TULARAWAN EXHIBIT OPENING & CLUB WEEK 2007 CLOSING

The Club Week 2007 closed last August 11 with - ironically enough - the opening of the TULARAWAN exhibit, a seminal joint effort of the Writers Guild and OBRA-Camera Club. Several clubs were there as well with well-received performances from one of the newest of the lot - the Performing Arts. Perps Poblador of Toastmasters Club emceed.

The choir opened the program with three songs, including their now famous version of Petula Clark's 1964 hit Downtown, earning them the monicker 'The Downtown Singers'. The Choir Division of the Performing Arts is headed by the bubbly EJ Solera (Journals). Performing Arts is headed by Christine Umali (Journals). Division head for Theater is Angela Padilla (Corporate Communications).

The Writers Guild's special guest, TUGISTA, were also on hand to liven up the evening. Prior to their performance, a video clip from Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho featuring their win at the recent 2007 Cinemalaya Philippine Independent Film Festival was shown as their introduction.

The Guild expresses its deepest gratitude to Grace Reytiran (CIS) for providing us this clip. Thank you to JP Canivel for facilitating the visit of TUGISTA to SPi.

Shielbert Manuel, the group's de facto leader, takes to the mic.

TUGISTA wowed the crowd with their brand of "rapoetry". The group is currently training under National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario to further hone their craft in writing their songs. They have also released two albums, FYI.

Adding more life to the party are the indefatigable dancers of Performing Arts (Dance Division) headed by Liezel Migriño (Support). They performed 2 dance numbers.

Odie Gementera of Camera Club & Dylan Gozum of the Writers Guild raise the ceremonial ribbon. TULARAWAN is finally open! Thanks to Ms. Molly Crisostomo (Healthcare) for lending us the bow.

TULARAWAN was a concept of the Guild designed specifically with Camera Club in mind. Loosely patterned after ekphrasis, a style of poetry that is written based on photographs available (Greek word 'ek' means out, 'phrasis' means speak; ergo, putting pictures into words or poetic treatment of visual arts - Thanks to JP & Alev for this, Ed.), the exhibit eventually evolved into simply matching available poetry with available photos. Other poetry pieces, however, were written on the spot to accompany photos that just came in. The name of the exhibit is the result of putting together the words TULA (poetry) and LARAWAN (pictures or photos).

Participating members of the Camera Club are Odie Gementera, Maricris Bislumbre, Jimmy Reyes, and Bert Dosayla. Incredibly enough, all are from Journals. :-) Given the opportunity, the exhibit may travel to the 3/F of the SPi Main Building and to the Laguna office.

The exhibit is composed of photographs from the photo bank of the Writers Guild, participated in part by 4 members of the Camera Club. Poetry was provided for by 11 poets from the Writers Guild Collective and several non-Writers Guild SPi employees.

Billy Suarez of SPi Learning Academy, one of the poetry contributors; Perps Poblador, program host for the night; Jeanette Agati of the Performing Arts - Choir Division, and Dylan Gozum of the Writers Guild.

Perps, Dylan, Alev Maniago of CIS, one of the poetry contributors and a resident storyteller of the Guild, Jeanette, Dhang Rondael of HR Employee Relations, and Pia Manzano, VP of the Writers Guild with TUGISTA. If you recall, the group are part of the actors in the 2007 Cinemalaya Best Film Tribu. The rapper-poets also won the Best Actor plume. The film is competing in the 9th Cinemanila International Film Festival as of this writing. Watch the Youtube trailer here.

Here's a list of participating poets and their submitted pieces:

Vanessa Alpeche (Journals)
A Poem to Myself When I Turn 40
Teardrops
The Violence of Stars

Emil Bombita (Legal)
i-Café

WIZE (CIS)
Paalam
Ako Ito
My Angel

Billy Suarez (Support)
Untitled Work (Topic: Smoking & Coffee, 1 stanza)
Abyss of Nothingness
With Bated Breath (Unidentified author; courtesy of B. S.)

Alma Evita Maniago (CIS)
Sa Isang Araw sa Isang Linggo
Tsinelas
Buhay SPi
Various haikus

Jose Perseus Canivel (CIS)
20 Occurrences & other haikus
Naalala Mo, Marl haiku series

Pia Manzano (Support)
Calm Blue Sky (postcard)

Alex de Juan (formerly of Healthcare)
Pobreng Patay
Mutya

Daisyree Miranda (formerly of Journals)
Several haikus
Awit ng Paghihimbing
Holy Weak

Ivy San Diego (Journals)
Lost in a Mask

Vingel Yago (Healthcare)
G.Y. (Alay sa Healthcare)
Various untitled pieces



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Special thanks to the Camera Club (http://www.spicamera.multiply.com/), CBRE, Ms. Susan Sy of Journals, and HR Employee Relations for making this event happen!