Alive and well

February 18, 2009 marks a very important event in the history of Philippine performing arts. On that day, the winners of the first Philstage Awards for the Performing Arts were announced. Named Gawad Buhay! (awkward, literal translation: Alive! Award), it is the first award which is strictly for the ephemeral performing arts. For now, only theater—plays and musicals—and ballet are included, and Philstage itself has less than a dozen member companies. But hopefully, more groups will join and experts in the other performing arts can be found willing to serve as jurors so that Philstage's Gawad Buhay! can truly fulfill its objective: "to further professionalize the performing arts industry in the Philippines by engaging our audiences—critics, artists and the viewing public—in a creative dialogue." I am honored to have been there that night, and happier still that I was able to take a photo of the winners (even though they were posing for the official photographer and not me).


For those who want to know who the awardees are, read my husband Exie's article,"The start of something big." He writes an occasional column for The Philippine Star, one of the top three national newspapers in the Philippines, and that article appeared in its February 23 edition. And so did my photos. Ain't it cool? :)