A summer of passions at Bonifacio Global City

Can art transcend the recession, can it create a community out of strangers? Can passions overcome widespread apathy? Can a city stimulate people’s hearts and minds to be more, to do more? Can passion uplift one’s soul, and can it be contagious enough that it spreads from one person to the next, from one community to another, and in the end affect an entire country?

The answer to these questions is yes. And it starts this summer — with kids, families, adventurers, filmmakers, photographers, and performing artists.

Bonifacio Global City (BGC) prides itself on being the “home of passionate minds” and “a city with a soul.” This summer, BGC is mounting events for Passionfest 2009 to bring people together, to bring out their creativity and appreciation for both classical and modern art. Passionfest runs from April 25 to May 30 and is bookended by interactive art events. 

Now in its fourth year, BGC’s summer fest highlights the ideal contemporary lifestyle in these times — a balance between work, fun, adventure and art. 

As Tanghalang Pilipino executive director Nanding Josef says: “A country without the arts is a country without a soul. All these activities for the summer are making BGC become like no other developing business district where everything is about money. We would like this district to be a haven for artists, a place for pursuing your passions.”

This summer, you just might find your passion here.

On The Go With Carlos Celdran

Passionfest 2009 kicks off on April 25 with the “City Art Tour with Carlos Celdran,” which takes participants around the art installations in Bonifacio Global City. Known for his always-entertaining and often-controversial walking tours of Intramuros, the CCP Complex and Chinatown, Carlos says he’s excited about this summer’s Passionfest edition.

Last summer, Carlos did a walking tour of Bonifacio High Street, this time his stage is much bigger as the tour includes BGC’s outdoor land art installations. The Pied Piper of art lovers will not be walking his audience to sites this time, but they will be going around on a bus (it is a big city).

“It’s all part of my interest in urbanism,” says Carlos, who once said that living in this country is like playing a video game, something that can be mastered “and once you master it, you’re addicted.”

The bus will drive along the route and make stops at designated artworks to give participants the opportunity to take photos. The sculptures along the city tour includes “Kasaysayan Bawat Oras” by Juan Sajid de Leon Imao, a 16-meter brass and cement sculpture that is also a sundial with seven paper-like dolls representing the 7,107 islands of the Philippines; “Balanghai” by Leo Gerardo Leonardo, a kinetic sculpture that moves with the wind and features three paddles representing Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao; “Pasasalamat” by Ferdie Cacnio, featuring two fishermen and their bountiful harvest; “The Trees” by Reynato Paz Contreras, a canopy of three interlocking trees; “Ang Supremo” by Ben-Hur G. Villanueva, a three-meter-tall tribute to Andres Bonifacio, the working class’s hero; and “Transformation” by architect Lor Calma, a grand sculpture of three stacked laminated glasses, five to 10 meters tall, which is internally lit and set in cascading water from a fountain pool.

Calma’s sculpture, incidentally, is Carlos’s favorite piece, along with Reg Yuson’s “Hearsay” sculpture at Bonifacio High Street. When pressed for his favorite sculpture in the Philippines, Carlos thinks for a moment and says, “Can the San Juanico Bridge be classified as sculpture? It’s a marvelous marriage between art and engineering. It’s a sculpture passing itself off as a bridge. Shows you that function and style don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

The public art in BGC has certainly played a role in encouraging people to walk, to discover the environs, and to enjoy the emerging lifestyle that is new urbanism.

Kids Get Busy, Too

While summer evokes images of out-of-town vacations and lazy afternoons by the beach, city dwellers are now finding more reasons to stay put, with activities here geared toward bringing out their creativity.

Passionfest is holding summer workshops for kids of all ages on May 16 and 17, May 23 and 24 at Bonifacio High Street.

Kids Camp features a bag workshop by bag designer Amina Aranaz, and a cooking workshop by chef Margarita Fores and The Stock Market. Other activities to keep the little ones busy are the tie-dye and yoyo workshops by Hobbes and Landes on May 23, and the Carton Crafts Workshop by Tetra Pak on May 24, which aims to instill recycling in children’s hearts by encouraging them to bring their own materials. There will be a P1,000 cumulative purchase requirement from Bonifacio High Street stores for participation in the workshops. 

Amina Aranaz, owner of the School of Fashion and the Arts on Paseo de Roxas in Makati, knows what it’s like to mentor young children — and to be mentored and encouraged to pursue one’s passions. She grew up with a mother who exports bags all over the world, and under her mother’s strict eye, Amina learned that God is indeed in the details. Her Aranaz bags are so exquisitely embellished that a woman need not wear any other accessory to complete her look.

Amina has had a lot of experience conducting workshops for kids in her school, which incidentally is the home of Project Runway Philippines. A number of exclusive girls schools go on field trips to the School of Fashion and the Arts during the school year, and come summer they enroll in classes there.

