Musicians' Perspective: Week 3, Day 7

Today was another busy day in Manila. We started the day at the Ayala Museum, where the dancers would later perform. The museum is gorgeous, and had a lot of great exhibits. The first one we saw was "Gold of Ancestors: Pre-Colonial Treasures in the Philippines" We had never seen so much gold in one place, from early pieces hammered out of gold, to some beautifully ornate crowns and necklaces. Next was an exhibit displaying 18th- and 19th-Century embroidered Philippine clothing. We finished our short time there by looking at the Diorama Experience, a floor containing over sixty dioramas depicting the history of the Philippines from 50,000 B.C. to the present. We were struck by what a violent history the Philippines has had, continuously being occupied by China, Spain, the British, the Japanese, and the United States. The dioramas were incredible, painted and carved with great detail.

After getting to see the exhibits, the dancers gave a performance in the lobby of the museum. Several families that were visiting the museum had wandered over to check it out. Chelsea and Kendra spoke about Project Philippines and each of us introduced ourselves as members of the team. Then, we showed an excerpt of the film about Project Philippines 2008. The members were very attentive as the dancers performed and had questions about the project at the end. We later found out that the man who helped record the music for the 2008 documentary was in the audience to show his continued support for the team!

We had just enough time to go across the street to The Landmark, another shopping mall that had very reasonably-priced clothes. We had left our dress clothes at PHSA and needed something to wear to the PPO concerts. We each got some shoes, and Brian got a "barong," a traditional dress shirt often worn by Filipino men. Perhaps he was inspired by their visit to the museum.

The ballet that Ballet Philippines did was "Crisostomo Ibarra," based on the novel Noli Me Tángere by Jose Rizal. It was a little hard to understand, since all of the text they projected was in Tagalog, but Midori and I really loved the dancing and the music was wonderful, haunting yet beautiful. The music was written by a living Filipino composer, and it happened to be a chamber piece for clarinet, bassoon, violin, cello and piano! After that, we caught Madame Butterfly, which was quite a production with very talented singers.

Outside of CCP at night.