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FREE EVENT
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REGISTER NOW • FREE EVENT •
KULARTS is excited to announce our youth and families event which will be held at Yerba Buena Children’s Garden on Sunday, July 24th. Parallel to the themes presented in Benedicto’s novel Musalaya’s Gift, this event through its performers and workshops offer support amongst colonial and systemic oppression through a strengthened understanding, practice, and sharing of one’s ancestral culture and traditions. Feel free to bring snacks and drinks to enjoy. This event is for all ages and not to be missed!
PROGRAM SCHEDULE
11:00 AM
Opening kulintang performance by Kulintang Dialect
11:10 AM
Power of Kulintang
Musalaya’s Gift passage reading by Conrad J. Benedicto
Kulintang performance by Conrad
11:30 AM
Practice of Warriorship
Musalaya’s Gift passage reading by Conrad J. Benedicto
Eskrima demonstration by Master Joseph Bautista, Legacy Filipino Martial Arts
Sagayan dance performance by Jonathan M. Mercado
12:00 PM - 12:45 PM
Musalaya’s Gift Panel Discussion
Featuring panelists Conrad J. Benedicto, Elena Mangahas, and Eunice Nuval followed by Q&A
12:45 PM
The People’s School
Musalaya’s Gift passage reading by Conrad J. Benedicto
Performance by Sama Sama Collective
Kadtubaw dance demonstration by American Center of Philippine Arts (ACPA)
1:10 PM
Puppet show by Tito Ramon featuring music by DJ Bitesize
1:30 PM
Musalaya’s Gift book signing
ART WORKSHOPS
11:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Participatory Arts Activity
Tubaw making with American Center of Philippine Arts (ACPA)
Block printing with visual artist O.M. France Viana
This event is free and open to the public (registration is recommended). Books will be available for purchase at the event. Prepare ahead of time and secure your copy for the signing through BookBaby or visit Eastwind Books.
Conrad J. Benedicto
Author, Panelist, and Musician
A teacher, author, and kulintang musician who studied with Master Danongan Kalanduyan from 1997 to 2016. Benedicto was Master Kalanduyan’s apprentice within the Alliance for California Traditional Arts’ Apprenticeship Program in 2007 and again in 2013. He teaches social studies, environmental education, and kulintang music at Balboa High School in San Francisco. In 2018, Conrad received an individual artist grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission to compose original kulintang music for his project called, “Kulintang Dialect.” Musalaya’s Gift is his first fantasy novel.
Elena Mangahas
Panelist
Retired recently from San Joaquin County as a 33-year employee which Mangahas spent greatly in coordinating youth programs that give hundreds of at-risk and disadvantaged teens their first summer jobs or giving mildly handicapped youth their first paid work experience. She now continues her work with young people as a docent at the Filipino American National Historical Society Museum, contributing programming ideas for children and youth. Elena served as Chairperson for the San Francisco-based Filipina Women’s Network and the youth-led Little Manila Foundation (now Little Manila Rising) based in Stockton.
Jonathan M. Mercado
Sagayan Dance Performer
An interdisciplinary Filipino-American artist born within the Bay Area. As a part of the Filipino diaspora within the U.S. he has often looked to discover more about his Filipino heritage and culture through movement. His movement is inspired through his experiences of hip-hop/urban choreography and Filipino folk dancing. He currently dances with KULARTS under director Alleluia Panis and Parangal Dance Company under director Eric Solano. His passion will continue to guide his efforts of discovering his own dance vocabulary that reflects his personal experiences.
Ramon Abad
Puppeteer Artist
Ramon Abad is a Filipino American puppeteer, artist, and teacher. Since the mid 1990s to present day he has performed solo puppet shows at Bay Area Filipino American festivals. His current puppet booth project “Tito Ramon’s Pop-Up Puppet Show” was the first puppet show performed at Kapwa Gardens in 2021.Ramon was a company member of the Fil Am sketch comedy troupe “tongue in A mood” and performed puppets on countless skits at Bindlestiff Studio. He was a shadow puppeteer with Larry Reed’s ShadowLight Productions and was in a show that toured in the Jim Henson International Puppetry Festival.
Sama Sama Cooperative
A Cultural Resource Collective
Sama Sama is a collective of Pilipino and Pilipino-American parents, community organizers, artists, and educators living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our co-op brings together the cultural resources of the Pilipino and Pilipino-American community of the Bay Area to create a fun, engaging, and creative space for our children to cultivate and understand their unique identity as Pilipino-Americans. We value the rich cultural arts of the Philippines through music, movement, visual arts, and storytelling we reconnect to our roots within the current and historical context of the Philippines and the United States.