She adds that “children learn through play and we want to bring those activities here at Bonifacio Global City.”

Unlike in last year’s talk on bag design, participating children this summer will have a hands-on experience on how to make and embellish bags. The workshop will provide kids with kits, the kind of which will depend on their ages. They will be provided the raw materials including patterns and embellishments like felt, glass beads, wooden beads, sequins and chain handles.  

“We expect kids in the range of 6 to 12 years old. For below nine-year-old kids, we will give them ready-made bags and they just have to embellish them because they’re not used to using needles and threads. For the nine to 12-year-olds, we will give them a pattern and they just have to seam the bag before embellishing it.”

The workshop will have a fashion sketching station where the girls are given a fashion figure that they will create designs for; a jewelry-making station for necklaces, earrings and headbands; and the bag station. 

“Young girls are very enthusiastic when it comes to fashion workshops. They’re so carefree and passionate about it. We teach them to be creative and explore the arts side but we also have to guard them a lot because sometimes they get overeager. You give them a whole bunch of raw materials, and they want to use everything and they keep changing their minds until the four hours are over, and they haven’t finished anything.”

Amina adds that such activities help kids explore their inner selves. “When you’re in a regular school, it’s more about books and grades. This kind of workshop allows them to explore something they might be passionate about in the future. I really believe that children have to be exposed to as many things as possible to help them know what will excite them. Summer workshops also give them the opportunity to build friendships and meet new friends.” 

Like Amina, Gaita Fores has also had a lot of experience “working” with children. During a past BGC event, she taught kids how to cook pasta recipes and make them “look at food in a new, exciting way.” She says, “We know how kids get bored easily and how they always want to see a new take on things. I will try to make them see food — with its tastes and flavors — in another light. Cooking is really both a science and an art in that it takes both discipline and intuition.”

Apart from the practical side of learning recipes (moms will love to have their kids cooking with them in the kitchen!), Gaita says it will “teach the children that it is very important that you love what you do because it will make all the difference in the world. It will not be just a job if you love what you do.”

A Vision Of The Future

The four young girls from the organization Loyola Film Circle (LFC) — Ria Laurente, Mariel Flores, Gina Tumlos and Aika Beltran — typify the future of all film enthusiasts: they are smart, they love movies, and they approach the medium with as much passion as if they created the films themselves. But LFC is not a group just for film majors, rather it is an organization in Ateneo that “delves into film criticism and appreciation” — and also film production.

LFC holds an annual film competition that receives 100 plus entries every year. Passionfest tapped into this group to spread the word about its film competition.

Digital visual artists have two competitions they can join in Passionfest’s Vision Digital Open: a photography competition and a short film competition on May 8 to 10 for submissions with the awarding of winners on May 30.

Indie directors and writers, and a cinematographer are going to judge the film competition: Chris Martinez, who wrote the screenplays for Caregiver, Sukob and Bridal Shower, and 100, which he also directed and executive-produced; Mark Meily, who directed Baler, Crying Ladies and La Visa Loca; and cinematographer Nap Jamir, whose films include Scaregivers, Boses, and Rizal sa Dapitan.

Chris swept the awards in last year’s Cinemalaya with his directorial debut 100 (about a woman dying of cancer and has a list of 100 things to do before she dies) and has been doing the rounds of international film festivals. He says he’s excited about the possibility that somebody will “dare do something grand in this competition, all for the love of film.”

Mark is also hopeful that a new talent will emerge. “I have met several award-winning photographers and filmmakers who got ‘discovered’ in competitions like this.”

Is this a good time for filmmakers? Says Nap, “There is never and always a good time to be a director. One doesn’t wake up one morning and declare himself a director. It grows on you and you grow on it. But mine was a happy accident. And I don’t consider myself a director. I am a cinematographer that happens to direct on the side.” 

A three-time Palanca-winning playwright and former ad man, Chris says the film industry is very dynamic right now. “Foreign festivals have recognized the Philippines as a hotbed in the independent film movement. These are a bunch of passionate people producing films independently.”

Nap adds, “What I would like to see are works, or rather ‘visual statements,’ from ordinary people. The advent of the mini-DV camera and the cellphone camera/video has expanded the horizon of free expression. It has become the extension of the spoken word in communication. If that is allowed, I would like to see entries originating from cell phones. Let the mind of Mr. Everyman be seen and heard!”

Mark says, “The great thing about works of non-professionals is their freshness. One can see a unique point of view. Since they are doing something that aims to please them first, rather than anticipating what their past audience or client wants, we see something that is often out of the box.”

Nap, who started with “radical photography” and design work with Neal Oshima 20-odd years ago, thinks that, yes, the competition might discover promising talent. “With the videocam replacing the family ‘drop & shoot’ Kodak cameras of the Sixties, I am sure there’s some future Ysmael Bernal or Lav Diaz lurking in the crowd.”

