New IC director / Fiesta! / Goethe Institut opens

"Fiesta!", the sixth Spanish Festival for Culture and the Arts, opened in early October with Jose "Pepe" Rodriguez at the helm of the Instituto Cervantes, having taken over as its new director only the month previous.

Rodriguez, shortly before his brief return to Spain, was a highly visible figure in the journalistic scene. He served as bureau chief of the Spanish news agency EFE, as president of the Foreign Correspondents Association and the Manila Overseas Press Club. With the late DFA Secretary Raul S. Manglapus, he co-founded Cronica de Manila, a weekly Spanish section of a daily.

Don Pepe is likewise well-known in cultural, diplomatic, business and political circles. He is a member, a.h., of the San Millan de la Cogolla Foundation headed by Spain’s Crown Prince Don Felipe, the Art Society and Palas Atenea Cultural Society of Bolivia and the International Association of Political Advisers.

His numerous awards include the "Encomienda de Isabel la Catolica" from the King of Spain for strengthening Phil-Spanish relations, the Medal of Galicia and a Tourism Award, both from his native Galicia, and the Philippine Order of Sikatuna. He holds the rank of Commander in the Knights of Rizal.

A balikbayan – he has stayed in the Philippines for over 25 years – Don Pepe has written two books on the Philippines and the Filipinos: Philippine First Ladies Portraits (2003) which is enhanced by painted portraits done by his Filipino wife, the eminent painter Lulu Coching, and Cronicas which consists of recollections and events. An earlier book was Twelve Poets of Guadalupe (Madrid, 1972).

Rodriguez holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in business administration from Newport U., US, and a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural technical engineering from Madrid U.

Recently, he founded the Centro Gallego de Filipinas, the first association of Galicians in Asia, to promote relations between his native Galicia and his adopted homeland. He brought into historic Intramuros the storied Cruceiro de Galicia, the famous wayside stone cross, a donation to Manilans.

Don Pepe’s vast, varied, extended and first-hand knowledge of the Philippines imminently qualifies him for his new post. Since the Instituto Cervantes opened in Manila in 1993, the first to be established in Asia, it has aimed at strengthening Phil-Spanish historic, cultural and educational ties through a sustained dialogue fortified by the Filipinos’ study of the Spanish language, as well as continued cultural and artistic activities such as those in Fiesta! which lead to a deeper understanding of Spain and the rest of the Hispanic world.

Fiesta! will showcase multi-awarded films from Spain and Latin America until Oct. 15. A special highlight will be the premiere of Gil Portes’ Barcelona starring Alessandra de Rossi, Luis Alandy and Robert Arevalo. The story tells us of Clarissa (De Rossi) travelling to Spain in search of her missing husband. There, she meets Filipino immigrants whose lives indirectly reflect the sense of loss, despair and hope in a foreign land.

A midnight screening on Oct. 6, 7, 13 and 14 will show films from Spain, Argentina, Chile and Colombia, including the dance documentary Iberia which features some of Spain’s most acclaimed flamenco artists (Aidi Gomez, Sara Baras, who performed here last year, Antonio Canales, etc.)

Ignasi Terra Trio will play Mediterranean jazz on Oct. 13 at the RCBC auditorium. Admission is free!

Oleles, a contemporary dance performed and directed by Jordi Cortes and Damian Muñoz, two of Spain’s leading choreographers, is set for today, 7:30 p.m. at the RCBC auditorium, coinciding with the UST Conservatory’s gala presentation of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin tonight at the CCP theater.

A flamenco and Spanish classical dance interpretation of Bizet’s opera Carmen will climax Fiesta! on Oct. 17 at the CCP theater. Gomez will portray the sultry, seductive Carmen. She received the Max Scenic Arts Prize as the best female dancer in her production of De Falla’s El Sombrero de Tres Picos which inaugurated Madrid’s Teatro Real.

Since the multi-awarded Gomez became the youngest artistic director of Spain’s Ballet Nacional, she was obsessed with translating the opera Carmen into dance. The result enthralled audiences in Madrid last September.

The new Goethe Institut, now located at 5/F Adamson Centre, 121 Leviste St., Salcedo Village, Makati, will formally open on Oct. 18 at 5:30 p.m. under the auspices of the German Embassy headed by Ambassador Axel Weishaupt and the GI under director Volker Avenmarg.

The Clarion Chamber Ensemble and the Ateneo College Glee Club will perform and an exhibit of Lindslee will be on display.

On Oct. 26 at 6:30 p.m., also at the GI, the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations will exhibit the works of 15 German artists through Nov. 16, along with animated shorts, photos, puppets and sketches on Fridays at 6 p.m. and Saturdays at 5 p.m.

Last Oct. 6, "Art in the Time of Rocket Science," an exhibition by the "legendary icon" Cesare A.X. Syjuco and Raffy Ignacio, opened at the Blue Room Art Gallery in Makati. The exhibit will be on view until Nov. 19.

I quote: "Out of Syjuco’s juxtaposition of text and imagery emerges a payload of new contexts that, like aliens or UFOs, defies our conventional beliefs and leaves us wondering if they truly exist at all. As Jean Baudrilliard suggests, ‘poetic order requires that the event should not exactly take place.’ The accumulated images remain pivotal yet crude and uncontrolled, thereby avoiding the ‘aestheticized, calculated and composed’ nature of photography.

"Ignacio’s art has all the impact of a meteor that crashed to earth: his wooden creations are festooned with organic stalactites, tortured and developed painfully over time. Seemingly an agent of mass destruction, his Wild Rocket is actually a tube amplifier that rivals the best commercial equipment in producing sound to please any music junkie or audiophile. On the other hand, his sculptured piano is a frightening vision of apocalypse that, paradoxically, is capable of making music as sweet as the first day of creation."

The Madrigal Singers, which choir won the Grand Prix for best overall performance in an international tilt in France last June, will give a humor-filled concert, "MADZitawanan," tomorrow at the CCP main theater, 3 and 8 p.m. Proceeds will go to the charity projects of Ellinwood Malate Church which celebrates its 90th founding anniversary on Oct. 15.

Former violin prodigy Joaquin Maria "Chino" Gutierrez, here on a visit from Munich’s Hochschule and the State Academy for Music and Theater, will play a mini concert tomorrow in the Miriam College auditorium, a movement from a Tchaikovsky Concerto, Bach’s Chaconne, and two short compositions.

Book launchings: "The Governor-General’s Kitchen: Philippine Culinary Vignettes and Period Recipes, 1521-1935" by Felice Prudente Sta. Maria, on Oct. 10 at 5:30 p.m., Filipinas Heritage Library.

"The Story of Loren Legarda: Her Legacy and Vision" by Maria Rosa "Bing" Carrion-Buck on Oct. 12, 6:30 p.m., Manila Polo Club.