Alternative performers: the new wave

A couple of Fridays ago, blessed with sudden freedom for TGIF, I hied off late to Mag:net Katips after an absence of long weeks. It was also upon the insistence of good friend and fellow impresario Rock Drilon — he who selflessly continues to "discover" and help develop many young and upcoming creative talents, even to the detriment of his own time and space as a fine artist.

On tap that night was the launch of the debut solo album "Sough" by Ria Muñoz, as part of her "Sound Projects." The launch would also feature other artist-performers, for poetry, film, music, whatevah...

Accoutered with yet a half-full bottle of Bowmore Surf from the Isle of Islay, I found myself settling for a table on the gallery level. No way I could inch myself past the stairs to the bar and performance area upstairs, anchovy-packed as it was, to the gills.

Bolstering the CD launch was a multi-genre affair, starting with expectedly rousing readings by the svelte and vampy Syjuco sisters, Trix and Maxine. Squire Gelo Suarez was also on tap for a vocal exertion in the shock-jock mode.

Yet another video offering by the increasingly (and deservedly) acclaimed indie filmmaker Khvan de la Cruz helped draw a turnaway crowd. Curiously, the short film would render into visual form a long poem by Joel Toledo titled "Literature."

I recalled this to have led off a collection that served early notice of his remarkable affinity for narrative, this one quite surreal — about a man reading an unknown book in the middle of a street, until violence ends the cryptic urban act, and the private pages are lost forever. Or so my faulty memory might have diverged from or enhanced the cautionary tale.

I wanted to see the film, but caught only snatches, as there was hardly any room at the top. The images I did see were quite impressive, as was the fast, sharp editing, as well as the voice-over reading (of the full poem). The score — what is generically referred to as experimental music — was credited to Ria Muñoz.

Another performer was dancer-choreographer Donna Miranda, fresh from a contest triumph in Yokohama. She came down for stretching exercises while I savored my erstwhile solo single malt gig in between forays upstairs.

Around us, downstairs, were the current show works of another presumably young lady, Lea Lim. Words and phrases were laid out in patterns on the floor, up the walls and across the ceiling. Under my chair was part of a marked circle limned with declarative statements. On the main wall hung three sculptural abstractions, of white rectangular forms, while the two other walls had one large oil painting each, in dark strokes, primarily of a seated lady’s knees. Oh, and a couple of video monitors faced one another before the trio of round glass tables as in a café setting, marked off as reserved.

For me? Felt good, appreciative, reflective, over being on the fringe of some curious flow. At some point my godson Jules Syjuco joined me, drinking light beer. Another young chap, faintly recognizable, came in and said "Hi, Tito." He turned out to be buddy Jaime’s son, Mateo Fabregas. I hadn’t seen him since his early teens. Minutes later, in popped David Abad, son of another Jimmy buddy. "Hi, Tito." "Hey, your rocker buddy Mateo’s upstairs." "Ya, Tito, thanks."

And that’s what the evening was all about, I supposed, getting together with writer/artist-friends’ sons and daughters, and their peers and friends — a generation doing their tribal thing. Felt good. The torch they waved about seemed incandescent, matching the inner glow provided by malt whisky.

Rock introed a nephew. More comings and goings. The sounds of Gelo upstairs, in fine fettle. Then Rock insisted we go up, catch Ria’s final set. Since he’s head honcho, the juvenile sea parted and we plunked our butts on the floor right before the stage. White sand that had been strewn on the floor hopped up my hip-hop shorts.

All of the above got me musing.

Why, Ria is magnificent, a virtual babe orchestrating electronic music via a laptop’s keyboard. Sounds better than Stockhausen in the ’70s, he who had me fooled with rave reviews till I ejaculated upon purchase of an actual vinyl record, then sat down to listen to radio frequency static. John Cage? Uhh, the hysterics of rationalization? Is Muñoz’s music closer to Philip Glass’, then? On or off the beach? Well, without random full orchestration, maybe; only drummer Atchoo Ilagan in accompaniment.

Or is it akin to the band Drip’s electronica? Maybe. And what else are there? Elemento? In this area I’m entirely out of the loop, the matrix — or whatchamacallit, the "sound art" scene. It’s conducted mostly by "DIY-run project spaces" like Green Papaya in UP Village, or Future Prospects, which launched the S.A.B.A.W. compilation album. This included Nasal Police, featuring collaborators Ria and Pow Martinez, with computer and electronic gizmos, toy musical instruments, found objects, shells, whistles, electric drills, etc. I’ve only heard and read about it. But both venues have encouraged "collaboration among visual artists, musicians, film makers, performers, etc."

Alternative’s the word. Where we sadly lack for upcoming new faces for a more evolved Senate, in contempo art there’s always that dynamic if catch-all label for non-mainstream, or never-will-be-commercial.

Abstract patterns of sounds with vaguely identifiable dance beats are interspersed in Sough. Ria’s completing a course in Asian Music at the UP College of Music, so she can’t be just clutching at straws in the wind, in the cause of sheer experimentation. Rather may she come up with Cage-y philosophy for her sound explorations.

But is it music? Sure it is. Are Gelo Suarez’s screamed orations poetry? Sure they are. Not only are they claimed as such by an exciting new generation of artists, who are as jacks-in-the-box leaping out of faithlessness in the face of old protocols. Hey, then, too, they startle and endanger and imperil — while tweaking the old framework of — aesthetic consciousness.

Randomization has long been upon us. The possibilities are endless. The sky will not fall on our heads.

So went the litany from the spirit in me that night, as I regarded and listened to this young tribe of stalwarts.

So did it echo the refrain three nights later, at Alliance Française with the "Love Letters" international poetry reading that conjoined, for a good three hours of randomly intriguing appreciation, ambassadors of several countries, page poets, and again, some of these young performance poets.

It was good and great to share in the spectacle of cohabitation summoned by a Filipino poem by National Artist Rio Alma as transposed onstage by interpreter Vim Nadera and a crew of indigenous music-makers and dancers. Just as much as to listen to the ageless Virgie Moreno ("I just came back from Paris!") read her classic poem "Order for Three Masks" in English and French translation, while dancer Myra Beltran and a male partner danced behind her. Just as much as to be engaged again, aurally, visually, and mayhaps as far as the sixth sense, by the final number that was Suarez’s, rendered atop a table, a repetitive recitation and a flinging of sheets forward, while behind him hung the flags of European countries bound together by a Francophone tradition.

Congratulations went all around as the night closed and as the next day brought everyone back to their senses: Such a superb program, and a superlative evening!

Cesare A.X. Syjuco texted: "La Moreno is still superb and looking good. Never seen her happier." Why, that could also have referred to all of us privileged to legislate a season of spirited confluence among natives, alter-natives, and all manner and sort of intrepid explorers.

Old wave recedes and comes back, laps and is lapped by the new. Surf’s up!