Artists celebrate national hero’s 147th birthday

By Nickie Wang
Contributor/Manila Standard Today
15 June 2008

Artists make new possibilities, and that’s the reason the commemoration of our national hero’s birth is being spearheaded by the Cultural Center of the Philippines with the mounting of Pepe Goes To Market: Sining Selebrasyon ng Birthday Ni Dr. Jose ‘Pepe’ Rizal, which features the country’s most celebrated artists in theater, dance, movies, visual arts, and music. It’s a star-studded event that will take place from June 19 to 21 at the Market! Market! in Bonifacio Global City.

This three-day event is presented by Artists Welfare Project Inc. (AWPI) and People’s Assembly for Genuine Alternatives Against Social Apathy (Pagasa). These organizations aim to drive home a message through a series of national festivals that would revive the country’s cultural life. The co-founders of Pagasa are staging cultural activities hoping to rekindle the public’s interest and in support for the “truth” and the positive values determinedly stood for by Rizal during his time.

“If we want to change the Philippines, we need to change the perception and the identity that create our problem and the best way to do that, in a cultural context, is actually through art. Art is understood as a form of entertainment, but it is for those who do not know the revolutionary power of art,” says Pagasa co-founder Nicky Perlas.

With a specific aim to encourage huge number of artists and cultural workers from various communities and fields to work together and support the advocacy efforts for moral transformation, truth and peace, this three-day event calls to the public especially the younger generation to recognize their significant role in changing the society.

“We cannot change our society if we will utilize past models of ideology or whatever it is. Through art, hopefully, we could release the creative energies that are suppressed. And why Rizal, his search for truth is part of his life, a good historical example and Rizal was a person of multiple intelligence,” Perlas explains.

Highlights of the festival include a special opening program and the launch of Corruptionary, a dictionary of terms related to the issue of corruption; choral concerts by the Philippine Madrigal Singers’ Choral Alliance and some government choirs; dance performances by Transitopia, Ballet Manila, Kabataang ROFG, among others; and a one-hour rock band concert to be performed by popular rock bands from the RockEd Alliance to be held at the mall’s Activity Center.

“We are defining a new way of being Filipino which is conscious living with integrity. And this is just an entry point. You, with your own talent, with your own unique expression how you are going to bring change, you are invited to these events,” Panjee Tapales, also a co-founder of Pagasa, said during the press conference at the CCP.

There will also be film screenings of Eddie Romero’s Noli Me Tangere, Marilou Diaz Abaya’s Rizal by GMA Films, and Ditsi Carolino’s Riles and Bunso at Cinema 6. For theater aficionados, outstanding theater groups from Tanghalang Pilipino, Philippine Educational Theater Association, Barasoain Kalinangan Foundation Inc., Gantimpala Theater Foundation, and the Philippine High School for the Arts will showcase excerpts from their musical theater productions.

An interactive exhibit will be mounted by the artists of Tutok Karapatan. Handmade objects from music CDs, bric-a-brac, souvenirs and other arts and crafts will be on display for sale at the artists’ tyangge. Leading opinion makers will lead discussions after selected performances, film screenings and forums.

The culmination the three-day festival is a grand concert with a 500 - voice choir together with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra (PPO) featuring the country’s top vocalists Isay Alvarez, Bayang Barrios, Lolita Carbon, May Bayot, Joey Ayala, Noel Cabangon, among others. The Philippine All Stars will perform a special hip-hop number to the tune of Ipanalo Ang Totoo by Fr. Albert Alejo. Dramatic readings of Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios will be presented by leading television, theater and film actors who have portrayed Rizal in the past, like Ricky Davao, Joel Torre, Tommy Abuel and Pen Medina. Stage and television actor Gary Lim will be the festival’s contemporary “Pepe”.

The grand finale of the production will be the singing of the theme song of the festival entitled Bayang May Dangal, by Fr. Alejo and Fr. Manoling Francisco, SJ.