Mr. M’s ‘masterpiece’

Curtain-raisers:

• Today is the feast day (and birthday) of The Virgin Mary. Happy fiesta to my kababayan in Las Navas, Borongan and Calbayog, all in Samar Province.

• Happy birthday to Richard Gomez and Lucy Torres’ darling daughter Juliana who’s turning four years old today. You may not know it but Mama Lucy is a Marian devotee.

• Celebrities have been invited to join the October Quest of Champions presented by the San Mateo Bikers Club (SMBC) and Congressional Biking Society in cooperation with JFD and Giant Trek Turbolite. The event is set for Oct. 17 at the Divine Mercy Racetrack, Sitio Maarat, Barangay GB 1, San Mateo, Rizal. The president of SMBC is Nonoy Vivero, an employe of the Film Academy of the Philippines, while the CBS is headed by Rep. Manuel (Way Kurat) Zamora. This is the second year SMBC is presenting the mountain bike XC.

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Anybody who meets her in person will surely claim that, yes, 21-year-old Juana Rejante Manahan is, more than any of the shows he directs/produces as head of the ABS-CBN Talent Center, her father’s "masterpiece," bar none. The father is none other than Johnny Manahan, a.k.a. Mr. M.

Colleagues Ethel Ramos and Mario Bautista reached that consensus yesterday afternoon when we met Juana at Dish (ground floor of the ELJC Building, next to the ABS-CBN studios) where Juana told us about Neo Corpo (New Body), an art exhibit-cum-sale which opens on Sept. 16 (and runs until the 30th) at the Greenbelt 3 in Ayala Center. Juana is the curator of that exhibit featuring 20 latest works (prices range from P40,000 to P200,000) of Bruihn, Rafael del Casal, R. M. de Leon, Gerri Duenas and Ronald Ventura.

If we were not briefed who she is, we would have thought as soon as we shook hands with Juana that she’s a new discovery of ABS-CBN and Star Cinema. She’s very pretty (well, it’s in her genes, the icon Elvira Manahan being her Lola), very tall and, the moment she opened her mouth (we realized that she’s) very intelligent. A star material, indeed!

"You should join a beauty contest," Ethel Ramos told Juana. It was the perfect ice-breaker. "You should be in showbiz."

The London-educated Juana simply smiled.

"My dad won’t allow me," she said. "Besides, showbiz is not my line." If ever, she added, "I might try working behind the cameras." Like her father, you know. And it’s such a pity because a beauty (and brains) like Juana should be seen by the whole world.

Here for the semestral break (but scheduled to leave soon), Juana is into her senior year, taking up Art History at the Slade School of Fine Arts of University College London (she finished grade/high school at Brent Pasig) where her only (younger) sister, Liliana, is also studying Product Design at Central St. Martins.

Asked why she decided to venture into an art exhibit (Neo Corpo is her first project, with Dr. Vicki Belo as sponsor – very appropriate because Vicki is noted for creating "new bodies" for the stars), Juana said, "For me to learn how art and business are integrated," mentioning in passing that the course involves the study of restoration and conservation of art works.

It’s her mom, Tats Rejante, who’s helping her on the project.

Juana said that she chose Ronald Ventura, a UST graduate, because it was Ronald who did her portrait when she was 18. It hangs prominently on one wall of Juana’s home. Ronald was one of the 13 artists awarded this year by the CCP.

Juana briefly described the four other artists thus:

• Rafael del Casal is a classicist in essence whose works hark back to Bernini; his works include a church where he painted and designed everything down to the embroidery of the bishop’s vesment. For Neo Corpo, Del Casal’s pastel figures "exude an inner glow that is created with his excellent mastery of the medium."

• Gerri Duenas, a master of texture and detail, represents a new tradition in "the use of biblical themes" and his use of primary and contrasting complementary colors "embolden familiar biblical scenes with his use of chiaroscuro."

• R.M. de Leon uses Renaissance images of the likes of Raphael "and adds a pop art twist to them by splashing on modern colors... he plays with classic canons of art and modernizes them and reminds the viewer of the importance these Renaissance images have on the world of art..."

• Bruihn has, like De Leon, his own unique and very personal style of interpreting the theme of the (nude) body. A surrealist by genre, Bruihn "plays with the idea of the human body and the eroticized human figure and how they relate to the minds of people." For Neo Corpo, he imitates Velasquez’s Rockby Venus using the sensuality of a pear.

Juana inherited her love for art from Mr. M himself. Not many people know that Mr. M was once chosen one of the 13 artists of year by the CCP, has his own body of work, five or six pieces of them on display at the ninth floor of the Makati Medical Center which was founded by Mr. M’s late father, Dr. Constantino Manahan.

Which brought us back to the Elvira Manahan who died when Juana was barely four years old.

"What’s my fondest memory of my grandma?" asked Juana. "Well, I remember her red nails which she used to shake before us, her grandchildren, at play. I also have this enduring image of her with two phones stuck to her ears as she talked simultaneously to two people. I think I picked up that habit from her."

That and much more.

Giselle Tongi back home today

As Funfare reported a few issues ago, Giselle Tongi is coming home – today – to fulfill several engagements, including the role as Ina Magenta (played by Charito Solis on the TV show) in Enteng Kabisote (inspired by the Okay Ka Fairy Ko, obviously patterned after the popular US TV show Bewitched), starring Vic Sotto and Kristine Hermosa, which is co-produced by Vic’s own M-ZET Films and OctoArts Films for this December’s Metro Filmfest.

Giselle will also promote Freeway (of which she’s an image model) and guest on the Awit Awards tomorrow night (Sept. 9).

Here’s an update on Giselle from Genesis, the talent agency which is handling her:

Even if she’s now based in California, Giselle is constantly visible on billboards and print ads of Freeway clothes. While in the country, Giselle will be seen in person touring outlets of Freeway from Metro Manila to as far as Iloilo in the Visayas and Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao. Giselle has been Freeway’s image model for nearly two years now.

Giselle recently made a breakthrough in Hollywood when she was chosen to do the lead role in the stage musical The Days When Cocaine Was King. The play, which ran four times a week at the American Renegade Theater in North Hollywood, California, revolved around the lives of an aging rock band called The Larry’s. The play takes the audience on an outrageously funny musical journey back to the late ‘70s. Giselle played the role of Juanita, a Latina salsa dancer with a heart of gold.

Earlier in April, Giselle traveled to Hawaii where, together with MTV’s Suchin Pak, she hosted the launch of World Asia, a new US network with Asian-themed programming. While there, Giselle got to enjoy Hawaii’s beautiful spots and beaches but realized "Boracay still tops my list!"

In print, she was given a full page feature in international magazine Elle with Avril Lavigne on the cover for the August issue. The article entitled Global Girl of the Moment: Giselle, 25 highlights Giselle’s achievements as model-actress-singer and that she landed on the cover pages of Cosmo and FHM magazines in Asia.

It will be recalled that Giselle was a busy celebrity in the Philippine showbiz arena when she left for New York in September 2000. Armed with a great deal of experience in acting, hosting, singing and modeling, she went to the US to follow her heart’s desire. In the US, she is being represented by Don Buchwald & Associates Inc. and Avie Cabral-Menagerie Ent. In the Philippines and Asia, Giselle is represented by Manila Genesis Entertainment & Management, Inc.

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