TIMELESS AND TIMELYFormer Tawag ng Tanghalan winner Mar Dureza keeps on singing

By Yong B. Chavez

http://www.filipinonline.com/

As Nelson Doreza, he was "Tawag ng Tanghalan's" undefeated singing champ for 12 weeks. The American Idol-like talent show was the Philippines' most popular in the '60s. His reign as 1968's winningest singer followed then-nascent superstar Nora Aunor's successful run the previous year. They later worked together in the movie "Bahay Kubo Kahit Munti".

The singer now goes by Mar Dureza but neither name-change nor time has dimmed his talent. He has been living in America for more than two decades now. In his early days in America, Mar used his architecture background to work as a draftsman in Chicago for 10 years while singing regularly in local lounges and concert arenas.

He and his wife, Bella, who's his biggest fan and supporter, are currently enjoying their retirement years in Florida but making music is something he says he won't retire from.

"I had a stroke in June of 2005. Now, three years later, I feel alive and kicking once again, although I lost the ability to play guitar because of the effect of the stroke on my left side. However, my voice is as good as ever," he says.

On December 27, 2008, at the Hyatt Regency in Chicago, he will be the recipient of the Hall of Fame awards for achievement in music and art from the Chicago Philippine Reports Television.

His biggest project to-date is his recently released CD called "Maalala Mo Kaya" where he covers popular Filipino love songs called kundiman. Songs in the CD include absolute Filipino classics like Saan Ka Man Naroon, Kapantay Ay Langit, Matud Nila, among others.

In a time when current events might be spurring in you a yearning for the good old days, listening to Dureza's soothing voice singing melodious Filipino songs of yesteryears might do the trick. His CD is available for purchase through CDbaby.com.

Here's more on Mar:

TAWAG NG TANGHALAN:
"One Monday night in February of 1968 I defeated the reigning champion and went on for 12 consecutive weeks successfully defending my title. On the 13th week, Patsy & Pugo, who were the regular emcees of the show, advised me to retire to give others a chance on the championship. The truth of the matter was that the regional finals was approaching and they needed more champions to compete. In order to qualify one should have at least won two weeks. Edgar Mortiz had a lot of weeks to his credit earlier that year but was not competing in the finals because he was already fast becoming a star with the growing Vilma-Edgar tandem.

Although I wanted to win some more weeks, I reluctantly retired under the pressure and my 13th appearance in the show was just as a guest relinquishing my crown to whoever won 1st place that particular night."


NAME GAME:
"I hit the nightclubs circuit instead of going into television and performed professionally all over the Philippines and the Far East. Coming home in 1977 I realized I needed to change my name from Nelson Doreza to Mar Dureza which is actually the shortened version of my real name Mariano Nelson Doreza. Filipino sounding Mar Dureza came quite naturally and easily stuck to the minds of the audiences of "Astral Villa" and "The Manila Garden Hotel" where I performed regularly from 1978-1981 before I came to the USA on a petition visa from my father."


ON THE FICKLE HAND OF FAME:
"I was very unfortunate not to land on a recording job for myself in the Philippines...It seemed that the big stars always got the parts before I did. No wonder my greatest passion was to be able to record something. Here in the U.S., I had my chance when I met Warren Kime, a friend who took interest in the idea of doing an album of Filipino music.

First thing that came to my mind was an album of timeless music - the nostalgic [quality] of kundiman that never grows old and stands the test of time. Not having heard of the Filipino sound before, Warren Kime, who happened to be a band leader, great trumpet player and arranger was faced with a challenge of his musical career. But as I tried to explain it, I may have told him to imagine serenading a beautiful lady with guitars and mandolins and whatever he could think of. He well may have gotten the picture as the result of our little labor of love came out to be something simply perfect as I have expected it. We recorded and released the album in cassette and it was played and sold all over Chicagoland for sometime.

Disc Makers got ahold of the cassette that my wife, Bella, secretly sent to them. After listening to it, they decided to digitally enhance and release it on CD to be marketed in the Internet worldwide. I, myself, drew the cover design that impressed them as well."

PLAYING FAVORITES
"The song that I liked the best in the CD is Ay Kalisud, hands down. This song originated from my home province of Iloilo where I was born on April 17, 1945.

Among my favorite singers, which is a whole lot of them, are Sinatra and Tony Bennett. Ruben Tagalog in the olden days always fascinated me. I also enjoy Hajji Alejandro, Basil Valdez, Rico Puno, Jun Polistico, Anthony Castelo."

