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Season 71 Opening: A Post-Modernist Thesis
Sun, Jul 6, 2008 by Pandaemonaeon
The 15th Parallel is on location at Araneta Coliseum, getting ready to write another stupid article, this time covering the launch of UAAP's 71st season. There's been a lot of hype surrounding the host UP and what they have in mind for this year's festivities, as this type of event is right up their alley. As we all know, UP takes great pride in their artistic sensibilities. This is evident in their ability to create 40-second clips (DIGITAL clips, mind you) of the seemingly mundane, such as a mushroom floating in a pond or a man pushing a cart, all of which will go on to win an astounding number of awards from various European festivals. That, and there's also been rumblings that Washington Wizards superstar Gilbert Arenas will make an appearance to share his cunning wit and whimsey to the impressionable youth of today. Not too many people witness history in the making and we are very excited to share this with our readers, all 12 of you. I can't wait!
It turns out that Gilbert won't be here today as his flight is set to arrive at 4:30, but that's okay. 1 out of 2 ain't bad. Bloody hell, the lights are out. I must hurry to my seat.
The melancholy of distinctive traditional ethnic instrumentation envelops the arena as Mara Clara-attired dancers converge to form a circle, ostensibly performing Yoga. Behind them, the men are gyrating and goose stomping while holding metal pails. I don't know what this means exactly, but it is very artistic.
A female scarecrow made from tattered sacks of rice flails repeatedly while men dressed in checkered capri pants smother her with gigantic triangular fireworks, ready to set her ablaze. An anti-drug message! Truly amazing.
UP President Emerlinda Roman delivers a searing rhetoric (in glorious Taglish) about Manny Pacquiao and other noteworthy athletes, segueing into the Oath of Sportsmanship. More ethnic drumming as a video package of other UAAP sports are beamed into the arena floor.
A girl wearing a maroon hoodie, seemingly dazed and confused, wanders about aimlessly as men dressed in mental patient attire flutter around while holding oversized posters of stick figures over their heads. The audience within my vicinity are clearly displeased at the show's 17-minute (and counting) run time. “Booooriiiing...”, one of them muses, with “Ano to?” or its more colorful derivation “Ano na namang kaepalan ito?” being the predominant utterance among them.
Women perched in giant crepe paper skirts with their respective school colors filter in to the arena as a Boy Abunda-sounding narrator use fantasy metaphors. More dancing follows. This is very artistic.
Spandex-clad performers with paper boats attached to their hips scamper aimlessly throughout the arena. This is soon followed by people dressed in bright red bat costumes flapping their purported "wings". I can't put my finger into what this skit is trying to get across but I'm pretty sure it's artistic!
48 minutes into the program and we finally have our first glimpse of the players including the UE Red Warrior's resident MVP, Janina San Miguel. Sadly, this lasted only a mere two-minutes, taking a backseat to more dancing which thankfully, was also artistic.
In a well-coordinated plan to be "different", UP set a new world record by registering the shortest speech by a speaker, clocking in at just below two-minutes. A choir group caps it off with a song reminiscent of "Oh Christmas Tree". The end? Of course not! We are treated to the final dance performance of the day to finally seal the program.
Just mere seconds after the show concluded, I traversed the landscape, gauging the reaction to what we have just witnessed. “It was beautiful and well-made, and I thought I grew more as a person spiritually and emotionally” narrated Jessica Noriega, a 19-year-old Fine Arts junior from UP, in-between sobs. What can I say? It's moving!
I leaned over to her companion who was seated next to her, drabbed in a Radiohead t-shirt and accompanying Deviantart lanyard: “Truly a master piece!” he exclaims. “I like the 1/4, 3/4 and 4/2 alternating time signatures and the juxtaposition of the strobe light with their multi-colored costumes. It flowed together surprisingly well.” I nodded with a self-assured smile, pretending that I understood anything beyond "master piece" as I shook his hand and excused myself to rewind my recorder just to transcribe what I just heard.
On my way back, it appears that I was asking the opinions of UP students who may have a biased view of the proceedings (in addition to their incredible low latent inhibition) but I disgressed because it really was artistic! And a juxtaposition! Let's ask this green-shirted fellow over here what's his take on the whole event: “Putangina, mga bwiset!” Woah! Calm down there, mister. You just said a mouthful. This girl is all teary-eyed, maybe she has something to share. “Nakakaiyak...” It's been known to do that. But wait, earbud headphones? A Magnetic Fields album? You were referring to the album right? Not the show? “What show?” Well, shit.
Just when I was about to call it, a voice hollers behind me: “Nagustuhan ko ang opening!” I turned around and why it's Solar Sports commentator Chino Trinidad (who also claims to have been a commissioner for a basketball league but has yet to be confirmed). Really? What can you say? “Iba talaga kung meron kang the ingenuity and the creativity of a UP Diliman! Ito ang puso ng bawat sambayanang Pilipino!” Allrighty then, Chino. Anything else? “Gusto ko lang pala batiin si Roger Yi. Painom ka naman pare!”
It looks to me like very few people understood the message UP sought to relay nor appreciate the amount of hard work that encompassed this momentous occasion. But things could have been a lot worse had it not been so artistic.
