Ballet Phils.' The Exemplars: Amada and Other Dances

After the “Gala”, Ballet Philippines once again give the Exemplars. These are old choreographies that are revived for today’s generation of ballet dancers. These choreographies are done by ballet legends like Nonoy Froilan to name a few.

The choreographers themselves are very selective of the dancers who will dance their masterpiece. It is fortunate that after Mr. Froilan, they have someone who can fill in the shoes which is Ronelson Yadao. I got a sneak peek in one of their rehearsals and I got to witness how they evaluate their steps.

Exemplars will feature the following works like Alice Reyes’ Amada featuring Candice Adea,  Amada is based on Summer Solstice by Nick Joaquin; Valse Fantasy by George Ballantine, Gener Caringan’s Ang Sultan,  Norman Walker’s Songs of A Wayfarer, and Pauline Koner’s Concertino which is considered a major landmark in modern dance because of its rigid choreography.

The Exemplars: Amada and other Dances will run on limited time this October at CCP and BGC Performing Arts Center. For more updates on Ballet Philippines, follow this blog and like https://www.facebook.com/LENSblogs/ 

World Vision aims to sponsor 2,000 children in 1,000 hours

Press release

Quezon City – International humanitarian organization World Vision introduced its new child sponsorship campaign in a press launch last August 22, 2017. Entitled “2,000 Children in 1,000 Hours,” the new campaign stresses the urgency of World Vision’s cause by posing a challenge to everyone who supports child advocacy; that is, to help World Vision secure a better future for 2,000 children within 1,000 hours.

World Vision National Ambassadors Tippy Dos Santos 

and Jasmine Curtis Smith, Acquisitions Manager

 Cherry Anne Valencia, Ambassador for Child

 Sponsorship Joyce Pring and

 Resource Development Director Jun Godornes 

turn the symbolic hourglass to signal the start of 1,000 hours

World Vision currently supports 2,000 unsponsored children who are living in dire situations due to lack of access to clean water, full meals, and education. The new campaign aims to draw support from potential sponsors as soon as possible to help provide basic needs to these children and their families and to bring lasting change to their communities.

The organization also launched “Sama-Sama,” a music video, to help raise awareness about World Vision and its activities. Among the artists featured in the video are World Vision Ambassadors, Advocates and Sponsors Ogie Alcasid, Tippy Dos Santos, Bianca Umali, Christian Bautista, Jed Madela, Sam Concepcion, Richard Supat, Christian Perkins, Jesse Perkins and Gloc-9.

Tippy Dos Santos and fellow World Vision Ambassadors Jasmine Curtis-Smith and Joyce Pring were present during the launch to show their support for the new campaign.

World Vision National Ambassador Tippy Dos Santos has been supporting World Vision projects and doing volunteer work since 2010. “It’s been said time and again that children are our future, and it still rings true. Children can grow up to make a huge difference in the world if they are brought up in ideal circumstances. We encourage everyone to sponsor a child if they can. You can help us bring hope to a child’s future by donating just PHP 25 a day,” said Tippy.

“What World Vision is offering now is the chance to change children’s lives,” shared Joyce Pring. Joyce joined World Vision this year as Ambassador for Child Sponsorship and recently celebrated her birthday with sponsored children from Navotas. “A lot of children feel like education is a luxury they cannot afford. Organizations like World Vision are a symbol of hope to these children because they show that social and economical disadvantages do not define a person. That given access to the right opportunities, they can rise up and help themselves and the communities they are a part of,” said Joyce.

Jasmine Curtis-Smith has been National Ambassador for the organization since 2013 and is currently sponsoring three children through World Vision. “As a sponsor, I have been receiving emails and progress reports from World Vision about my sponsored kids and their communities. It’s really great to see the changes in these children’s lives and to know the programs they’re engaged in. Through these reports, you get to see how World Vision does not only help these children by providing access to education and basic needs, but also by integrating values formation and community involvement in their activities,” she shared.

“We are all truly grateful to everyone who showed their support for this campaign; the musicians and ambassadors who gave their time and talent for the cause, and everyone who attended this launch,” shared World Vision Resource Development Director Jun Godornes. “The most vulnerable communities do not have the luxury of time on their side. Our main goal for 2,000 Children in 1,000 Hours is to equip these communities with the right tools to build a better life for themselves and their children. By signing up to donate PHP 25 a day, you can help us achieve this goal” said Godornes.

To find out more about 2,000 Children in 1,000 Hours, please visit www.2000children.org or call the World Vision hotline number at 372-77-77.

