Round 2: Home For Christmas

Toronto Sun coverage of KAPISANAN Typhoon relief efforts

Just over a month has passed since KAPISANAN first started our relief efforts for victims of typhoon Ondoy aka Ketsana. We closed off our initial fundraising with the successful Charity is Our Second Language, formerly know as, Poetry Is Our Second Language on October 3^rd, shipping 21 Balikbayan boxes to the Philippines and raising $3,093 for Global Medic’s ground efforts to bring clean drinking water to the affected areas.

boxes getting packed in KAPISANAN's gallery

traditional Filipino parols

KAPISANAN continues to receive inquiries about what to do next, so here it is, Round 2. Home for Christmas is KAPISANAN’s second round of fundraising, supporting the rebuilding of homes, lives and families in the motherland.

Starting November 1, 2009, KAPISANAN will be accepting monetary donations via PayPal or through mailed-in cheques and in-person donations at 167 Augusta Ave. until December 25, 2009.

All proceeds benefit the Children’s Rehabilitation Centre, whose efforts on the ground help displaced children and their families who were all affected by Ketsana and Parma.

In true KAPISANAN style, we will be having an all day Parol Making Workshop at KAPISANAN, Saturday, December 19^th. For just $10, you’ll get materials for a parol, a lesson on how to make it, and the warm fuzzy feeling you get after you’ve done something good.

The festivities will continue into the night, with a live auction for specially made parols. Local Filipino-Canadian artists will be donating their talent and the winning bidders get to take home original works of parol art.

All proceeds from the auction and the workshop will benefit the Children’s Rehabilitation Centre (CRC), to help the children and their families be Home for Christmas.

Tax receipts will be issued for monetary donations of $50 or more, through the kindness of our community partner, Schools without Borders. Cheques must be made out to Schools Without Borders (or direct to SWB’s PayPal account – info@swb.ca), with a memo “Home for Christmas-KAPISANAN”.

Cash or cheque donations under $50 may be made out to Kapisanan Philippine Centre for Arts and Culture (or direct to KAPISANAN’s PayPal account-info@kapisanancentre.com).

There’s work to be done and we at KAPISANAN, know that you, our community, will be with us in this.

We’re back for Round 2 and we’re going for the knock out!

For all inquiries, email giveback@kapisanancentre.com or call 416.979.0600.

CLUTCH: What Makes an Artist?

By Desiree Gamotin

With a whole day off this past Friday, I set aside time to finally finish my encaustic collage, which I began about three weeks ago with Leah Gold (see Oct. 11 post on http://clutchwomen.blogspot.com). I’ve been struggling with it—aesthetically, I wasn’t too happy with how it turned out the first time. I couldn’t even decide if it was too flashy (was there too much gold leaf on one side? too much glitter?), too tacky (did the three-dimensional mini shells and pearls resemble my third grade macaroni project?), too harsh (I think I went overboard with the dark blue wax I layered on the corners), or too empty (the sketch I drew on the bottom left corner reveals too much white space). Quite frankly, I felt like this was something you would hang up above my bathroom toilet.

So I decided to melt off the entire left side, start off fresh, maybe make something brilliant out of it. I tried putting in a photo I took in the Philippines to replace the sketch. That didn’t work. Melt. I tried engraving new words on the wax. Didn’t look so good. Melt. I tried mixing colours, writing poetry onto tracing paper, drawing up new images to go with my lonely compass-unicorn. Even worse than before. Melt. Melt. Melt. What ended up happening was I melted off the entire collage until all that was left was a beaten-looking board and a red-waxed corner with the words “Feed your” on the right corner. I was frustrated. I had to redo a completely different collage on a smaller board and I left the place disappointed, especially considering the therapeutic high I felt the last time I worked on the first collage.

I felt like one of those obnoxious diva artists, who need their water at a certain temperature before they could perform. I was fussy. Everything from the music to the studio space to my mindset at the time was just not right. Why was I acting this way? Was I simply masking my insecurities about being creatively uninclined through petty excuses? Why was I so hard on myself about something entirely new to me? Was I experiencing “artists’ block”?