 “Sometimes you spot talent easily — the fresh eye of the filmmaker is very much evident right away,” Chris says.

Their advice to filmmakers? “Same advice I give myself: Never be afraid of failure and never stop learning,” says Nap.

 “Every time is a good time to pursue your passion,” says Mark. “It’s like loving a person, I guess. There is no right or wrong time to show you love someone.”

Race & Recreation

One of the best ways to explore a place is to get lost in it — or run around it. In the case of Alleycat Race, you can do both, but if you get lost you may lose some points. The 2nd BGC Alleycat Race in cooperation with R.O.X., set for May 10, is a test of both skills and street smarts. It’s a race on foot and on bikes where participants are given a set of challenges and earn points if they accomplish them, so they’re not just competing for the fastest time but for the highest score, too.

The challenges are both physical and mental, from easy to hard. Last year there were challenges like “sing the national anthem,” or “make a pyramid out of plastic cups” in various locations around Bonifacio Global City. If the challenge is too far, they can opt not to do it and instead take another one to earn points.

The excitement of the Alleycat Race is what drew bike enthusiasts and married couple Tonyboy and Jay de Ocampo. “Biking is our hobby,” says Jay. “We’ve been on trails to Maarat in Timebrland, Sta. Rosa, Bulacan, and Tagaytay.”

How did they get started? “We bought our bikes in the States and we started just biking around our subdivision,” she says. “It wasn’t so popular yet then. Last year I met some people who go on bike trails and I got my husband into it.”

“We just want to have fun in Alleycat,” says Tonyboy.

This is the couple’s first time to join the race and the fact that it is only an hour-long appealed to them. “We don’t have much free time, we have three kids to attend to!”

“They say it’s really fun and not very intense as other bike competitions,” adds Jay.

High On The Arts At Bonifacio High Street

It’s the best time to become an artist,” says Nanding Josef of Tanghalang Pilipino on how recession and art can co-exist. “The hard times have always produced the best art, the best musical compositions, in the world. When people have lost hope in politicians and commerce in terms of developing the ideal human society, they turn to the arts. That’s what Plato said: With the arts, we use the principles of what’s true, what’s good and what’s beautiful.”

The culminating event for summer’s Passionfest is the BGC Arts Festival on May 30, featuring a collaborative event between three of the country’s beloved cultural groups: Ballet Philippines, Tanghalang Pilipino, and the UP Madrigal Singers.

“Collaborating with another company or holding a street performance is not a new thing for us,” says Ballet Philippines president Maan Hontiveros of Ballet Philippines. But this is the first time all three companies are taking their respective expertise, quite literally, to the street as they conduct workshops at Bonifacio High Street.”

Nanding says the Madrigal Singers will be doing a choral workshop, “and they have a module that teaches you to sing like the Madz in 10 minutes!” Tangalang Pilipino will do street dancing and Ballet Philippines will do modern dance workshops. “We’re trying to weave a storyline to put all three together. The important ting is to get the onlookers to participate.”

“With Pinoys, just give them an excuse and they will perform,” says Maan.

All three companies are used to performing in theaters. How will this translate to the street and how do the artists feel about it?

“When the audience doesn’t want to go inside your theater, you have to bring out your art — in our case, literally out of the CCP box,” says Nanding. “It’s a challenge how to use the same art form but with new approaches.”

Maan adds, “The challenge for art companies is to make ourselves relevant to the young kids and be able to resonate with them. When they think of Ballet Philippines, they think about the CCP and that it’s unreachable, which is absolutely not true. If you look at the profile of the kids who have been in the company, they come from all walks of life. In fact, one of our outstanding male dancers is a son of a tricycle driver.”

The three companies recently inaugurated their new home in Bonifacio Global City. Arts in the City, which was made possible with the Bonifacio Arts Foundation Inc., is housed at the Bonifacio Art Center on 26th St., near the NBC Tent. The three performing arts companies will hold a year-round season of activities and performances all around BGC. It will also be a satellite performing arts school, much to the convenience of residents in the southern part of Metro Manila.

“Artists are always excited about performing — anywhere,” says Nanding. “They get crazy with idleness.”

Maan adds, “An artist speaks of the human pursuit, the human emotion. He needs to perform and he needs feedback from his audience.”

Like Bonifacio Global City, the three companies share a passion for people, for transformation. With the May 30 street performances in the City with a Soul, they couldn’t ask for a more immediate feedback. Or a better way to ensure that the artist’s soul is sustained.

Passionfest at Bonifacio Global City has always been about pursuing one’s passions, whether it’s an artistic endeavor or an athletic one. This time, the events also allow people to satisfy their curiosity — about the city and about themselves. Because there’s nothing more satisfying to the spirit than knowing what you truly care about.