DRAWING POWER
Apart from singing, Dureza continues to tend to his other talent. His CD's self-drawn portrait is a testament to that. "I also accept commissions for my drawings of portraits in pencil. You can see sample of my works at www.portraitsoflovedones.com."

REVIEW: "Miracle In Rwanda"

Violence destroyed by Artistry Par Excellence
By Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D.

"We artists are indestructible; even in a prison or in a concentration camp, I would be almighty in my own world of art, even if I had to paint my pictures with my wet tongue on the dusty floor of my cell." -- Pablo Picasso

As Pablo Picasso has wisely shared, Leslie Lewis Sword has become an indestructible artist through her masterful work called Miracle in Rwanda, performing 10 different roles, and speaking three different languages: Rwandan, French and English, leaving indelible marks on her audience about the power of forgiveness and its strength to stop intergenerational transmission of violence.

For countries in the Middle East and their intergenerational cycles of war and peace, or even in my birthplace, Philippines, with its recurring conflicts between the Muslims and the Christians, or wars brewing now in different parts of the world, this play has a universal appeal. By next year, the play would have traveled to worldwide audiences: New York, Florida, Scotland, Costa Rica, Maryland, Stanford, Los Angeles and Rwanda. Throughout 2009, the play is fully booked. To have its Los Angeles debut during the World Music Sacred Festival, Sept. 13-28 is a stroke of genius by its executive producer, Ted Benito, but also adds to the sacredness of its message.

Miracle in Rwanda, a play about Immaculee Ilibagiza’s 91 days of ordeal, confined in a closet-sized bathroom with 7 other women is radical peacemaking. This play was created and was performed by Leslie Lewis Sword. Leslie received her MFA in acting from UCLA’s Department of Theater and Arts and has a BA from Harvard University, cum laude. As featured in Flipinas Magazine, she made her New York debut of Miracle in Rwanda in April 2007. Leslie then took the play to Edinburgh, Scotland, where it became a “ Top 10 Plays “ to watch from 1000 plays showcased.

Miracle in Rwanda is revolutionary as it stops violence from being passed onto the next generation, and instead, in its place, peace. It opens hearts, and it illustrates how hope is sustained amidst terror and adversity through absolute faith in God. And with the power of forgiveness, comes a release of a burdened past, of one’s wounded self being healed, and a wholeness emerging in the present. And with a transformed self, no longer carrying the burdens of a violent past, nor the present by its past’s unconscious power, one is able to fearlessly forge forward.

As Leslie performed for 70 minutes, the audience journeyed with her, into the inner chambers: of fears, of horrors, of pain, and into the outer chambers: of loud chants, stomping feet, dead bodies, of shriveled lives of terrorists, as if animals craving for drips of blood.

She performed as the terrorists and effectively demonstrated their depraved abilities and affinities towards violence: physical, psychological and imagined. She deftly performed their opposites as well: how Immacullee transforms her inner self to first consider, then to consciously create small spaces, then choosing pathways to forgiveness, developing in the process an interpersonal intimacy with Jesus and Mary.

At the end of the show, folks gave her minutes-long standing ovation, generously wrote checks for the orphans of Rwanda, and bought copies of “ Left to Tell “, a memoir written by Immacullee Illibigaza.

Such was forgiveness’ power to influence, such was its power to transform, such was its power to open American hearts to connect with Africans thousands of miles away. It is generous and compassionate America at its best.

Leslie Lewis Sword, an American performance artist of Filipina and African American descent, went beyond her own identity, went beyond her ethnic origins, went beyond her learned multiple languages, including a very privileged background of being born to self-made multimillionaires Reginald Lewis and Loida Nicolas Lewis, to embrace the horrors of this Rwandan genocide, which lasted three months, with 1,000,000 African people senselessly butchered in April 1994, while faced with worldwide indifference, until France intervened. Former President Bill Clinton, for all his greatness in being a good steward of the American economy, visited Rwanda to apologize for the absence of American-initiated interventions to stop this genocide.

But while the U.S. government failed to care, the power of Leslie, a single American citizen to show care, compassion and empathy for others, is growing in depth and impact. Leslie’s private immersion into Rwanda’s genocide led to her own friendship with Immacullee, her and her husband’s own adoption of two children from Rwanda, and her artistic talents fully occupying center stage in many theaters around the world, invoking her own empathy as well as evoking her audience’s generosity to these survivors and orphans of genocide, rippling their multiplier effects, and making this play a transformation vehicle to evolve our own humanity as our collective destinies. It is the power of our American example, rather than a naked example and display of our American power of guns and violence.

