Celebrating Lumbera

A tribute for National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera was hosted by Freeway recently at The Row, Glorietta 1 in Makati City. The event also served as a celebration of Lumbera’s life and works. 

Lumbera was born on April 11, 1932 in Lipa, Batangas. He was barely a year old when his father, Timoteo Lumbera, passed away. A few years after, his mother Carmen succumbed to cancer, leaving him under his relatives’ watchful guidance. Trials and adversities did not crumble Tatay Bien’s spirit but he used them instead to touch the lives of different people through his compelling works and words. He finished his Bachelor of Literature in Journalism degree and M.A. degree at the University of Santo Tomas and later pursued his PhD in Comparative Literature at Indiana University.

He came back to the Philippines to teach Literature, Philippine Studies and Creative Writing at Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, University of the Philippines and University of Santo Tomas. He also had the chance to teach in Japan.

 He was able to create numerous celebrated literature for publications and theater, including Tales of the Manuvu, Rama Hari, Nasa Puso ang Amerika, Bayan: Apat Na Dulang May Musika, Revaluation, Pedagogy and many more earning him the title of Philippine National Artist for Literature in 2006.

At the recent Freeway event, music from Tatay Bien’s librettos were played during cocktails. Guests enjoyed cocktails and watched the unveiling of Freeway’s Fall Collection for 2014. The store showcased an array of tops and dresses with vibrant mosaic prints matching Lumbera’s literary aesthetic.

The event, hosted by Tessa Prieto-Valdes, started with a video montage of Lumbera’s life and works. Lirah Bermudez then rendered a couple of The Carpenters songs — a personal request of Lumbera’s family. To cap the musical event of the night, award-winning rapper Gloc-9 performed Tatay Bien’s favorite rap songs.

The audience was treated to candid stories from a guest panel that included director of Philippine High School for the Arts Vim Nadera, who gave his professional views on art and literature; Gloc-9, who shared his fondness for Tatay Bien; and of course, the man of the hour, Bienvenido Lumbera himself, who spoke about his life and works.

In line with the artistic and nationalistic theme of the event, the night was capped with the presentation of the winners of the Art Bag Design contest. Their winning designs, Batok by Elito Job Mirasol and Tanglaw by Felicidad Plata, are now available in Freeway Stores nationwide.

(Checkout freewayonline.com.ph or facebook.com/FreewayOnline.)

A festival of music

Music festivals are a celebration of fashion, culture and camaraderie.

It is a genius concept of CloseUp to bring together a million people who are in different social media platforms to conceptualize a plan in staging the first-ever and biggest crowd-sourced party in the Philippines — the CloseUp Forever Summer music festival.

Three months before the big day, CloseUp started to involve people in the planning of the event through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, asking them how they would like this music festival to happen. The conversations swelled into thousands of people collaborating daily on social media, talking about the theme, the venue, the kind of music they wanted at the event — even what they wanted to wear, to eat and which artists they wanted to perform.

Thousands got together on the day of the music festival, all geared up to experience the much-awaited event of the season. The party started with some of the country’s club favorites like DJs Ace Ramos, Mars Miranda, Martin Pulgar and Marc Naval. The crowd went wild as DJ Helena, the first foreign DJ to perform, manned the decks. Helena is one of the freshest DJs to hit the international stages, gaining popularity among the electronic dance music (EDM) community with her distinctive progressive, electro and house beats. Her most recently released single, Levity (featuring Shawnee Taylor) with Ultra Records, promises to hit charts hard and propel this Australian producer even higher.

At midnight, DJ headliner Alesso took center stage and his performance was definitely the highlight of the night. Fresh from his set at Ultra Music Festival in Miami, the Swedish DJ returned to Manila to drop his chart-topping dance beats. His most famous tracks include Years with Matthew Koma, City of Dreams with Dirty South and Ruben Haze and Scars of Life with Ryan Tedder.

The music festival concluded with the hypnotic beats from Turkish EDM star Deniz Koyu, who is best known worldwide for his hit songs Tung! and Ruby.

An interesting activity was also featured during the event where the festival revelers got together in unlocking “milestones.” The eager crowd was given missions to reach a certain number of tweets with the official hash tag #CloseUpForeverSummer to trigger events during the party. Universo Robot and the fireworks display were among the most surprising favorites.

CloseUp Forever Summer music festival was sponsored by Republiq, Greenwich, Havaianas, Team Manila, Folded & Hung, Globe Circuit Events Ground, Globe Tattoo, Sunnies by Charlie, Diageo, Air Asia, Makati Shangri-La and GrabTaxi. Its media partners are MYX, Manila Concert Scene, Philippine Concerts, Pep.ph and Yahoo!

(Follow me on Instagram @pepperteehankee.)