In 1988, Pocholo Malillin and his partner Cristino Nicolas bought a 1,500-square meter property on Boni Ave. in Mandaluyong and set up a business of training dancers for abroad. These were good times for many talent agencies involved in exporting talents particularly to Japan.
Pocholo and Cris opened the Cover Girls Dance Studio to train the dancers. They were accredited by the POEA and TESDA, important organizations in sending talents abroad. They would send as many as 100 dancers a month to Japan. However, the time came when the business became more difficult and less profitable. The Japanese government was no longer as open as they were in accepting Filipino talents in the past. Pocholo and Cris must have seen the handwriting on the wall and prepared themselves for an alternative. They decided to pursue their dream of a Vegas-type venue and started building at the site of their property.
Construction began in 1999 and was finished in 2000. No expense was spared to make the dream venue a reality. Imported marble, glass, furnishings from America and Europe, lighting and sound equipment, art pieces went into completing the venue. Easily, the savings of the couple from their flourishing talent export company went into this multi-million project.
Pocholo, VP and administrator in charge of marketing and management, admits that Club Mwah “was built by passion, and not for business. In the beginning, we had to advance P9-M, P1-M to be set aside every 15 days to pay for overhead; P400,000 alone for Meralco; we had 107 people in our payroll.” It was foolhardy, many friends and acquaintances commented, especially since the location was outside the main thoroughfare of evening entertainment.
But the dream had taken shape and there was no stopping them.
Pocholo and Cris have been together as a couple for more than 20 years, having gotten married in Canada. Pocholo is the older one, the more articulate, more gregarious of the two. It was easy to see why he would be made in charge of marketing and advertising. Cris, 10 years his junior, is the artist, the quiet one, genius at choreography, conceptualization, costume and set design and direction. Pocholo is quick to credit him for all the artistry in the production. Still, the club whose design and interiors are a joint effort in their common dream, their baby.
Apart from Club Mwah, they also share a real live son now 11, whose biological mother hails from Pangasinan, hometown of Pocholo. He studies at Greenhills Montessori, is among the Top 5 in his class, and he is proud of his adoptive parents and their achievements. There is no shame nor regret when he says this. We met him during one of the shows as he mingled with the crowd.
When Club Mwah opened its doors with a Follies Bergere-Ziegfeld Follies concept, it quickly caught the attention of foreign visitors and the upscale Filipino partygoer. Billed “Follies de Mwah” the costumes, sets and choreography were truly first-rate. The only thing different is that the showgirls were mostly gays and transsexuals with three or four real girls in the cast, lip-synching the songs. Normally, at the end of the evening, Pocholo goes on stage and calls on some members of the audience to pick out the real girls from the rest. Chances are, few are able to really tell the difference.
We have been to Club Mwah thrice for the shows billed Bedazzled 6, 7 and 8, and each time have marveled at the production. Obviously, Pocholo’s claim on passion being the driving force behind this enterprise is well founded.
In Bedazzled 6, we invited the Rayos del Sol family previously from Toronto, Canada. They were familiar with shows of this nature yet were completely amazed at Mwah’s version of Madonna’s Vogue given an exotic Thai treatment. Other numbers had the Korean Sakura Flower Festival theme, a tribal dance with African garbed dancers scaling a giant web, the Goldfinger Bond number, Cell Block Tango from Chicago and Miss Saigon complete with helicopter in mid-air.
We took Anna Fegi, straight from her stint at Hong Kong Disneyland to Bedazzled 7. An entirely new show with new costumes, numbers and sets was heavy on comedy. There was I Feel Pretty with the company’s resident Miss Ugly Pitimini, How much is that Doggie in the Window again with Miss Ugly, Titanic spoof, Egypt’s Sphinx and funny mummies, Madame Butterfly with a comic Chuchu Chan and Cats with fantastic costumed gellical cats and a comic tarsier. Anna was floored, and remember, she had just come from performing The Lion King at Disney.
Last week, at the newly-launched Bedazzled 8, we brought theater actor-singer Miguel Castro for another opinion on the Mwah Follies and naturally he was all-praises. The repertoire had Dream Girls, Janet Jackson, C-Boom of Eartha Kit, the Charleston, Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz, Madonna’s Shanti Shanti with an elephant replica on stage, the Anaconda snake number with Pitimini, a repeat of the Cell Block Dance from the musical Chicago. Apparently, Cell Block had been a favorite of a lot of clients who had watched Bedazzled 6. In all blogs we have read on Mwah Follies, the Cell Block Tango is repeatedly praised. We guess there are a lot who get pleasure from watching women give men a violent thrashing. The main feature of Man From La Mancha was again treated comically with Miss Ugly Pitimini as Dulcinea.
Club Mwah to date is the only accredited Tourism Entertainment Club in the country offering good clean fun with opulent first-rate entertainment. It has garnered three international awards and is dubbed “Asia Pacific’s most Outstanding Entertainment Club.”
As Club Mwah continues its growth with lessons learned from every show, we can appreciate where all this is coming from. We can also see how difficult it can be to run a place as expensive to run as this. And how it can only continue through the passion of everyone involved — owners, performers, audience, supporters.
Club Mwah is located at the third floor of the Venue Tower Boni Ave., Mandaluyong City.
For details, call 535-7943 or 532-2826 or log on to www.clubmwah.com.
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E-mail me at bibsycarballo@yahoo.com