In the photo, that’s Rodolfo and Mimi in this barebones production of Puccini’s La Boheme at Silliman University’s Claire Isabel McGill Luce Auditorium, presented by the Cultural Center of the Philippines and featuring the performers from Viva Voce Voice Lab. The entire opera was staged, but it was not a full-fledged production — there was no orchestra [only a piano] and there were no elaborate costumes — but all there was were performance, gusto, and the beauty of the human voice. Often, that’s enough.
The show was packaged as an educational outreach program, to teach contemporary Filipino audiences about what opera is all about, and to make a traditionally daunting art form be accessible to those who have only heard about what opera is like and are too intimidated to watch any. Hence, the helpful introduction by artistic director Camille Lopez Molina before the show began [she was very funny]. Hence, the simplicity of the staging. Hence, the supertitles projected on screen that directly translated the Italian lyrics the performers were singing.
Truth to tell, this was my first opera, and although it was done in this format, I was grateful for what it was — because everyone in the audience truly enjoyed the musical spectacle onstage: an audience of mostly students awww’d at the lighting quick romance between the two leads, arrrgh’d at the seeming red-flagness of Rodolfo when he wanted to break up with Mimi, and ohhhh’d at Mimi’s final demise.
[Molina also explained that the company specifically sought out a performance at the Luce because this was Viva Voce’s experiment with raw voice projection, no amplification, in a suitable theater: the Luce remains the only theater in the country with the best acoustics.]
I can readily tell when a Luce audience is appreciative [and Dumaguete is notoriously hard to please], and tonight was one for the books.
At the end, I also realized that this show signaled the end of the pandemic for me. At least culturally speaking. The last show I watched at the Luce before lockdown started in 2020 was Rent, the Jonathan Larson musical that borrows heavily from La Boheme. Four year later, I am watching the OG material on the same stage. My pandemic has been properly bookended.
P.S. It’s now funny to me that when I listened to opera before, the Italian lyrics and the melodic voice made me think they were singing of very important pronouncements. Now I know that they’re just singing of the most mundane things, like: “I left a pink bonnet underneath your pillow. Please pack it for me.”Labels: art and culture, cultural affairs committee, cultural center of the philippines, dumaguete, life, music, opera, silliman
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Wednesday, November 13, 2024
9:08 PM |
The Dumaguete Chill
Things non-Dumagueteños should learn about doing events in the city:
[1] No one will answer your emails. The best way to get in touch with anyone is through Messenger. [Not even Viber!]
[2] We live by doing everything last minute. If we plan too much ahead, things will not happen.
[3] It’s a small city but we rarely see each other.
[4] Don’t fret about only having three people register through your officials channels, and you’re scared about nobody showing up. A good audience, seemingly out of nowhere, will arrive on the very day itself. Same with ticket sales. Everyone buys tickets on the day itself.
[5] The event will almost always go well, nonetheless.
This is just how things go in Dumaguete.
Labels: dumaguete, life, people
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7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 213.
Labels: poetry
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Monday, November 11, 2024
5:48 PM |
Things Take Time
Things take time. Just came from my fiction workshop, where we tackled the second draft of their first short story required in class. Call me satisfied! Admittedly, my rhythm for teaching workshop was kinda off when I came back to teaching last year, because I had to relearn everything again, especially the process, after three pandemic years of not doing it. But it does come back, slowly. Today I’m satisfied.Labels: education, fiction, life, school, teaching, workshops
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11:29 AM |
Two Worlds in My Head
My brain off Ritalin and on Ritalin is so different. It’s like living two existences. One is vaguely foggy, but it has always been the existence you know. Your normal. The other is clarity, and it’s like someone putting on glasses for the first time and seeing the world that’s sharp and colorful you had no idea.Labels: adhd, life, mental health
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10:59 AM |
Gym Goddesses of Music
I maintain a playlist on Spotify that I totally love. And which I constantly play, especially if I want to feel energetic for the day’s slate of work. It’s called “Gym Goddesses of Music,” because this was my cardio soundtrack. I don’t go to gym anymore, but I still listen to this playlist religiously. It has Madonna in it, and Robyn, and Sia, Icona Pop and Charlie XCX, Sophie Ellis Bextor, etc. [And also Beck, for some reason, hahaha.] My fave: Sandra Bernhard’s cover of “You Make Me Feel” by Sylvester.Labels: life, music
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Sunday, November 10, 2024
9:00 AM |
A Walk to Taclobo
Calle San Jose Extension in Taclobo in the early evening of Friday surprisingly buzzes with the lightest traffic, and somehow I find it easy to walk, with my usual pace, the street’s length [until Bag-ong Dalan, that is, which is really an old road that has been officially named Ciriaco Espina Street—and yet for some reason is still being called by locals everywhere with that unofficial, and terribly untrue, moniker]. I like my pace, like someone in a hurry to get somewhere. But it’s a loose kind of hurry, and I’ve always walked fast especially when alone. Perhaps I like the feel of the breeze that I conjure with my speed. And I like the feel of the little sweat I accumulate in the effort—and then I quickly realize that it has been a while since I’ve really walked. Because I’m breathless, and walking is effort for someone out-of-shape a year out of the pandemic.