It got me thinking about what actually makes an artist an artist. I remember I was telling a friend’s girlfriend about the CLUTCH program, our upcoming exhibit and the many projects we’re working on. She asked me, “Are you an artist?” “Oh, no no,” I stuttered. I think I even chuckled a little. But what is the criteria that allows one to use the title “artist”? Is it their portfolio of work? The popularity of their exhibits? Their reputation in the artistic community? Is it self-described, or do others have to officially christen you with the title? I write and I draw and I paint and I do photography and I make music. But nay, I am no artist! And it irks me when pretentious, self-righteous hipsters call themselves artists simply so they could justify wearing their acid-wash skinny jeans. Okay, that may be a little harsh. But I think the reason why I hold the title in such high regard is that I know some of the most creative, talented and innovative people, who I consider artists—many of them being at the Kapisanan Centre. And I wouldn’t consider myself even close to being in that same category.

But I guess that’s what this program’s for—for really instilling the confidence to call ourselves artists and not being afraid to dabble with multi-disciplinary forms. CLUTCH challenges all of us in the program to think out of the box and explore our creativity and listen and learn from other artists and their work. Being surrounded by these mentors, people who live for art and don’t care about the title, are the true artists. I’m hoping in the next few months, I am able to feed off of their energy and really be much more patient with myself and each project thrown at us. And to stop being such a freaking diva.

Bagets, Badings & Bomba… Oh My!

“Mom? Does Burlesk Queen have the same super powers as Darna?” – me at 8 years old.

My parents used to own a convenience store. Convenience meaning: bottles of Johnson & Johnson baby cologne, banana ketchup, eggs marked TREAT, door-to-door balikbayan box services & yes, Filipino movie rentals on VHS… & betamax.

Back in grade school, I’d spend my entire summer holidays sneaking peeks at our BOMBA movie collection… while learning how to work a cash register, of course. It was then that I discovered my love for, ahem… Philippine Cinema.

I know there’s much more to Philippine Cinema than just BOMBA, but I also wonder what would Philippine Cinema be without it? With that said, I’m certainly looking forward to tomorrows Critical History Workshop! Len Cervantes will be escorting us into the world of Philippine POP CULTURE through the eyes of Filipino Cinema. You don’t want to miss this fun ride down nostalgia lane!

Here’s a listing of the clips Len will be highlighting tomorrow night along with our very special GUESTS: Aga Muhlach, Sharon Cuneta, Nora Aunor, Tirso Cruz, William Martinez, John Lloyd Cruz, Assunta De Rossi, Eddie Garcia, Joey De Leon, Albert Martinez, Alma Moreno, Sandy Andolong, VST & Company, Manuel Conde, Tita Duran, Vilma Santos, Philip Salvador, Hilda Koronel, Rio Locsin, Rene Requiestas, the Bagets, the Jologs, Fernando Poe Jr,, Joseph Estrada and… John Wayne.

BAGETS (1984) BACK TO BATAAN (1945) SA ISANG SULYAP MO, TITA (1953) SATUR (1951) DARNA (2009) JOLOGS (2002) DARNA AND THE PLANET WOMEN (1973) ZAMBOANGA (1936) GUY AND PIP (1971) GERON BUSABOS: ANG BATANG QUIAPO (1964) BURLESK QUEEN (1977) BOMBA STAR (1980)

TEMPTATION ISLAND (1980) SHAME (1983) TUBOG SA GINTO (1971) KARNAL (1983) VIRGIN FOREST (1985) SCORPIO NIGHTS 2 (1999) HIMALA (1982) SWING IT BABY (1978) BUKAS LULUHOD ANG MGA TALA (1984) ALYAS BATMAN EN ROBIN (1983) MANILA BY NIGHT (1983) BATCH 81 (1982) CRYING LADIES (2003) DUBAI (2005)

NAKS!

We’ll watch a scene from ‘Batang Quiapo’ – and see why it’s not hard to believe that Erap got enough votes to be President. Was the Bomba film the precursor to a sexual revolution or the other way around – did it cause one? Let’s talk about why there’s always a bakla in every movie – and why it’s cool to be gay in the Philippines.

We’ll discuss these topics & much more TOMORROW Thursday Nov 19 @ 7pm. PWYC. 167 Augusta. (See event for more details. Every Thursday!)

See you there!

Kamalayan: Youth Party Congressman Raymond Palatino Speaks…

On Saturday, November 7, Congressman Mong Palatino will speak about:
- the role of Filipino youth in the Philippine struggle for liberation and democracy – from the Katipunan to the present.
- the Filipino youth and student movement today.
- what it means for Filipino to have a representative in Congress. 

Your Donation Update!

