Katrina Stuart Santiago

it must have a lot to do with the conversations. over those introductory cups of coffee it was a lesson in first meetings: (1) choose a quiet(er) place, (2) remember to pee before it begins, the better to (3) prepare for a four-hour conversation. measure the time spent sitting across each other, compare it to the time spent in each others arms. get a ruler: how far is the distance between us as we walk the streets? how many minutes to walk from your building to the hole in the wall next door, the convenience store further down, the squatters area accessible on the other side of this street. how many minutes before they are comfortable with the image of us, distant but together, an arm’s length away, a table between us, chairs beside each other but apart, i settle on the couch for one. count the times the waiter gives us a sly a smile, the deaf-mute screams his high-five, the manongs we pass grin ear-to-ear, the guard at your building counts 24 hours. how many seconds does it take for the good friend to tease you about me, out of earshot, more of the pinoy macho thing, you say. more a measure of the distance we choose to keep: i sleep against your shoulder, you put your hand on my thigh. you look down the length of our arms as you hold my hand for the first time. absolutely ridiculous you say. i wonder about coffee as the sun streams into the room i am seeing for the last time.

and questions on national and cultural, and the crisis that is Philippine dance, that can only resonate for the rest of culture industry in this country. excerpt from the piece by Myra Beltran:

<…this> greatly changed environment <…> also signals that the bill can be examined in terms of its assumptions about the “national” and “culture” (Philippine culture). These are the discourses which inform the bill. These discourses summoned by the bill then imply that a deeper discussion on this bill apart from the one centered on who is “more deserving” or not, can be made and that it is no easy labelling of being “for” or “against” the bill. It does not seem to be as simple as saying or implying that that those who oppose this bill would probably not oppose if they had been the beneficiary or implementor of this bill – rather, part of those who are being dismissed as simply “against” truly mean to have a sincere inquiry as to who is speaking for whom in this bill, what is being spoken in behalf of the “whom,” and whether the answer to this should be enacted into law as a republic act. [5] I suppose those are also topics which also concern the entire arts community as all precedents do have a subsequent ripple effect.

A case in point is that one of the reasons cited by Ballet Philippines in seeking the status of “national” is the precedent set by the naming of the Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company as the “national folk dance company” (R.A. 8626 by the 10th Congress) with the contention that others who oppose this current bill would do well to seek the same for themselves, “to work for it”, [6] as the Bayanihan bill itself provides. On this count, and if one were to proceed to “work for it,” the proposed bill also summons the notion and the distinction between a “national folk dance company” and a “national ballet company” as both representative of “Philippine culture.” And then after, if one indeed were to “work for it,” what kind of “national” entity would one be? The same question would be posed to one working for a “national theatre company” or “national orchestra” in the future.

click here for the rest of it.

A text like Peter Pan banks on wonder, given an audience of children who would be overwhelmed by the idea of flight. But it also banks on an adult audience that can go back to an amount of youthful innocence, given the familiar. Of course this familiarity can also be this text’s undoing, owing to its many versions, some more iconic than others (think Robin Williams as Peter). Any staging / rendering / version then can only really be successful in light of this kind of intertextuality: an audience will bring to this text everything – big or small, major or minor – that they know about the text. And it’s entirely possible that in the end this will only mean a harsh judgment of the version that unfolds in front of them.

Or not. Repertory Philippines’ Peter Pan, A Musical Adventure is difficult to put down, even when you’re a jaded adult. Of course it could’ve just been me, ready as I was to be fascinated by the flying this production was treating the audience to. But there were other things here that were wonderful too, if not surprisingly seamlessly done by the production.

Click here for the rest of it!

it must have a lot to do with the conversations. there’s the limits of a text message, like a finish line i refuse to cross, so i stop right before it, and begin again. you call it eloquence. i edit myself. you call out to me through the tiny box that you complain is too small a space, appearing just above your right hand as we chat. the tiny box ain’t so bad i argue, and isn’t it above your left hand? it’s limitless, these silly conversations we have, where we make mountains out of molehills i say, where we know some molehills are actually mountains you say, where we must know that some of the latter aren’t really such. we pare down mountains with words. we cut the world in thirds: here’s what you think, here’s what i think, here’s where nothing can be said. as you put food on my plate before you put some on yours, with no romance for that mountain of your leaving in the backdrop, no love for the facts we do not speak of. for two people who get off on words, we hold impending conversations, a paragraph in your head, a sentence that trails off in mine. you look at me in the middle of a crowded noisy restaurant for the leaving and left behind, to say: we know that what matters is what we don’t say, yes? yes. here, take this box and watch mountains become molehills become nothing but ellipses. here, have a box and fill it words.

this was previously published in Metakritiko when it was still cool and fearless (haha). and because i don’t like repeating myself, and we were brought up to not talk about ourselves, am posting it here as tribute to pinoy music on the one hand, birthday greeting on the other. for Kuya, without whom this blog (and therefore my writing) wouldn’t be possible, and who should really be writing more often, too. cheers!