I’m here in Taclobo to visit the significant other who’s very sick.
I opted to walk all the way to Taclobo from The Bricks Hotel along the Rizal Boulevard, where I had been all afternoon doing an assortment of work [and one informal workshop]. I did not plan to walk, but traffic in the major thoroughfares of Dumaguere was, as usual, horrendous. And while I bid my time by the sidewalk hoping to be able to flag down a tricycle, I instantly knew while I did a good bit of waiting that I would not be able to get a ride.
But I had to get to Taclobo to visit the significant other who’s very sick. I know environmental factors are at play in his surging fever and a terrible bout of coughing—other people in his household are sick as well—but I knew this illness is stressed-induced as well. He’s been battling stress and anxiety at work for a few weeks now. It’s all very sad, to be honest.
“You’re walking all the way from the Boulevard to Taclobo?” the significant other texts me.
“I think I need the exercise,” I reply.
But, really, it is the traffic that has prompted the need to walk. Traffic has been terrible in Dumaguete lately. Once, after work, I mused briefly about going to CityMall to catch a movie. But a thought suddenly came to me: “Nah, the traffic along the National Highway will be terrible.” And I realized then that that was the first time ever in my life as a Dumagueteño that this notion of “traffic” has prevented me from going elsewhere in the city. We used to make this jokey claim: “Everywhere in Dumaguete is just ten minutes away.” Is that still true today? Not too long ago, I once had an engagement at 58 EJ Blanco Drive, where the Arts and Design Collective of Dumaguete is headquartered, and I had started off from my apartment in Tubod, which is really just five minute ride away. With the significant other driving me in his car, we soon found ourselves caught in Hibbard Avenue traffic—and it actually took us 45 minutes to finally arrive at our destination. By then, the event was practically over. [I’m sorry, Geraldine Solon, for missing the bulk of your book launch! I blame traffic.]
I have casually asked around for the reasons of this sudden surge in Dumaguete traffic. The usual answer I get is the “broken, and old, traffic infrastructure”—which is really just how people describe the narrow city streets and the forbidding lack of parking. But I counter that with this observation: that old infrastructure has always been there, and we’ve had bad traffic before—but why only now does bad traffic in Dumaguete really underscore an unequalled badness? What is different today? The tricycles? The number of tricycles in the city has remained constant over the years. The cars? Perhaps the cars. Maybe many people bought cars during the pandemic—prices were slashed so low then—but quarantine somehow mitigated their presence on city streets. Only now, in our “post”-pandemic world, with quarantines now a fading memory, have all these cars suddenly converged on Dumaguete’s roads, choking them for hours on end. I’ve asked around: “How many car dealerships are there in Dumaguete?” Nobody could give me the exact answer, but someone said ten. Is that true? Why do we have so many car sellers in our city? And can these car sellers give me some statistics about how many cars they sold during the pandemic?
I’m told: “I don’t think they’ll give you their sales numbers.”
“But I can try,” I’d reply.
“Nah.”
“Do you think LTO can help?”
We broke into laughter with the ridiculous idea of LTO helping.
But I have to get to Taclobo to visit the significant other who’s very sick. He’s worried about being sick, and being away from work. He’s under pressure enough to fret. He has a raging fever, and godawful coughing—and I seethe that he is being reduced to this ball of pity and sadness and illness. Really seethe.
I seethe sometimes, too, when I go home to Tubod after my classes at Silliman, and find the way to be the ultimate pedestrian maze. I usually take a short tricycle ride to get to and from work, but these days, the constantly terrible traffic along Hibbard Avenue has made me walk more often. It’s a short distance anyway. And I’ve come to like stopping by Kohi to grab a cup of cappuccino or latte. That stretch of Hibbard Avenue until the crossing of Gothong Avenue [popularly called the Lo-oc Bypass Road] and Venancio Aldecoa Jr. Drive [popularly called Laguna] is traffic hell, an unrelenting carmaggedon. And it’s not just the cars on the road, it’s also the cars usurping the sidewalks for parking. There are no sidewalks anymore along the Silliman University stretch of Hibbard Avenue. So pedestrians like me actually walk on the actual street itself, because that’s the only available space to move forward. Sometimes I pray I do not get sideswept by a reckless vehicle from walking down the actual street. Then again, hahaha, all the vehicles on the road are moving like molasses.
I like walking anyway, especially as much-needed exercise to my very sedentary lifestyle. To be honest, I’d probably walk a lot more if Dumaguete wasn’t hot and humid.