Jodee hands over the cheque to Wes Normington of Global Medic

DONATIONS BREAK DOWN as of October 21, 2009

Donations
Cash Donations $990.52
Cheque Donations $670
Bar Totals from Fundraising Event (PSL, Oct 3, 2009) $162.08
PayPal Donations $785
_____________________
TOTAL Donations Income $4441.39

Expenses Paid Out of Donations
Shipping of 21 Boxes thru FOREX $630.00
Boxes Purchase $105.00
Packing Tape $40.62
Uhaul Truck Rental for Box Transport to FOREX $109.60
Gas $17.00
PayPal Fees $26.67
Box Taxes charged by Philippine Government $420.00
____________________
TOTAL Expenses 1348.89

30% of the gross total donations were used for overhead expenses.

NET Total $3,093.00 (rounded up from $3,092.50) received by Global Medic October 22, 2009

“Global Medic sincerely thanks Kapisanan Centre for their collected donations, this will allow us to provide clean drinking water to the people of the Philippines,” says Wes Normington of GlobalMedic Manager, Emergency Programs.

GlobalMedic has set up a large scale water purification plant in the Municipality of Cainta in Rizal Province and are working alongside a Regoron Emergency Response Team providing clean drinking water to 14 evacuation centres. GlobalMedic has the capacity to provide 77,000 people with clean drinking water everyday and has shipped 1.4 million water purification tablets, 92,500 sachets of PUR water purifier, and 55,400 sachets of oral rehydration salts to the region. The team is expanding its efforts by installing portable water purification units in shelters that are isolated.

21 Boxes are currently in transit. They were shipped October 8, 2009. We will keep you posted the status of the boxes on the blog, so keep checking back!

Flerida’s Brainthoughts Throughout Critique Day

by Flerida Peña (Clutch Participant)

Hello all.  As you can probably already tell from the byline my name is Flerida Peña and I am in the second iteration of Clutch. As Leah Gold (our encaustic painting teacher) puts it, we “get together to explore [our] identities as young Filipina women living in Toronto in various arty ways”.

For the past little while we’ve been focusing on film and video. We wrote, shot, and edited a short film that was screened for a jury this past Saturday, October 17, 2009.

The following is lifted from our blog (http://clutchwomen.blogspot.com).
_____________________________________

I cringed y’all. I cringed harder than an audience member at a Sarah Silverman show. I saw the small camera movements that I thought I had cut out, I heard the choppy background audio that I did not notice during editing, I couldn’t figure out why the opening bothered me a heck of a lot, basically a lot of things happened.

Let’s start at the beginning:

10 am
Flerida is at home. She is attempting to export the film into a Quicktime movie that doesn’t stretch the aspect ratio 100x and therefore make the whole thing look terrible.

10:30 am
“Holy mother, I’m supposed to meet the Clutch Peeps at 12 before the critique!”
Please note, it takes about an hour and a half for Flerida to get to the Kapisanan. She starts another Quicktime export and takes a shower hoping it’s done by the time she’s out.

10:50 am
Shower over.

11:00 am
Quicktime export over. It looks better, yay! But there must be an even better version. She decides to just leave and figure out the exporting business at the K.

12:30 pm
Another export attempt. It is however thwarted by the lack of memory in her computer. Deletion occurs.

1:30 pm
Ahhh deletion still occurring! Must make do with the proper-aspect-ratio version that looks the best. Kevin Centeno sets up the computer-television connection because he’s awesome like that.

1:35 pm
Watching the film and CRINGING CRINGING CRINGING. Like that picture up there.

1:50 pm
Critique begins. Romeo Candido (Senior Producer at Much More Music), Vincent Galvez (Freelance Filmographer), and Michelle Turingan (Freelance Filmographer) sit on one side of the boardroom table and us Clutch Ladies on the other. Many good points and suggestions that we shall indeed follow up on. The main one being that we’re doing the voiceover again. Also it will be much slower.

I admit, I was worried about the short film dragging on and that people would be bored while watching, but what they said makes a lot of sense. Since we have a voiceover, we have to allow the words to sink in for the audience and so we can’t make it so fast. Otherwise all these words that are integral to the story will get lost in the visuals and then it won’t make any sense!

2:15 pm
Deletion finally finishes. Sigh.

2:30 pm
End of critique.
And that’s what happened on Saturday with regards to our short film.
_____________________________________

I’d also like to mention that I am so happy and grateful that I am a part of this program. I mentioned this in our blog but I’ll say it here as well. I came to Canada with my family in 1993 and since then I have let my Filipina identity fade away. So far away that I cannot speak a word of tagalog. Well okay maybe the swear words and slang, but that’s it!

Anyway, I hope everyone visits our blog (http://clutchwomen.blogspot.com)! We’d love to have you.