Sun, Jul 6, 2008 by Pandaemonaeon
The 15th Parallel is on location at Araneta Coliseum, getting ready to write another stupid article, this time covering the launch of UAAP's 71st season. There's been a lot of hype surrounding the host UP and what they have in mind for this year's festivities, as this type of event is right up their alley. As we all know, UP takes great pride in their artistic sensibilities. This is evident in their ability to create 40-second clips (DIGITAL clips, mind you) of the seemingly mundane, such as a mushroom floating in a pond or a man pushing a cart, all of which will go on to win an astounding number of awards from various European festivals. That, and there's also been rumblings that Washington Wizards superstar Gilbert Arenas will make an appearance to share his cunning wit and whimsey to the impressionable youth of today. Not too many people witness history in the making and we are very excited to share this with our readers, all 12 of you. I can't wait!It turns out that Gilbert won't be here today as his flight is set to arrive at 4:30, but that's okay. 1 out of 2 ain't bad. Bloody hell, the lights are out. I must hurry to my seat.
The melancholy of distinctive traditional ethnic instrumentation envelops the arena as Mara Clara-attired dancers converge to form a circle, ostensibly performing Yoga. Behind them, the men are gyrating and goose stomping while holding metal pails. I don't know what this means exactly, but it is very artistic.
A female scarecrow made from tattered sacks of rice flails repeatedly while men dressed in checkered capri pants smother her with gigantic triangular fireworks, ready to set her ablaze. An anti-drug message! Truly amazing.
UP President Emerlinda Roman delivers a searing rhetoric (in glorious Taglish) about Manny Pacquiao and other noteworthy athletes, segueing into the Oath of Sportsmanship. More ethnic drumming as a video package of other UAAP sports are beamed into the arena floor.
A girl wearing a maroon hoodie, seemingly dazed and confused, wanders about aimlessly as men dressed in mental patient attire flutter around while holding oversized posters of stick figures over their heads. The audience within my vicinity are clearly displeased at the show's 17-minute (and counting) run time. “Booooriiiing...”, one of them muses, with “Ano to?” or its more colorful derivation “Ano na namang kaepalan ito?” being the predominant utterance among them.Women perched in giant crepe paper skirts with their respective school colors filter in to the arena as a Boy Abunda-sounding narrator use fantasy metaphors. More dancing follows. This is very artistic.
Spandex-clad performers with paper boats attached to their hips scamper aimlessly throughout the arena. This is soon followed by people dressed in bright red bat costumes flapping their purported "wings". I can't put my finger into what this skit is trying to get across but I'm pretty sure it's artistic!
48 minutes into the program and we finally have our first glimpse of the players including the UE Red Warrior's resident MVP, Janina San Miguel. Sadly, this lasted only a mere two-minutes, taking a backseat to more dancing which thankfully, was also artistic.
In a well-coordinated plan to be "different", UP set a new world record by registering the shortest speech by a speaker, clocking in at just below two-minutes. A choir group caps it off with a song reminiscent of "Oh Christmas Tree". The end? Of course not! We are treated to the final dance performance of the day to finally seal the program.Just mere seconds after the show concluded, I traversed the landscape, gauging the reaction to what we have just witnessed. “It was beautiful and well-made, and I thought I grew more as a person spiritually and emotionally” narrated Jessica Noriega, a 19-year-old Fine Arts junior from UP, in-between sobs. What can I say? It's moving!
I leaned over to her companion who was seated next to her, drabbed in a Radiohead t-shirt and accompanying Deviantart lanyard: “Truly a master piece!” he exclaims. “I like the 1/4, 3/4 and 4/2 alternating time signatures and the juxtaposition of the strobe light with their multi-colored costumes. It flowed together surprisingly well.” I nodded with a self-assured smile, pretending that I understood anything beyond "master piece" as I shook his hand and excused myself to rewind my recorder just to transcribe what I just heard.
On my way back, it appears that I was asking the opinions of UP students who may have a biased view of the proceedings (in addition to their incredible low latent inhibition) but I disgressed because it really was artistic! And a juxtaposition! Let's ask this green-shirted fellow over here what's his take on the whole event: “Putangina, mga bwiset!” Woah! Calm down there, mister. You just said a mouthful. This girl is all teary-eyed, maybe she has something to share. “Nakakaiyak...” It's been known to do that. But wait, earbud headphones? A Magnetic Fields album? You were referring to the album right? Not the show? “What show?” Well, shit.Just when I was about to call it, a voice hollers behind me: “Nagustuhan ko ang opening!” I turned around and why it's Solar Sports commentator Chino Trinidad (who also claims to have been a commissioner for a basketball league but has yet to be confirmed). Really? What can you say? “Iba talaga kung meron kang the ingenuity and the creativity of a UP Diliman! Ito ang puso ng bawat sambayanang Pilipino!” Allrighty then, Chino. Anything else? “Gusto ko lang pala batiin si Roger Yi. Painom ka naman pare!”
It looks to me like very few people understood the message UP sought to relay nor appreciate the amount of hard work that encompassed this momentous occasion. But things could have been a lot worse had it not been so artistic.
You do realize, oracle, that this site is full of satire, right?
"A female scarecrow made from tattered sacks of rice flails repeatedly while men dressed in checkered capri pants smother her with gigantic triangular fireworks, ready to set her ablaze. An anti-drug message! Truly amazing."
sad though that one cannot readily recognize a babaylan when he/she sees one while one can easily recognize an originally foreign figure of a man in white gown with a red cap and a huge rosary.... at least in australia aboriginies were persecuted, here it's as if the earliest of filipinos never existed.
sad though that one cannot readily recognize a babaylan when he/she sees one while one can easily recognize an originally foreign figure of a man in white gown with a red cap and a huge rosary.... at least in australia aboriginies were persecuted, here it's as if the earliest of filipinos never existed.
and what's up with chino "mabuhay ang sambayanang pilipino" trinidad's hair? ha ha, recah would disown him
HAHAHAHA PUTANGINA PANDA FOR THE WIN!!!
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