Miracle in Rwanda premiered on September at the New Los Angeles Theater (514 Spring St.), attended by nuns, priests, representatives of Archbishop Oscar Solis, television anchors, Los Angeles Times’ critic, and Asian community representatives who were moved to tears. It will run until Sept. 28, from Thursdays to Sundays.

If you want to heal, see this play. If you want to know how to forgive, see this play. If you are an artist and need inspiration, see this play. If you are a progressive, tired of the horrors of war, see this play. If you are a seeker and wish to know how to capture your destiny’s potential, see this play. If you want to know the depths of the rosaries, the sorrowful mysteries and the glorious mysteries and Jesus’ sacrifice of his own life that you and I may live in HIS LOVE, see this play. If you are an avid theater goer who is looking for avant garde works of art, see this play. If you are a lover of cultures and languages, see this play. And lastly, if you are about PEACE, see this play! And for about five lattes, you can help heal the world and end intergenerational violence!

[For showtime and ticket information, click here to go to "Miracle in Rwanda's" website.]

________________________________________________________

Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. retired from the California Department of Public Health, after a 27 years’ public service career as its regional administrator. She served as the city of Los Angeles’ commissioner to the Civil Service Commission and Convention Center, appointed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa from 2005-2008. She is a 34 years’ community advocate and volunteer in literacy, civil rights and leadership development. She is an author whose works have been published in the Los Angeles Times, Philippine News, Taliba, Balita, Los Angeles Asian Journal, UCLA’s Amerasia Journal and Quality Press-published newsletters for the American Society of Quality. She is part of the 2,000,000 volunteers, self-organizing for Obama 2008.

[picture: The Guardian]

"Filipinos In The East Bay"

Ang di lumilingon sa pinanggalingan, di makararating sa paroroonan.

This popular Filipino proverb teaches the need to look back to guide us in our journey towards our destination. And Filipinos in the East Bay, a new book written by four accomplished Filipinas, does a remarkable job of taking the reader to the journey taken by early East Bay Filipino Americans in the early 1900's (such as the pensionados), then back to the future where many kababayans have found their niche in the mainstream.

The writers, Evangeline Canonizado Buell, Evelyn Luluquisen, Eleanor Hipol Luis, and Lillian Galedo - accomplished Filipinas all - wrote Filipinos in the East Bay because "we knew that if we did not tell our stories in our own voices, the others would tell them for us."

The "vibrant past" of early Filipino immigrants is laid out in evocative pictures. What the images don't tell, the finely researched and succinctly written captions do. Go to page 33 and see a picture of a happy couple – a Filipino and a Caucasian – cutting their wedding cake, and imagine the difficulties that they must have endured back when Filipinos cannot legally marry a white woman.

Go back a few pages, and you will see the work I.D. of Marina Angel, who "worked as a welder in the Richmond Shipyard with other women during World War II."

No white collar jobs were available for Filipinos at that time. They "faced severe discrimination," the book says, and they were "viewed as 'filthy' and suited only for menial work."

The book, with over 200 vintage photographs, culled from what must be baul-baul of Filipino family memories and storage rooms, is divided into four chapters: Journey for Opportunity, Expanding Community, Changing Demographics, and The Journey Continues. From the pictures of early businesses owned by Filipinos to the modern images of notable kababayans, it is evident that their continuing journey remains to be a fruitful and eventful one.

Below is a Q&A with author Evelyn Luluquisen.

The book is published by Arcadia Publishing, the premier local history publisher in America.

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Filipinos in the East Bay, $19.99, Arcadia Publishing. Available at local retailers, online bookstores, or through Arcadia Publishing at www.arcadiapublishing.com or (888)313-2665.
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Q&A:

FilipinOnline: Why did you write the book?

Evelyn Luluquisen: When the Filipino American National Historical Society of the East Bay got together to do oral histories in the 1990's, we learned that our people wanted to see their stories in writing. We knew that if we do not tell our stories in our own voices, then others will tell them for us. We would risk losing the essence and truth about the Filipino-American experience. Our stories could fade from memory, and one day our children's children would ask: Who are our ancestors? What were they like? What did they do? And we would not be there to answer their questions and, possibly, there would be no where to look.

What's the biggest lesson that you learned from writing the book?

That it is possible to achieve a major recording of our history through primary sources. The photos and the contributor's in their 80's and 90'shave so much to share about their lives, our culture and history.

What was the most important information that you learned from all the research?

That much of our history is still unrecorded and the time is now to make sure it does not get lost.