Academianuts

By Paul Maurillo

I am 18 years old and I am currently working at Kapisanan as a Co-op student from Neil McNeil Catholic Secondary School.

Yesterday I went to the “Spectres of In/Visibility: Filipino/a Lives in Canada” at the U of T. It was a big day for the Filipino/a academics in Canada, because it was the first Filipino academic symposium at the university. I arrived later in the day during the lunch break and waited for the next group of speeches to begin. Much like any other large gathering of people I felt out of place, like I was not supposed to be there. Maybe it’s because I’m just anti-social..but I digress.

The speeches after lunch were very monotone and unappealing to me considering I’m not an academic. I thought that they were very informative, but the language was a bit too much for me.The speeches seemed to never end and my eyes barely stayed open, but thanks to my “pinching of the wrist” I managed to stay awake.

What woke me up was the Tita VS Tita, or the “fighting Titas”, Round 1. They were arguing over whether the LCP ( Live-in Caregiver Program ) should be scrapped or not. It was like Pacquiao VS Hatton except Hatton didnt get massacred. The two Titas both made very good points back and forth, but before the final bell rang one of the spectators put an end to the match. The fight had gone on for too long and got a bit personal. It was Filipino drama at its best.

The last speakers before dinner were more interesting to me because they were youth perspectives and took on different angles at speaking. One That stood out to me was Conely de Leon’s “Mas Maputi Ako Sa ‘yo (I’m lighter than you)”. She opened up her presentation with a spokenword/painting performance, which was captivating (though I had paid more attention to the painting). Her speech after the performance also got me thinking. She talked about how Filipinos/as from Mississauga were “soft” and ones from Scarborough or Scompton/Scarlem were “hard”, which I thought was true (being from Scarborough myself).

She also talked about Filipinos/as lightening their skin thinking “white is right”, and the troubles of young Filipinos/as feeling bad for being darker. I thought her speech really spoke to me because it got me thinking about how the darkeness of skin does not determine your intelligence or your opportunities to learn.

The conference had started out a little unappealing to me but towards the end I got more into it. I learned a lot about the troubles that Filipinos/as face when going to other countries and the identity crisis that many filipinos/as have. I don’t regret going at all and I left having a better understanding of the troubles we face as a people.

Film Screening | Ang Pamana: The Inheritance

by Paul Maurillo

Do you like scary movies? How 'bout scary Lolas?

Join us for a screening (or should I say, SCREAMing?) of ANG PAMANA: The Inheritance. Director Romeo Candido will be there!

Swing by Kapisanan Saturday, November 7, 2009. Show starts at 8pm & tickets are only $10. See our facebook event for more details. (click!)

A Halo-Halo of Ryerson’s Student Body

by Paul Maurillo

Celebrating the diversity of Ryerson’s campus, our friends at FCAR (Filipino-Canadian Association of Ryerson) are having their 6th Annual Multi-Cultural show this Friday, October 23!

Marc Alonzo performs during FCAR's Multi-Cultural Night 2008

This year, the students of FCAR have been tuning up their vocal chords & busting out dance moves for their musical number. The show starts at 7pm & admission is free with one canned good (or a donation of only $2).

Check their Facebook event for more details. (click!)

When Rizal’s Love Was Forced to Marry Another….

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Critical Filipino History at Kapisanan.  Every Thursday, 7pm.

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With that in mind I’d like to share a new story I just learned from a book by Ambeth Ocampo about the wedding day of Jose Rizal’s long love Leonor Rivera.

They hid their love for eleven years, and kept correspondence during Rizal’s many trips.

Her mother eventually caught on and, disapproving, hid Rizal’s letters from her. Believing that he no longer loved her she was eventually convinced (in Ocampo’s opinion “forced”) to marry Henry Kipping, one of the engineers of the Manila-Dagupan Railway (Ferrocarril de Manila).

On her wedding day to Kipping Leonor did something so sad and beautiful I’m surprised there isn’t more art inspired by it….

“According to tradition, Leonor was forced to marry a man she did not love, an English engineer working on the Manila-Dagupan railway. As a final act of homage to her lover and defiance toward her overbearing mother, Leonor gathered all of Rizal’s letters, burned them, collected the ashes and carefully sewed these into the hem of her gown. As she walked down the church aisle she felt the remains of a lost love crumbling at her dainty little feet…”
[Ambeth Ocampo, The Rizal Lectures]

Critical Filipino History
EVERY Thursday, 7pm
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=135970494881&index=1

 

Promo Vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPHNyRps07U