Friday, 26 April 2013

One Sunny Day in Keukenhof, Holland

Tulips, Tulips and More Tulips

Theme Country 2013: United Kingdom - Land of Great Gardens




Wow, just Wow!


Young Pinays Sharing Their Smiles

Tulips Rosalie

Medinilla J'adore Dolce Vita



Crocus-Jeanne D'Arc




Bloemencorso


Hopefully it would be a fine weather – been wishing and telling it to myself when we agreed on the date, April 20, Saturday to meet up. I would be meeting a dear FB friend in person on her free day after attending a conference in Amsterdam.
And my wish was granted. What a fine, sunny Saturday morning to be in Lisse, NL, the tulips center in Holland where this world’s famous Keukenhof is located. Another girlfriend booked our tickets online which saved us most probably long hours of waiting at the main entrance as it was a Saturday, and on that especial day, the Bloemencorso or floral parade would take place. (Our experience of waiting for that floral parade is another story.) Combination ticket per person costs about 27.50 from Amsterdam with bus and entrance ticket to see 7 million tulips, daffodils and hyacinths as described in one info about the park.Theme Country for this year, 2013: United Kingdom - Land of Great Gardens.
About the Keukenhof and especial events during this awesome floral shows from 21 March to 20 May, 2013:  Source: www.keukenhof.nl
History of Keukenhof
Where Keukenhof is situated now, was a hunting area in the 15th century. Herbs for the kitchen of the castle of Jacoba van Beieren were also collected here; hence the name Keukenhof.
The current park was a section of the sizeable estate of Slot Teylingen, with beautiful untamed bushes and dunes. After the decease of Jacoba van Beieren Keukenhof fell into the hands of rich merchant families. Baron and baroness Van Pallandt invited landscape architects J.D. and L.P. Zocher, designers of the Amsterdam Vondelpark, to make a design for the garden around the castle. This design, in the English landscape style, has always been the basis of Keukenhof.
At the moment the estate belongs to a Foundation. On the initiative of the Lisse mayor of that time and a number of leading flower bulb growers and exporters, an open air flower exhibition was organised here for the first time in 1949. This expanded to an annually recurring event that has always drawn great numbers of visitors from all over the world. This is how Keukenhof became the park that we now know.
The park is 32 hectares wide and has 15 kilometres of foothpath. Keukenhof has surprises in store for visitors of all ages. Be sure to bring your camera along on this unique experience. The park is filled with blooming tulips, hyacinths, daffodils and other spring bulbs. At Keukenhof you can gain inspiration and relax in the beautiful surroundings!
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 Some tips: Try to visit on a weekday to avoid other million of tourists wanting to pose with millions of spring flowers. Get your tickets on line to be able to use the express lane at the main door. 
Get a good weather forecast before you plan your trip. Nothing is so frustrating than visit this beautiful park on a rainy day. 
Avoid the Bloemencorso day! It is better seen in photos posted by other people with better cameras and lucky to get higher grounds to view the floral parade. 

Thursday, 18 April 2013

Pinikpikan Kalayo in Paris

Photo Source: Hampash Loofah/Archive of Kalayo/Pinipikan
 








With Sammy Asuncion, the lead guitarist and one of the founders of the band

Audience dancing to the beat of gangsa/gongs and drums
I've heard of the band for the first time when I was translating some interview materials with Filipino Ethno Rock bands for a radio documentation for the WDR. I found the name of the band so unique and learned that it has something to do with chicken, a rare preparation of chicken for cooking.
When a German friend sent me an invitation to attend to the first day of the Philippine Exhibition at the Musee du Quai Branly in Paris, I found out that the exhibition would present Filipino musicians and experts on Philippine culture on the days following the opening of Philippine Pre-colonial art.
Kalayo/Pinikpikan graced the opening of the exhibition, The Philippines, a Archipelage of Exchange featuring the art of Pre-Colonial Philippines from the highlands of Northern Luzon to the island of Mindanao. The exhibition at Musee du Quai Branly runs from April 9 to July 14, 2013.
It was on a sunny Sunday when I met a dear FB friend personally at Montmartre and I told her that I would be interested in coming to the concert of Kalayo/Pinikpikan that evening at Galerie Talmart. I was positively surprised to see the Galerie being only a stone's throw away from the Centre Pompidou with its famous fountain from Niki de Saint Phalle. Two birds in one stone.

For more info on the group, please see the site: 
 "Pinikpikan - It all started during the first Baguio Arts Festival. Participating artists from Manila had joined up with members of the Baguio Arts Guild at a dinner at Cafe by the Ruins after the festival's opening. As they sat around the Cafe's Dap-ay (a circular rock and stone installation found in tribal villages in the northern Cordillera where elders hold their council and rituals) someone picked up a couple of pieces of pinewood meant for the fire raging at the center. Another picked up some bamboo segments. Rum and beer bottles were used. So were covers of pots and pans. Rocks were pounded. Sticks flailed. A rhythm was born. Very Igorot in its influence. Then the rock band The Blank joined with lead and bass guitars. A keyboard was set up. A couple of guys brought out their saxophone and flutes. Grace Nono wailed and the Bisaya and Ilonggo connected it with their melodies. The Wandering Chink called it Rock n' Runo (a reed found in the highlands similar to bamboo). Manong Bencab called them the Pinikpikan, after a Mountain Province chicken dish which is prepared with an Igorot beat.

The Pinikpikan Band was never ever "officially" formed, yet it exists. From a Baguio cafe's Dap-ay to a living room on Protacio in Pasay, from the beaches of Puerto Galera to the mountains of Sagada, the music has incessantly rocked and rolled. Different places, different groupings, but always the percussion and the jamming. The members have never been the same, yet the members always are.

Diokno Pasilan calls the concept a "collaborative idea for artists who consider it a lifestyle based on an intuitive notion of coming together and sharing the moment with the creative impulses of music and art according to the participants' own understanding."

Interactive, as one would say these days. An art Interface through musical rhythms.

One of the unusual characteristics of this "band" is that the participants aren't all career musicians. Most are visual artists, installationists, filmmakers. And one or two even consider themselves as Art Objects (in more ways than one: Object ng object sa Art 'yung iba).

As such, the music you hear is nowhere in the class of Boying Geronimo, let alone Nana Vasconcelos. Also, the "best" music the group has ever put together was created at parties or some such occasion. This is because of the spontaneous, trance-like celebratory aspect of the participants' lifestyles."

Attaching here a video from the first song the group performed at Galerie Talmart.
Thank you dear Pinikpikan/Kalayo for that powerful concert. 

Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Pre-colonial Philippine Art in Musee du Quai Branly, Paris




















The Philippines, Archipelago of Exchanges is considered to be a major exhibtion of Pre-colonial Philippine Art in Europe. The exhibition of artworks from the Highlands of Luzon to Mindanao runs at the Musee du quai Branly in Paris from 9th of April to 14th of July 2013.
For more detailed info and current program, check on the site of the museum du Quai Branly.