MYTHS OF LOVE DANCE with MARGE ENRIQUEZ at Power Mac Center Spotlight

“Myths of Love” is a dance-theater event  that tackles our notion of romance. Based on the book, “Seven Myths About Love…Actually” by British author Mike George, it talks about why it seems to challenging to get a hold of genuine love.  For so long,  we equated love as approval and assumed that love and happiness were found in relationships, acquisitions and even places. However, the satisfaction was fleeting and the disillusionment was bound to happen. We recognize they are blind alleys. George says you don’t have to seek love anywhere as it is already found in our own heart.

    MYTHS OF LOVE

  OCT 5, THURSDAY, 7:30 pm

 POWERMAC CENTER SPOTLIGHT, CIRCUIT MAKATI

DIRECTED BY MELVIN LEE

CHOREOGRAPHED BY JED AMIHAN

PERFORMERS: MARGE ENRIQUEZ, ROSE CAMACHO, KATHERINE TROFEO, JED AMIHAN

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DENISE WELDON

ART DIRECTION BY MARK CONSTANTINE INDUCIL

FOR DETAILS, CONTACT 0917-9803541   

Hitachi Introduces Hitachi Vantara: A New Digital Company Committed to Solving the World’s Toughest Business and Societal Challenges

Company Formed to Help Customers Achieve Unprecedented Outcomes by Tapping the Full Potential of Their Data

Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501, "Hitachi") today launched Hitachi Vantara, a new business entity to leverage the broad portfolio of innovation, development and experience from across Hitachi Group companies to deliver data-driven solutions for commercial and industrial enterprises. This new company will unify the operations of Hitachi Data Systems, Hitachi Insight Group, and Pentaho into a single integrated business as Hitachi Vantara to capitalize on Hitachi’s social innovation capability in both operational technologies (OT) and information technologies (IT).

More Than a Century of OT Expertise Combined with IT Trusted by the World’s Largest Enterprises

Hitachi has been a leader in OT for industries such as finance, government, manufacturing, power/energy and transportation for over 100 years, providing solutions that have positively impacted cities, industrial operations and businesses at large. The company has also been a leader in IT for over 50 years—bringing IT applications, analytics, content, cloud, and infrastructure solutions to market that have transformed the way enterprises do business. Combining Hitachi’s broad expertise in OT with its proven IT product innovations and solutions, Hitachi Vantara gives customers a powerful, collaborative partner in data – unavailable in any one company until today.

“Hitachi Vantara marks a monumental change for Hitachi as we continue to advance our unified corporate vision of Social Innovation,” said Hitachi, Ltd. President and CEO Toshiaki Higashihara. “Hitachi has been helping customers harness the power of their data to support meaningful business action for years. Now as the world is being transformed by digital tools and processes, we are unifying our strongest digital solutions companies together as a new Hitachi company that delivers exponential business impact for our customers and the betterment of society. The formation of Hitachi Vantara underscores Hitachi’s commitment to  collaborative creation with customers and partners, and being a true innovation partner for the era of IoT.”

The Opportunity in Data

Hitachi Vantara is uniquely able to help customers extract all the value their data has to offer. By bringing new data-driven solutions and services to market, Hitachi Vantara will help its customers achieve tangible outcomes that positively drive business and society forward.

The market opportunity for mission-critical data solutions has never been greater. Data has become a businesses’ greatest asset—if they can extract actionable insights from it. Data holds the key to new revenue streams, better customer experiences, improved market insights and lower costs of doing business. However, a comprehensive offering has yet to emerge that combines both OT and IT expertise to uncover its true potential—until now.

Filling a Critical Gap in the Emerging IoT Market

Hitachi Vantara will continue to provide superior infrastructure and analytics technologies that enterprises rely on for their mission-critical data in their data centers, in the cloud and at the edge of new innovations. The new company is targeting the emerging IoT market opportunity, in which there is no clear winner yet.

According to Gartner, Inc., “more than $440 billion will be spent on IoT in 2020,”[1] and the firm estimates that by 2020, “there will be more than 21 billion connected sensors and endpoints, and digital twins will exist for potentially billions of things.”[2] in the same timeframe. To address this market, Hitachi Vantara will harness business, human and machine data across OT and IT environments to build comprehensive, data-driven solutions. Customers will be able to manage, store, govern, blend, analyze, and visualize data—and then take action based on uncovered insights.

Hitachi Vantara’s Breadth of Solutions: From the Data Center to the Factory Floor

Hitachi Vantara will continue to develop the trusted data management and analytics technologies Hitachi is known for, including Hitachi’s popular data infrastructure, storage and compute solutions, and Pentaho software. It will also be driving the development of strategic software and services solutions, including Hitachi Smart Data Center software and services, Lumada, Hitachi’s IoT platform, now available as a standalone, commercial software offering, and Hitachi co-creation services. Announced concurrently today and now in its 2.0 release, Lumada has been fully updated with enhanced artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and advanced analytics capabilities. It also has an elegant, portable architecture that enables it to run both on-premises or in the cloud, and supports industrial IoT deployments both at the edge and in the core.

