behaviors. They learn many things formally and informally and such experiences contributed to their emotional, intellectual, physical and social development. Thus, the activities our youth are engaging into and the manner our society is raising them contributed greatly to what kind of person they will become in the future. Therefore, it is line that Tanghalang Hulyo Beinte Tres Ink. an independent University-based theater organization composing of students and young professionals from Polytechnic University of the Philippines conducted an annual program that will aim to help and mobilize the people especially the youth through the means of giving a free Community Theater Workshop to the youth of different residential suburbs. The group’s objective is not only to train the youth’s talents but also to hone their attitudes and manners. Making them experience the theater workshop will also help build the patience, hard working, enthusiasm and self-discipline into their character. Theater workshop involves cultural development, external and internal training, and interpretative training, which will help them, becomes analytical individuals. These trainings as experienced by the children and teenager create positive effects on their self-confidence, self-discipline and self-esteem. Moreover, it offers young people good chances to keep active, to learn, to enhance their talents, to interact with others, and to be a forward-looking and positive members of their community. The organization conducted the Community workshops to different communities, staying there for a week, living with the community people and teaching their children the arts of theater and aiming to renew the bond and commitment of the community through the stimulated aesthetic appreciation of cultural arts. The organization had already reached and conducted workshops to communities in Montalban, Rizal (2004), Marinduque (2005), Natividad, Pangasinan (2006), Brgy. Buhatan, Sto. Domingo, Albay (2007) and Brgy. Malabrigo, Lobo, Batangas (2008).

Art is the way of life. It’s a lifestyle. The same is also true with life being the way of art. It’s a masterpiece. In able to expand the wave of social responsibility among the corporate and citizens there should be a single medium that would relate our objectives and goal in one way or another. And that it would unify the people beyond differences of beliefs and opinions. I daresay that the power of arts can do both, unity among the people encourages various means of activities that will empower a community. Art has been with us all along; it helped build the community and contributed to create a history. Enriching and extending the arts to the masses will again tie firmly the people together as it did to the early communities and to some other culturally-inclined communities existing up to these days, mostly are indigenous group from the mountainous area of each nation. Nowadays, aesthetic appreciation of arts is reflected only to the elite and few involved and concern members of the lower class. Art today is a luxury for the common people of which they can’t afford, given that they have basic necessity to prioritize first before anything else. The perception of community to artistic presentation and activities as an encouragement for a more culture –refined society would help promote sense of belongingness among the community people and that would definitely increase their sense of social responsibility. Effective mobilization is necessary to be able to widen the wave of social responsibility among the people and arts could be a very powerful tool to gather them around.

The Festival of Dancing the body electric...

The Festival of Dancing the body electric, One Step forward to thousand opportunities

by Raquel Ceballos

Filipinos nurture within them the undying passion for dance. It has become an intangible component of lifestyle, which encompasses people from all walks of life. Looking back to the historical times of the primitive, our dear ancestors had apparently passed on the power of rhythm and movements, which sent an electrifying impact to the soul and actually made a person communicate and express him self through distinguishable arts and movements of body. Filipino culture has instituted its own ancestral ethnic dances that started the Filipino’s career as remarkable dancers. Filipino’s great love for cultural performances had enriched our collection of Philippine Folk Dances and tribal dances from uppermost part of Cordillera to extreme edge of Mindanao Region. Moreover, Filipino’s passion for dance had become an obsession when other forms of dances arrived in the country and invaded our existing culture. Spanish Colonizers for instance, brought with them their own Hispanic dances and greatly influenced our own Philippine Dances. In able to save the precious treasure of our culture, Filipino dances were revived, interpreted, and preserved up to the present time by Ramon Obusan Folkoric Group, which has been the depository of almost all Filipino dances, dress and songs. Over the years dance in the country had taken another steps forward to the next level of popularity when Ballroom, Ballet and Modern dances take a place in the enlarging picture frame. There came a boom in dancing and one that became especially popular is the ballroom dance which is practiced in the grand ballrooms of prestigious hotel, universities, restaurants and studios. Many dancers were inspired and great numbers of dance companies were established to cater dance classes to talented aspirants. Not only ballroom dancing had enjoyed the limelight of fame but also Ballet had gained its own invincible recognition as enormous ballet companies like Ballet Manila became a source of national pride in ballet dance performances. Next in line of renowned mania is the emergence of modern dances that were further explored by Philippine Allstars & Team Vibe Philippines who recently won international hip-hop competitions, Powerdance Company through its employment of show dances and power jazz plus other companies which is oriented to different genres of dances.

