Musicians' Perspective: Week 3, Day 4

We started out today with a meeting at the University of the Philippines Los Baños to discuss the day-long workshop and concert collectively titled, "Pasalubong," which comes from the root word "salubong" which means "to welcome" or "to meet." Unfortunately, the music director was unavailable for the meeting, but it was still great to see the campus and to start planning the workshop.

We taught a goal-setting masterclass, which we thought was important for the first day, since both we both agree that setting goals and knowing what you are aiming for is usually step one in becoming better at…well pretty much anything! We discussed having long-term as well as short-term, weekly, and daily goals, and to make sure they are WRITTEN DOWN. We were able to hear one of the students, Matthew, who was preparing to compete in the Thailand Mozart International Piano Competition the following week. At that point we split up, and both taught several half-hour lessons that the students signed up for. We both had really good first days of teaching. We both agreed that the most challenging part of these two weeks was trying to teach lessons to those who played different instruments than us, since most of the students at PHSA are voice, violin, piano, or guitar players. However, this was also the part of the trip that taught us the most about our OWN musicianship.

That evening, we were able to go back to Los Baños and meet with Angel, the music director at UPLB. We discussed what we wanted to collaborate on, and learned about the UPLB "Rondalla," an ensemble of Philippine folk instruments called bandurrias, along with violins, guitars, and double basses. In the end, we hoped to learn some traditional Filipino music, and also share with them some kind of American music. At the time we thought a jazz piece might be interesting, but what we ended up doing was a lot cooler.

After our meeting, Brian had to do a furious search for internet in order to make an online phone call to the US for a job interview! He finally found a place thanks to the help of our friend Reg. Once that was out of the way, we all went to Chow King, which is basically like a Burger King that serves Chinese food. They had REALLY good Halo Halo, which literally translates to "Mix Mix," understandably so, as Halo Halo is a mixture of shaved ice, evaporated milk, and some combination of fruits, jellies, beans, and is often served with ice cream. VERY delicious and VERY refreshing. Almost every Asian country has its own version of Halo Halo. In fact, we had recently had a Malasian version in New York, but we liked the Filipino version better. We had a really great time hanging out with Angel, Reg, and the other professors from UPLB.

Articles About Project Philippines 2012

This is just a quick post about some of the articles and online posts about our trip, from certain fund-raising events through the trip itself. Please follow the links below.

http://thefilam.net/archives/6625
This is a great article summarizing the project and what we intended to accomplish on our trip. It also included some great pictures, including one from our Kickstarter video! The team agrees that we accomplished everything we wanted to accomplish from this article.

http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/45625/reaching-out-from-the-us-with-dance
This article was published shortly after the previous one, outlining more of our goals and summarizing the trip in a little more detail. Also includes some wonderful headshots of our dancers!

http://leytesamardaily.net/2012/06/welcome-to-eastern-visayas-juilliard-school-artists/
This article talks more about our trip to Catarman and mentions Erick Brocoy, one of our new friends who helped show us around Leyte (mentioned at the end of this post). Erick also introduced Midori and Brian to "balut", which they actually enjoyed! More on that in a later post... One correction to this post: Juilliard is not actually known as the "Harvard school for the arts." Maybe they meant, the "Harvard" of arts schools?

Erick Brocoy

http://philippines.ucanews.com/2012/06/08/juilliard-dances-to-boost-cultural-ties/
This link is similar to the last, but it's included for completeness sake.

http://xavierlobos.blogspot.com/2012/07/julliard-school-of-new-york-reaches-out.html
This is a really great post by another friend of ours, Xavier Lobos, who paints a really great picture of what we set out to accomplish, and why we were doing this project. Thanks, Xavier! (Same correction about the Harvard school of the arts.)

http://wencano.com/music/uplb-artists-exchanged-ideas-with-project-philippines-2012-volunteers/
This is another great post from a blog by one of the students we worked with at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, focusing more on what Brian and Midori taught the musicians. It does a really great job of explaining what we taught, and the whole concept behind the (Pa)Salubong. More on the (Pa)Salubong in a later post!

http://www.lawrence.com/news/2011/dec/29/musical-heirs-son-ku-sax-professor-performing-reci/
This is a wonderful article written about Brian Gnojek's musical family, including mention of the benefit recital he did with Midori Samson. The Gnojek family is truly a part of the musical community in Kansas, and thanks to Brian and Midori, they've expanded their influence to the Philippines as well!

Individual Expression and Empowerment

by Kendra Samson

My broad goal was to empower individuals and to feel empowered by the end of this trip, and it was a goal we absolutely accomplished. In Samar, I had an opportunity to assist in creative movement classes and teach a Limon class. The creative movement class is inspired from, and would progress from humane values such as exploration, trust and respect. It would play between investigating movements as a group, then with partners and finally into the individual. It was incredible to observe their experiences as they deviated from their comfort zone of being part of a group or having a partner to discovering creativity for themselves. It was a proud moment for me. In the Limon class, I intended to teach the sectioned exercises as part of one long phrase which I would teach in detail. With the technique being quite far from their usual doses of popular forms like hip hop, it took them a while to understand the philosophy of harmonizing breath, of embracing weight and of utilizing less muscular effort in movement, however it was precious to see when they eventually did. I treasured our experiences in Samar – even the random ones of judging for the pageants and talent shows!

In the city of Manila, I taught improvisation and the Taylor technique collaboratively with Chelsea. Since our students at the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) had more training in art and dance, we challenged them more with exploring past the boundaries of technique and in discovering their core identities through the art of dance. They were still very self-conscious during our first classes and would hardly communicate any questions or thoughts. When they started seeing us more as their contemporaries, I found that they opened up more, however they were still generally reserved. Their dancing also became more uninhibited as our classes progressed, and as we also got to know them better, which made us so happy. Our teaching days would often begin with either a game, or a circle warm-up, followed by either a technique class or an improvisation class and the remaining time would be spent in rehearsing for our culminating performance ending with journal-writing.

While teaching at PHSA, we were invited to do a workshop for one day at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños. Our experience at UPLB was one among many experiences that stood out for me since we were able to speak and relate with influential teachers and artists. 

 

Our culminating performances in both Samar and at PHSA were some of my most memorable experiences from this trip. It surprised me how the act of performing really brings out the most in a person in the truest moments of their lives. What other kind of experience can replicate this? I was particularly proud of our last-minute planning to make an improvisatory dance score with our PHSA dance students in collaboration with the music students. As a PHSA student, I never performed to live music or was challenged to improvise to a piece that was made within a day! It was so thrilling to offer them such an experience.

As a former student of both PHSA and CCP years ago, I really wanted to share the broadness and joys of moving and exploring identities that I learned during my experiences in New York. I wanted them to fall in love with dance and I hope that I was able to influence and encourage them because they in turn have made me feel inspired to re-discover my love for dance during this process. Their pure motivations for learning and in pursuing what either interests them or what they love, without complications of income or status – things that I find usually hinder a contemporary artist – are truly inspiring. Teaching such limitless young minds and bodies also taught me the potential and unique individuality of the self in creating something of beauty and good. Outreach programs such as this are truly relative acts of giving and receiving. I love our team and what we were able to make in 4 weeks. There were definitely challenges, but how it all unfolded was something beautiful and profound…Let’s keep on doing this!