[TONIGHT] OUR PROGRESS: A {M}aganda Open Mic ft. Deep Foundation

TONIGHT!
TIME: 6:30PM – 9:00PM Featured performances will begin at 7pm
WHERE: 88 DWINELLE HALL, UC Berkeley Campus
W/ FREE MUSICAL PERFORMANCES AND FILIPINO FOOD!!!

In the spirit of this year’s magazine theme GENERATE, post-elections craziness, and Thanksgiving coming up, Maganda staff would like to ya’ll the opportunity to spit your best work about where you think we’re going as a community.  Please share your insight, critical thoughts, and good vibes with everyone because we’d all love to be inspired.  Hope to see you there!!!

And did I mention there is FREE FILIPINO FOOD?

{Cristal Fiel/ Editor in Chief}

Artists Spotlight: Deep Foundation

Wsup wsup, yall! So this week, I’m comin at you guys with an interview with ILL Poetik, also known as Mark Malacapay, of Deep foundation. He’s givin us a lil feedback on what happened last time they performed at our Open Mic and what’sto come this Thursday! So…ch-ch-checkkkk it out!

Me: So, give me a brief introduction/history of Deep Foundation. [Where did you guys start off? Why? How? What does your name mean?]

ILL Poetik:

Deep Foundation started in 2001. We were just a group of friends who shared the common love for hip hop & emceeing specifically. Proseed was one of the people who started the group. He gathered some of his friends in New Jersey who rapped and that’s where it started. Proseed & I (illpoetik) knew each other because our moms went to the same school in the Philippines. Eventually he asked me to join DF. They met Mugshot at the Filipino day parade that year & also asked him to join the group. Our first show as a full group was October or November of 2001 at Rutgers University.

The name Deep Foundation refers to the foundation of hip hop & our Filipino heritage and how both are deeply rooted in our lives.

Me: So your guys’ names are really creative…What do your names mean?!

ILL Poetik:

Proseed – proseed/proceed is to move forward. That’s what we are about. Constantly moving forward, progressing & not letting obstacles impede our movement. it’s also short for “proceed with caution” which is a warning to emcees who want to test him/us.

ILL Poetik – There’s no really cool meaning behind it.

Back to our Roots

I want to take a moment and go back to our roots, where it all started with Filipino artists.

The Filipino-American experience is one we have all come to be familiar with, but at the same time, we have steadily lost the sense of the Philippines and her cultural heroes.

The Oblation, sculpture by Guillermo Tolentino

Hernando R. Ocampo
Napoleón Abueva
Cesar Legaspi
Jose Garcia Villa
Guillermo Tolentino
F. Sionil José

These names have one thing in common, besides their relative obscurity to today’s Filipino-American youth: they have all been named National Artists of the Philippines, all amazing artists in their own right, in fields ranging from painting to literature.

Hernando Ocampo, a radical modern visual artist who revolutionized art with his new abstract methods depicting the Philippine landscape.

Napoleón Abueva, father of modern Philippine sculpture.

F. Sionil José, a novelist and short story writer whose works about class struggle in the Philippines have been translated into 22 languages.

And the others? Look them up, learn something about your past, share it with the world.

[ Reena Flores / Consultant ]

Call For Submissions: Walang Hiya

Interested in getting your work published in other spaces aside from Maganda? Below is the Call for Submissions for Walang Hiya, a literary anthology published by Arkipelago Books.

Call For Submissions

Walang Hiya … literature taking risks toward liberatory practice
Will be published by Arkipelago Press Spring 2009

• Walang Hiya … literature taking risks toward liberatory practice is a literary anthology committed to using the narrative as a departure point for personal and political transformation. We seek to challenge the boundaries and cultural norms, sharing our stories without shame.
• Walang Hiya believes in the idea of Cultural Work or the use of artistic expression as a form of education and community mobilization.
• We feature emerging Pilipina/o artists, works that capture the spirit of innovation and contradiction.
• We pay homage to the literary roots of our Diaspora and with this offering hope to embrace the future tense.
• Walang Hiya seeks submissions in the form of prose, poetry and short story.

Press Release: Filipina-American Artist Jenifer Wofford and a Panel of Inspiring Filipin@ Activists THIS THURSDAY

Have you seen the posters along Market Street in San Francisco about a woman named Flor? Want to learn more about this project and the artist behind the posters? Well, you should attend an co-sponsored by the San Francisco Arts Commission and Kearny Street Workshop this Thursday evening. The details are below.

The San Francisco Arts Commission is co-sponsoring with Kearny Street Workshop a panel discussion about the Filipino immigration experience in the 1970’s as part of the Art on Market Street Program. The panel will take place on Thursday, November 13th, from 7 to 8:30 PM at Kearny Street Workshop, located at 180 Capp Street at 17th Street, in Space 180.

The panel is presented as part of Flor de Manila y San Francisco, an Art on Market Street Program project that includes a poster exhibition by artist Jenifer Wofford. The panel will discuss the connections between the Philippines and the San Francisco Bay Area, particularly in relationship to the immigration of Filipina nurses. The event is free of charge and open to the public.

Demonstration of Democracy

It’s November 4, 2008. It’s Election Day.

If you are registered to vote, head to the polls and cast your opinion in this year’s monumental election.

Regardless if you vote for McCain, Obama, or even for the Green Party, you are voting for our country.

You are voting for our future.

{ Justin Gonzaga/webmaster }

He’s Got the Remedy, I’ve Got the (Visual) Imagery

We here at Maganda Magazine like to showcase Filipino/American artists, especially those of whom are in the Bay Area.

If you haven’t noticed by now, I am a local (for the time being), Filipino/American artist.

Today, I attended the Jason Mraz concert at the Greek Theater in UC Berkeley as a photographer for the Blue & Gold Yearbook. Albeit I was only allowed to shoot 3 songs, it was enough for me to get a few hundred pictures. But this particular picture struck me the most.

I felt that this photo captured the dynamic of the concert well. His face is highly animated, leading down to the prominent veins of his neck, supplying blood to the mouth that pleases a sold out Greek Theater. His hand is suspended in a gesture that motions for a reaction from the audience. The light perfectly hits the mic as he belts out another catchy line, with his presence alone serving as a beacon of light for his fans. Framed in the shapes of the theater, Jason Mraz entertains an exuberantly packed house.

I had a great time. I hope that some of you were able to attend his concert. If you didn’t, make sure to get a ticket the next time he’s around, you won’t be disappointed.

Check out my flickr for more of my pictures.

{ Justin Gonzaga/webmaster}