A new haven for alternative arts and culture is emerging in the heart of Quezon City. Located just across Miriam College, Mag:Net Katipunan is a new hangout for progressive poets, artists and journalists sharing the goal of not only propagating their arts but also tackling the burning social issues in the most creative ways.
BY NOEL SALES BARCELONA
CULTURE
Bulatlat.com
Vol. VIII, No. 31, September 7-13, 2008
A new haven for alternative arts and culture is emerging in the heart of Quezon City.
Located just across Miriam College, Mag:Net Katipunan is a new hangout for progressive poets, artists and journalists sharing the goal of not only propagating their arts but also tackling the burning social issues in the most creative ways.
Members of the Artists’ Response to the Call for Social Change and Transformation (Artists’ Arrest) and the Kilometer 64 Poetry Collective (a convener-group of Artists’ Arrest) observed National Heroes’ Day at Mag:net Katipunan with a sting.
On that day, poets and musicians vehemently criticized the “Ramdam ang Kaunlaran” motto of the present regime and their music, verses and images served as a “calibrated response” to the misinformation campaign by Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her allies in Congress and other government institutions.
The cultural night was dubbed “Ramdam ang Kaunlaran: Pag-dissect sa Mole of Asia at mga Tarpaulin sa Quezon Avenue at MRT Edsa,” the said night is actually “star studded.”
Tao Aves, daughter of famed musicians Grace Nono and Bob Aves, serenaded the audience with love songs together with guitarist Popoy Diokno.
The pop-ethnic band Uwawi made the audience giggle with their light style of singing, while moving hearts and minds with inspiration to make a concrete and strong decision of changing society, which is evidently ill.
Jeff Pagaduan never fails to awe the people with his “singing guitar”, and he did it again at the last Artists’ ARREST and Kilometer 64 night at Mag:net Katipunan.
The poets Rowena Cahiles (National Secretariat member of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines or CEGP), Vijae Alquizola (CEGP national president), Dennis Espada, Alexander Martin Remollino, and Zig Dulay (an MA Philippine Studies student at the University of the Philippines) pierced the night with burning verses against social injustice, economic crisis caused by the government’s anti-people policies, and the hunger that the people are suffering.
A new find is El Raios, with their “head-banging” kind of music.
Saving the best for last, Prof. Jose Maria Sison, considered one of the most important Marxist thinkers since 1848, had the crowd excited when he read, via Internet video, a revised version of his 1994 poem “Sometimes the Heart Yearn for Mangoes”.
Artists’ ARREST and Kilometer 64 said the audience could expect more surprises in future “episodes” of their regular gig at Mag:net Katipunan, which falls on the fourth Monday of every month. (Bulatlat.com)
