Hah, go figure.
Oh and I got to meet Marie in person, who was volunteering with Gabnet! Hi! :) B also introduced me to Dexter Cruz, who hopefully will join the Arki gang next week when we watch Ma-Yi's latest offering...
With the basic principle that creative expression is the natural direction of life, Julia Cameron and Mark Bryan lead you through a comprehensive twelve-week program to recover your creativity from a variety of blocks, including limiting beliefs, fear, self-sabotage, jealousy, guilt, addictions, and other inhibiting forces, replacing them with artistic confidence and productivity. This book links creativity to spirituality by showing how to connect with the creative energies of the universe, and has, in the four years since its publication, spawned a remarkable number of support groups for artists dedicated to practicing the exercises it contains.
Why am I telling you? Coz I want you to join me! A little online support helps, no? Let me know if you're interested...and order the book!
Is it possible to feel totally psyched and positive one minute and then like a totally incompetent fool the next? Or is just me?
P.S. Update your links! Mimi's a voyageur!
The biggest gathering of Filipinos on the east coast, cancelled! Just DAYS after we ordered our cool Lapu Lapu shirts to sell to rasie funds for Arkipelago and maARTe! Arghhhh!!
I observed a 4th grade class last Friday. And this Monday I'm going to observe my friend's 2nd grade class. I've mentioned these kids before. I saw them on Friday because the class I observed was right across and they remembered me. Awww:) They were like, when are you coming to see us? Awwww:) They're so dang cute, even the trouble makers, hehe. Ideally I would spend the entire day with them, but since I already sat in their class in March and I need as much time possible to get everything done, including getting my summer school stuff finalized...Ayayayay...
Some thoughts on the play before I forget, and in case I do a review. The theater was packed. And we made a wrong move in waiting for the folks who were late because by the time we got inside the theater the only seats left were on the aisle!! But I was at an ideal "row" smack in the middle so I was fine with it.
Overall, I loved it. I've seen a few Ma-Yi plays in the past and though many of them are reportedly really good, I think I have had the unfortunate luck to watch the ones that were a bit on the weak side. I won't mention names. heh.
The Romance of Magno Rubio is the story of a short, Filipino farm worker in the central valleys of California in the early 1930s. There was a cast of five actors playing farmworkers (one sometimes a woman!) whose bond was absolutely believable. Unlike past Ma-Yi plays (at least the few that I have seen), I felt this time, all the actors were excellent and the chemistry they had with each other really helpd the believability of their relationships in the story. The stage design was simple, yet beautful. It was basically a bunch of plywood boards standing, with hooks to hang the chairs on. I really liked that everything on stage was used. In many scenes (and in various ways!), the actors would use the chairs but while the chairs hung on the wooden boards as "decor", it gave depth to the simple stage set up. Equally effective was the light design and the the barbed wire that separated the audience from the actors on stage. One could easily interpret the barbed wire (which was basically 4-5 well-spaced out metal wires going from one end of the stage to the other, so you could still view the actors easily) as a symbol of the oppressive conditions of the farmworkers. At the same time, at the very beginning of the play, the actors come off the stage (which was on level with the audience) to stand in front of the barbed wire and then return to the stage. There's a rhythm present througout the play. One can't help but feel this rhythm in the dialogue, when they sing, and when they have a "jam session" with their farm tools (the "tools" are actually Kali sticks.). I was particularly struck by the amount of Tagalog (and some Bisaya!) in the play. Ma-Yi doesn't necessarily cater to a Tagalog speaking audience, and I knew there were many non-Tagalog speakers in the audience so my eyes and ears perked up. I really paid attention to the scenes where a lot of Tagalog was spoken and I have to say they did a pretty good job pulling it off. The actors were very good at either acting out the Tagalog words they would say through physical gestures or the intonation. The danger, I've found, in using Tagalog for an non-Tagalog speaking audience, is to over do the translations within the dialogue. Saying Kamusta, how are you or Kain na, let's eat can get pretty tiresome and distracting if you use that technique too much. The play did a fine job creating the balance.They were actually pretty conservative in doing so. I can only recall one scene when they explicitly did that, but it was part of the storyline where someone was dictating a letter in Tagalog to be translated to English so it worked really well. I think they could have afforded to do that a little bit more, maybe 15% more, especially the parts where the Tagalog dialogue was just too hilarious (especially one of the fight scenes where a character(s?) says Puuuu-tttttaaaannnnng-iiiiiiiina-mooooooo in slow motion.) to be limited to the privileged few who could understand it. Then again, there's always something lost in the translation. I would be content to having a translation, in the program, of the beautifully performed Tagalog songs they sing to give the audience member a deeper understanding after the play. On the downside, the accents employed by the actors were not very consistent. There would be scenes where the accent would be complete gone. At first I thought it was happening because they were stepping out of their roles as characters and became narrators (which they actually did from time to time) but there were scenes in which they were clearly supposed to be "in character" where the accent was lost. Also, I usually cringe when non-Tagalog or Bisayan actors try to imitate the accent but the actors in this play did a pretty good job. I was really impressed and pleasantly surprised. The scenes in which the actors come together in a chorus dialogue were usually good, but not entirely consistent. The rhyming and chorus dialogues could have come dangerously close to being corny, but for the most part it strengthened the play. I really loved how the play (whether it was through the dialogue or the actors themselves, I can't decide) was able to make me really empathize for Magno Rubio so that the jokes that may have been hilarious at the start of the play, slowly becomes bittersweet, sad, and eventually just plain mean. They were able to make you laugh out loud in one scene and simultaneously break your heart. The innovative staging, the talented actors, the simple yet effect set all come together to make it one of the strongest productions of Ma-Yi that I have seen. The current production is supposed to be just a workshop production, that is developing for something bigger in the fall. I can't wait to see how it develops.
