Oct. 31, 2022, was the day his music died. The musikero Danny Javier (formally Daniel Morales Javier) had mentioned dying before, on June 11, 2011, shortly after his 40-odd years of making music as part of the trio Apo Hiking Society ended in separation. He was 64 then and diagnosed with multiple illnesses: congestive heart...
Category: Music
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Sarah G on celebrity loneliness
In case it’s still unclear from the song “Dati-dati” alone how terribly Sarah Geronimo misses her estranged mom and dad, she has visualized it in the accompanying music video that she conceptualized herself. You can’t miss Sarah’s sadness, even melancholia, in the video’s first half alone. It’s there in how she moves rather listlessly as...
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A little night of music
Live concerts are back! They’re mostly inspiring but, sadly, a few disappoint. This concert mounted on Sept. 15 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo or Main Theater lobby by the Friends for Cultural Concerns of the Philippines (FCCP) under Martin Lopez had many things going for it. It had an intimate...
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‘Mula sa Buwan’ switches its focus from past to future
It’s easy to get “Cyrano de Bergerac” wrong. If you overstate its romance and its inherently ridiculous premise, this story of a cartoonishly long-nosed soldier helping a young cadet woo the woman they both love can come off as frivolous. To an extent, this is how I felt about the 2016 production of “Mula sa...
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‘Katips’: Martial Law 101 on dramatic steroids
“Katips” is not for those looking for a nuanced, layered, complex movie about martial law. It caters to a less sophisticated crowd—those who have not yet seen a martial law film, those who have zero to little knowledge and appreciation of martial law, and those who deny martial law atrocities altogether. That’s a wider net,...
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‘Mula sa Buwan’: In the spirit of defiance
When “Mula sa Buwan” returns on Aug. 26 at Samsung Performing Arts Theater in Circuit Makati, it will not be the same creature that played to packed houses every performance four years ago. In turning Edmond Rostand’s “Cyrano de Bergerac” and Francisco “Soc” Rodrigo’s Filipino translation of that play into a musical, director and co-creator...