Mix Tapes for the Story of Distance:
or OPM? Music that Binds

Mix Tape 1: Ode to Sibling-hood

When I was a kid, my liking for the local was judged as baduy by my Kuya who took to liking everything not Pinoy. We fought over the remote control on Sundays when I couldn’t get enough of GMA Supershow, and he wanted the rerun of any other foreign show or movie on Channel 9. I watched That’s Entertainment, day in day out, to Kuya’s raised eyebrows. Yes, the talentless lived there, and they were “watermelon singing!” Kuya said, exasperated. That is, they didn’t know the words to the songs they pre-recorded and so they just keet repeating the word “watermelon.”

And here, the songs that I love(d) from the height of baduy Origina Pilipino Music (OPM) in the mid-80s to early 90s, all of which I’ve got memorized like a know how to ride a bike, to Kuya’s distress/disgust/despair, of course.

Side A: The Baduy Collection

I Love You Boy, Timmy Cruz
Points of View, Pops Fernandez and Joey Albert
I Remember the Boy, Joey Albert
Mr. Kupido, Rachel Alejandro
Kapag Tumibok ang Puso, Donna Cruz
Mr. Dreamboy Sheryl Cruz
I Like You, Geneva Cruz

And then the next thing we knew, we were in the same boat, of loving OPM, memorizing whole albums (cassette tapes, baybeh!) and even (yes! show our age!) the last of the 45 records. We also started loving Gary Valenciano (before the V.), but were wont to spend more on tickets for – or tried harder at finding free passes to – the foreign acts. Name it, we went to it, Vanilla Ice, (the fake)Milli Vanilli, Gloria Estefan. I would try and keep this tradition going and watched Metallica with my first boyfriend (bad idea, he hated that I failed to catch the fluggin’ guitar pick thrown my way); watched Earth Wind and Fire with my boy(best)friend and did think there could be some sweet love growing on a Saturday night.

But then, there was Kuya, and our growing collection of OPM that we both agreed weren’t baduy, anyone who said so, be damned.

Side B: The Compromise Collection

Each Passing Night, Gary Valenciano
Leaving Yesterday Behind, Keno
Tatlong Beinte Singko, Dingdong Avanzado
Nandito Ako, Ogie Alcasid
Enveloped Ideas, The Dawn
Mga Kababayan Ko, Francis M.
Humanap Ka ng Panget, Andrew E.

Mix Tape 2: Distance(d)

And then Kuya left, just as I hit college and found my own kind of OPM in the Pinoy rakenrol and alternative music of the mid-90s and first decade of 2000. He would come home and visit, and find himself in record stores to buy CDs that I couldn’t bring myself to get: an acoustic album here, a live album there, of the most recent hitmaker, non-songwriter. Meanwhile I lent him bags filled with CDs: the Eraserheads, the new ones of FrancisM, some of the older ones he might not remember, or we didn’t have money to buy CDs of when we were younger.

And then there are times like the past two months, when we spend more time together than we have in the past 13 years that he’s been away, and we realize how we remain within the same sphere as far as taste is concerned: Jason Mraz, between the two of us, without knowing it. I give him Peryodiko and Sugarfree’s Mornings and Airports, the only two OPM albums on my laptop that traveled from Manila to Kuya’s home in Holland. He introduces me to Stephen Lynch, downloads the latest Natalie Merchant. And now in Manila, the conversations of our pasts, a reminiscence and presence of music, and yes it has been mostly OPM.

Side A: Past Forward

Perfect, True Faith
Paglisan, Color it Red
Ang Huling El Bimbo, Eraserheads
Kaleidoscope World, FrancisM
Babalik Ka Rin, Gary Valenciano
Bakit Ngayon Ka Lang, Ogie Alcasid

Side B: (Re-)Present!

The Yes Yes Show, inuman session, feat. FrancisM, Parokya Ni Edgar
Oka Tokat (with Humanap Ka ng Panget by Andrew E.), inuman session, feat. Jay of Kamikazee, Parokya Ni Edgar
Eto Na Naman, original by Gary V., Sugarfree
This Guy’s In Love With You Pare, Parokya Ni Edgar
Agawan Base, Peryodiko
Bakasyon, Peryodiko
Dear Kuya, Sugarfree

And for the first time, we are going to gigs. It is the teenage life of having a Kuya that I didn’t have, the one where there’s always back-up at the same time that someone has my back. Quite a liberating thing, really. It would be silly to refuse OPM this reunion.