O.M. France Viana
Multimedia Artist
Working in photography, painting, collage, video, performance and installation, her artworks interrogate the semiotics of color, spirituality and consciousness, and Filipino American and Venezuelan identity. She holds a MFA in Studio Art and a BA in Art History from Mills College, Oakland. Born in Manila, Philippines, she studied art in Switzerland and Spain before moving to California. She founded the Diviana Gallery, the first gallery entirely dedicated to fine art photography in Manila. She has exhibited and performed at the Asia Society of Houston, San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, ProArts Gallery, Minnesota St. Projects, Gallery 6/67, Mills Museum, SOMArts, Roots Division, Kearny St. Workshop, Embark Gallery, SFAI Diego Rivera Gallery and guest curated exhibitions at the Dominican University Gallery.
Joseph Bautista
Martial Arts Master
Master Joseph Bautista is all about safety, specializing in Filipino martial arts. He began his training in martial arts at the age of 4. Since 2003 he has been mainly focused in on Filipino Martial Arts. Joseph runs Legacy Filipino Martial Arts, a Filipino martial arts school based in Daly City, California.
He also teaches self-defense with Self Defense For the People, a self-defense program with clients such as Salesforce, Airbnb, Gap, UPS, and UCSF. When not teaching self-defense, he is teaching CPR and 1st Aid Skills to 911 Dispatchers and Local Police Officers in the SF Bay Area with 1st Five Minutes.
Irene Faye Duller
Panelist Moderator
A professor, activist, writer, and mompreneur elevating the voices of her community through storytelling. She is the co-founder of the Pinay-owned creative agency An Otherwise Co. and intersectional professor of Culture, Ethnic Studies, Social Justice and Performing Arts at USF and SFSU.
Eunice Nuval
Panelist
Eunice Nuval graduated from SFSU in 1994 with a B.A. in Design and Industry, with an emphasis in Graphic Design, and a Minor in Asian American Studies. In 2001 she earned a bilingual (Filipino) teaching /certificated in English credential from University of San Francisco’s TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) program and in 2002 was a Fulbright-Hays Scholar in the Advanced Filipino Abroad Program.
Also a theater artist, she has worked as a member of Bindlestiff Studios on Bomba, by Tongue in a Mood (2000), and Gadgets, by Jeannie Barroga (2000), and has also been featured in short films written and directed by Celine Parreñas Shimizu, and feature film Super Flip (1997).
In 2012, founder and lead teacher of the Acting for Critical Thought Project at Downtown High School, also the SFUSD Visual and Performing Arts Department’s representative. A National Board Certified Teacher in Art, she has been teaching in SFUSD since 2000: Nuval was honored with a 2012 Dreamcatcher Award at San Francisco’s Young at Art Festival for her exemplary and inspiring work as a leader in arts education. Currently, she teaches 7th Grade ELA at Aptos MS in SF.
DJ Bitesize
Featured DJ- Tito Ramon’s Puppet Show
DJ Bitesize is a PROUD PINAY, muzik lover from the 415 & has been djing for 4 years now. She has won 2 local Bay Area DJ battles. Her muzik journey started off first with singing and posting covers on Soundcloud. Bitesize knows how to play the ukulele, a little bit of the guitar and piano. The music addiction from fixing playlists on her tumblr page led to her interests in making mixes and DJING. Bitesize has been fortunate enough to spin at places such as 111 Minna Gallery, The Grand, 1015 Folsom, The End Up, Bill Graham SF, 7th West Oakland, Parliament Oakland, Legionnaire Oakland, LVL 44 San Jose and the Red Bull Threestyle Finals Party in San Francisco just to name a few.
ACPA
Kadtubaw Demonstration
Since its founding in 2009, ACPA (formerly American Center of Phillippine Arts) has educated youth in Northern California about the Pilipino/a/x American experience through educational and innovative hands-on classes, collaborations, and events. Our youth program brought the Pilipino/a/x cultural experience to approximately 50 youth annually, ages 5-17, through Philippine-inspired performance to strengthen the Pilipino/a/x community and develop young people’s sense of ethnic pride. In 2013, our programming expanded to include college students through Philippine music workshops at local universities in preparation for their respective annual Pilipino/a/x Cultural Night stage productions.