But now, it is the early evening of Friday, and it is cool, and I have a sick beloved to visit in Taclobo.
Along the way, I am able to visit some of my favorite shops, like Dudley’s, and I buy some foodstuff—the Japanese muffin is to die for, and the Hokkaido bread is a staple—which I’m usually not able to when I’m riding a car. That only underlines what urban studies have been saying: foot traffic, not motor traffic, is what brings people to shops. Let’s encourage more people to walk for the economy’s sake!
But I wish Dumaguete was more walkable.
I wish there were more trees to shade sidewalks so that we can walk even under the hot Dumaguete sun.
I wish there were more suitable parking in Dumaguete.
I wish Dumaguete drivers were not lunatics. [A lot of them are.]
I wish we didn’t know that when traffic enforces are on hand, traffic actually gets worse.
I wish some workable system of public transport can be devised, so that people with cars do not have to use their cars anymore. [I can’t blame people from buying cars, especially if they live in the outskirts of the city—or live in the neighboring towns. But do they really have to buy humongous cars? If I were a powerful entity with convincing powers, I’d force everyone to buy small cars, like a Picanto, which is perfect for Dumaguete’s roads. My significant other drives a Picanto. He’s smart that way.]
I arrive at the significant other’s home in Taclobo and the feel of his skin is like touching lava. He moans a “hello.” I commiserate, I baby, I watch over him. I also tell him he should go to the ER to get a medical certificate. For the folks at work. He nods. His mom makes me eat dinner they’ve Grab-ed over from Don Roberto’s. I eat and we talk about the latest episode of Survivor. We all hate Andy. Alas he’s half-Filipino, but he’s so stupid.
Later, his mom drives me home.
Labels: dumaguete, life, love, traffic
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Thursday, November 07, 2024
2:08 AM |
In Hindsight
In 2017, while working on a project for a grant, the external HD which contained ALL my research materials disappeared. Like a year of research lost, just like that. That led me to a spiral, and some terrible complications later, which I've never divulged until now. And until now, I have no idea where that HD went. Sayang talaga, all the materials I gathered. They were irreplaceable. I survived that spiral and the complications that came with it, but that event taught me a lot about myself, and what I can do. [This memory is courtesy of Luna Griño-Inocian, who just asked me to send her some of my archival material for a project. I managed to send her some, but a lot of what I had are simply gone.]Labels: life
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Wednesday, November 06, 2024
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 212.
Labels: poetry
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Monday, November 04, 2024
I finally received my copy of Isagani R. Cruz's new novel, So Heaven! Thank you, Milflores Publishing [ IG: @milfloresbooks ]! I was asked to give this a blurb, and I don't know how I found the time to read this, but I did, if not because going over the first novel by an acclaimed Filipino writer was such a privilege. And this is such an unusual novel, too! Congratulations, Sir Gani!
You can order this book on the Milflores website.Labels: books, fiction, novels, philippine literature, publishing, writers
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Sunday, November 03, 2024
Tonight, we celebrated Dessa Quesada-Palm's 60th birthday, in a lovely dinner and program with her friends of a lifetime at Essencia — and it was, to be honest, one of the most meaningful birthday celebrations I have ever come to witness. By the end of it, I was teary-eyed [and I never usually get teary-eyed at birthdays]. In occasions such as this, it's usual to have birthday greetings and speeches dedicated to the celebrator, but in the hands of a consummate theater artist like Dessa, each speech came at suitable intervals in a perfectly directed biographical narrative [with a good Powerpoint show to guide everyone]. And each speech was given by a perfectly handpicked friend or family representing an aspect or a major episode in Dessa's fruitful life — from her days as a member of the Quesada household [speech by sister Mae Quesada-Medina], from her life with PETA [speech by film director Avic Ilagan], from her days studying in New York [speech by composer Lerrick Santos], from early days in Dumaguete doing theatre workshops with the Divinity School [speech by Jean Cuanan-Nalam], from her almost two decades of mentoring YATTA [speech by Mellard Chiong Manogura], and from her love life [speech by her husband Colby Palm], interspersed with a monologue from Dessa's play Rape Buzz performed by Mayumi Maghuyop, improv comedy from the YATTA OGs Hope Tinambacan, Junsly Kitay, and Nikki Cimafranca, and music with the Quiz Family Singers, and the trio of Sharon Dadang-Rafols, Jean Nalam, and Dessa herself. At the end, she considered everyone in attendance and how each one has come to mean something significant in her life [it is at this point that I would finally break down and cry], and ended the evening with a song that she uses as her answer to the question: “What makes a meaningful life?”
Mother, you make 60 look fabulous. You have touched so many lives, and thank you for making Dumaguete your home, and the base of your theatrical gifts.
Labels: birthday, friends, people, theatre
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