Filipino’s obsession with dance is reflected to various dance festivals being hosted and to the numerous successful Filipino dancers and troops who had gained fame and name in the field of international dancing. Thus, Filipinos have been successful in promoting to other countries that dance, culture and arts in broad sense are flourishing in this part of the globe. Dance education in the country is well facilitated by different dance companies and schools aiming to provide a high quality of education in dancing, therefore producing well trained group of young individuals. But despite the sincerest efforts, still there are many promising individuals from each corner of the country who lack the opportunity to be trained and be molded into becoming a real professional due to many reasons. One of these is their inaccessibility to professional training that required fee of which their status can’t afford and their lack of awareness of various means and programs of which they can engage themselves to be able to reach the road toward their dreams.

And so, in seeing the art of dance as effective tool for keeping the promising youth and empowering them to be a functional force towards the development of an active society, the Organisasyon ng Batikan at Respetadong Artista ng Bayan, Incorporated (OBRA Incorporated) launched the grooviest and most anticipated clash of the best dance groups on the metro, the Buhawian-The Metro Manila Dance Idols. This is an expanded dance competition of the 17 cities/municipalities of Metro Manila, Philippines that will facilitate amateur dancers and performers to showcase their skills to the industry’s most influential people. The festival of dance that will be held on Cultural Center of the Philippines – Liwasang Ulialing on the month of Philippine Fiestas, May 31, 2008 bearing the 2008 theme: "Malikhaing Galaw sa Makulay na Tag-araw" is looking forward to provide the participating dancers the equal opportunity to take their talent to the next level of improvement and success. Many of our hopeful community members conceal talents that could have been better if maybe discovered and trained properly. And so, OBRA Incorporated provides a "door" for these participating groups to take them one step further in developing their career to the next height.

The thrilling event was organized by OBRA Incorporated in cooperation with Tanghalang Hulyo Beinte Tres Ink., and it will be co-presented by 91.5 Energy FM (Official FM Radio Partner) & UniversityTV (Official TV partner) together also with partnership of iFM 93.9 & Philippine Daily Tribune with the support of Nestle Ice Cream, GSM Blue with Infinit, Zagu Pearl Shakes and ACLC Pasay Taft. The Metro Manila Dance Idols will be engaging dance icons and professionals Akin to Jay Masta of Battle Crew (Break Dance), Lema Diaz of Philippine Allstars (Hip Hop), Melvin Ang of Team Vibe Philippines (Novelty), Douglas Nierras of Powerdance (Jazz & Showdance), Liza Macuja of Ballet Manila (Ballet) & Josefina Gillien of Philippine Folk Dance Society (Folk).

OBRA Incorporated prime goal is to cultivate the skills and talents of Filipinos who were not given the deserved opportunity but possess abundant wealth of potentials and passion for the arts. Thus, in gratifying the aspirations of many promising Filipino dancers, Buhawian: The Metro Manila Dance Idols in collaboration with dance icons and professionals hope to convey brilliant impact to the performing community that a "door" invites them to take their passion as closer to the professional level. Moreover, the event is focused to expose the art of dance in different disciplines, intending to mix all genres of dances: Hip-hop, ballet, jazz, folk and creative dances and the likes, packaging these into a festival of exceptional performances. Indeed, a worthwhile earth-shaking experience of creative movements in a one-night celebration of dance!