I thought we coined artivist (one who uses art to promote positive social change) from a few maARTe issues ago,
but then I went to Artivist.com, translated it via babelfish and saw that they had the same/similar definition (weird translation due to babelfish's limitations - but it's still a pretty cool service):
Artivist knows that the visual arts, beautiful art, arts of the forms and the colors, are the sure and qualified witnesses prehistoric and ancient bases of the human condition. They are also the voices of the silence of the history.
Artivist as knows, and wants to let it know, as art under appearances of ancestral cultural differences, has in oneself invaluable, irrecusable and alive common denominators.
The gallery is places of convocation where works can make known to us enchantements of the vision. It is the place of an emergence of oneself which an always renewed esthetics wants to lead to its current ends in completed works of the Masters.
Who wants a Two Wongs... and No Brides... sticker? I'll send one of each to the first six people to email their address. This does not include G, Kiko, Cynthia, Ari, Steffy and Heidi, who have already taken the liberty of requesting them from me - no double requests, ha?!! :) If you tell me how maarte you are or what you think of the word maarte, i might throw in another sticker or two...
Oh and I got to meet Marie in person, who was volunteering with Gabnet! Hi! :) B also introduced me to Dexter Cruz, who hopefully will join the Arki gang next week when we watch Ma-Yi's latest offering...
So the plan was, after the poster presentation was over with, I was gonna put all my energy on the paper and presentation on Monday. Which is a sound plan if you have the energy. And brain cells. All day yesterday I felt this steady pounding in my head, but didn't really have time to take care of it. Trying to finish the presentation, but foolishly chatting with buddies online, I just had no time to take care of myself. Know what I mean? And that's not good. Some people can handle that kind of self-deprivation, but I can't. So when I got home from school today I took some Alleve, vegged in front of the TV for an hour, had lunch. Got online for a little bit, then took a lovely 3 hour nap. Woke up, headache was gone. I think got some brain cells back. I'm kinda sick of school right now, so though I will probably regret it tomorrow, I'm going to refrain from working on school stuff tonite. I'm gonna try to do some maARTe stuff and prepare for tomorrow. I'm really excited about this issue. B is working feverishly on it with G's (movable type guru) help and I swear I think the excitement is contagious. Just in the last few days we've gotten new stuff to add to the issue. H (when are you going live!?!) has been inspired with a couple of pieces for maARTe. And I think people are gonna love S's contributions as well. And more folks are coming on board...its all so heartening...I really can't wait to show you. It's taking all my strength to restrain myself from giving you guys a preview. But I'll wait. The countdown begins. Hehe.
Okay, back to work - one poster presentation for elementary math class on Saturday (my topic: "Art + Math = Infinite Possibilities!) which I'm actually having fun putting together, and Monday's presentation - a proposal for a parent involvement program at an early childhood preschool. Ack. That one is really stressing me out.
Of course school work won't even come close to tearing me away from this Sunday's CAPA Fest. If you're in the NYC area, come look for the Arkipelago table! Alright?! Free stickers!
Though it's for class, I'm currently enthralled by Lisa Delpit's Other People's Children. I feel like I'm underlining the entire book. Here's a quote:
Precisely becasue of their subtlety and indirectness, these modern forms of prejudice and avoidance are hard to eradicate....many whites remain unconvinced of the reality of subtle prejudice and dicrimination, and come to think of their black coworkers as "terribly touchy" and overly sensitive" to the issue.For such reasons, the modern forms of prejudice frequently remain invisible even to its perpetrators.
We're supposed to have a graded class discussion of the book. I don't know how the hell my teacher is going to handle that. He said he purposely chose this book because of the controversey surrounding it. I can already feel the tension building. I predict the white students (who currently congregate on the right side of the room, no joke) will be up in arms, using euphemisms for people of color being "too sensitive" and the non-white students and the token white female radical (who currently congregate to the left side of the room, haha) defending Delpit's statements. Racist predictions? Maybe it's the stress talking. We'll see. I would like to be wrong, but the way class discussions have been going so far this semester, I doubt I'm too off the mark.
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