How arts pull us

This time of the year, I wish I were home. It’s National Arts Month and the emails I’m receiving and the articles I’m reading about the ongoing celebration make me long for our country.

I feel fortunate to be currently based in the most vibrant cultural capital of the world where venues for appreciating the arts thrive. The plentiful medley of art forms – from performing to visual – ancient, sacred, contemporary – all that our senses could ingest are always gratifying, at times outrageous but never uninteresting.

On one hand, I wish to celebrate the festivities of home and imagine how it is like to bask in the high points of the month-long event. The truth is I am jealous of the exciting activities I am missing. When I received info about Art Fair Philippines, I imagined the Ayala Triangle Gardens and nearby venues glowing with exhibits, talks, films, tours with the audience luxuriating in works not only of our own artists but like-minded painters, photographers, sculptors from Asia, Europe or elsewhere in the world. I read about young and debuting artists and contemplate on how their works and inspiring presence influence or motivate aspiring artisans or simply delight, surprise, intrigue, provoke or perhaps comfort the audience. That’s how arts pull us.

And because I wrap myself with that spirit these days, I was pleased to have read about one of our exemplars in the field of performing arts, Lea Salonga, featured in The New York Times a few days ago. By essaying her iconic roles of Kim, Eponine and Fantine on Broadway, Ms. Salonga inspired a dozen or more Filipino and Asian actors to audition and eventually seize the privilege to perform on the world stage. I was fortunate to have watched her as Kim on Broadway’s “Miss Saigon” more than two decades ago and I still relish that moment at curtain call when I stood and felt several feet taller than the rest of the audience (although I’m barely five feet), while applauding for a Filipino artist par excellence.

The NY Times story lauds Ms. Salonga for how, beyond her status as a stellar performer, she has championed diversity. I look up at her as a performer who used her powerful voice to make known to and eventually elevate the status of Asian performers on Broadway, thus transforming it into a multi-racial sphere.

As I focus my thoughts on a joyful wondering and wandering of how the atmosphere could be like back home, I asked a young lad who, along with his sister, have been, from a very young age, introduced by their mother to the world of arts and culture. Growing up, Mico Ricafort Zabala, who is like family to us, recalls enjoying the plays and musicals by Tanghalang Pilipino at the CCP. He single-mindedly speaks of CCP, “which over the years has become a second home for my family.”

The CCP is so much a part of his life that he remains a regular volunteer and participant in the annual Pasinaya. Mico passionately tells of being “involved with Pasinaya since 2014, excluding 2020, 2021 and 2022, the years of the pandemic when the event was canceled.” His experience encompasses everything – “from being an audience member, acting and helping with the production side of the festival.” He is grateful for how it has “enriched my life, since the festival has exposed me to different arts from our country and all over the world.” As an audience he marvels at how “some acts have surprised me because of how every group, city, town and region has their own unique arts.”

Armed with optimism, Mico, whose family hails from Batangas, one of the participating provinces in this year’s Pasinaya, hopes that his fellow youth would check out groups and institutions that promote arts. He mentions the Lipa Actors Company, DrawINK, Timoteo Paez Elementary School Rondalla, Philippine Educational Theater Association and the like. From the lens of a young devotee, “art is about the people’s story; art can expose the truth about our society.” He cites the example of “Eto na Musical nAPO,” a retelling of how Apo Hiking Society came to be, “but in the background we saw how it was like” during the tumultuous 70’s.

What are his thoughts about arts as only for the elite? The enthusiast deconstructs this view and counters: “Arts belong to everyone since it depicts the people’s suffering, joys, sadness, happiness, anger and laughter.” He opines though that some art forms are “expensive to consume,” that’s why the CCP addresses this by conducting an annual arts festival such as the Pasinaya, a “watch all you can, pay what you can arts fest.” Enveloped with fervor, he encourages his fellow youth “to check out any form of art – books, movies, plays, museums, music or shows. Start there, appreciate the craft and go on to the next one.”

One of these days I am set to watch “The Pocket Park Kids,” a show intended for children between five and 10 and is also open to adults and families. The NYC Children’s Theater production, scheduled to debut in a few days, will tell of how kids can help save a park, their playground, which a developer plans to transform into a parking lot. Aside from the novelty of the production – “an interactive play with music and puppetry” – the very essence of the show lies on its theme, which is inspired by the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainability.

Saving our one and only home, our mother earth, is at the heart of every meaningful conversation and movement these days. This arts month and beyond, I wish for our artists, audiences and aficionados to powerfully and unceasingly use the arts, their “areas of influence,” as a powerful and effective channel toward this goal.