The company will focus on serving global Fortune 1000 companies with best-in-class data management, infrastructure, content and analytics products and industrial IoT solutions for a number of industries including financial services and insurance, government, industrials/manufacturing, telecom, and transportation.

“No other company brings together more than a century of operational technology expertise with informational technology trusted in the world’s most demanding enterprise environments,” said Hitachi Vantara CEO, Ryuichi Otsuki. “Hitachi Vantara capitalizes on this unique combination by creating solutions that meet the needs of an increasingly connected world. Like our customers with whom we partner and co-create, Hitachi Vantara sees data as an opportunity—a path to outcomes that matter.”

Hitachi’s new Lumada IoT platform and Smart Data Center solutions will be on display at the Hitachi NEXT 2017 user conference in Las Vegas, September 19 and 20, where event attendees can see live demonstrations of the company’s software and IoT solutions. For more information, visit HitachiNEXT.com.

Pinoy Artist's Tribute Poster for “mother!” Officially Selected by Paramount

Press release

In conjunction with the release of its psychological thriller m o t h e r !, Paramount Pictures worked with Talenthouse, a leading open-source creative platform whose artists from around the world were invited to translate Darren Aronofsky's new film.

Each artist was given the audio from the first trailer as inspiration and the results are astounding. One of the 12 artists is Philippines' own Edz Gatula whose tribute poster for m o t h e r ! appears below.

Edz Gatdula is a talented artist who joined Talenthouse only a couple months ago and caught the Talenthouse and Paramount teams’ attention right away with beautiful, dynamic pieces. Edz’ work has gained instant popularity by other artists on Talenthouse, gathering lots of loves and comments commending his creations. Edz has been very grateful, humble and respectful amid all the attention.

Gatdula explains his process in creating his own m o t h e r ! poster: “As I saw the promotional poster of the movie, the first thing that came up in my mind is to use the ESSENCE of a classical art nouveau for my poster, but in a simpler form by having a limited color palette and flat shades, which I normally do in most of my artwork.”

THE PETA FESTIVAL OF WINDOWS

Press release

A CELEBRATION OF PEOPLE’S THEATER FOR DEVELOPMENT

ALL SET FROM OCTOBER 24 - 29

The Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), recipient of the 2017 Ramon Magsaysay Awards is organizing a week-long festival that highlights the role of arts in development, as exemplified in the various advocacy campaigns the pioneering theater company has engaged in the past 50 years – Children’s Rights, Women, Gender, Health and Sexuality, Youth and the Millenials, Environment and Disaster Risk Reduction, and Human Rights.

Happening on October 24-29, 2017, the festival will feature PERFORMANCES, WORKSHOPS, LECTURES and DISCUSSIONS. It will showcase some the best advocacy PLAYS of PETA and its partners. There will be 13 performances from Metro Manila, Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, 3 Performances from Cambodia and Thailand. Festival participants can expect to learn new skills through workshop sessions on songwriting, Shadow Puppetry, Physical Theater, Improvisation, BOAL Forum Theater, Circus Techniques and more! Exciting Keynotes, Lecture Performances and Special Interest Group Discussions will give participants a look into the experiences, success stories and the challenges of practitioners and experts, particularly in the areas of Building creative communities, Public spaces and awareness, Participation, Capacity Building, Participation, and Partnership and Stakeholder Building.

The Festival of Windows will gather more than 120 performers, 40 experts and speakers, hundreds of artists, arts managers, audiences and participants from different parts of the globe.

Festival passes are available at P 4,500.00 each (P3,500 for students) and entitles holder access to all the opening and closing reception, lecture performances, main stage performances and  one workshop or 2 huddles a day.  Day passes are also available for P 1,000 per day (P 800 for students).  For those interested to watch specific shows, tickets are also available for all Lecture-performances and Main Stage performances.

The Festival of Windows is presented by PETA in partnership with Starbucks, Save the Children, Development and Peace and the Festival’s Major Hotel Sponsor, Madison 101.

For details of Festival, visit the official website – www.petafestivalofwindows.com. For more information and registration, please call the FESTIVAL OF WINDOWS SECRETARIAT at 7256244 or email us at festivalofwindows@petatheater.com.

Sophos Appoints Adel Eid as Channel Sales Director for Asia Pacific and Japan

Press release

MANILA. September 6,  2017 – Sophos (LSE: SOPH), a global leader in network and endpoint security today announced the appointment of Adel Eid as Channel Sales Director for Asia Pacific and Japan. Adel brings more than 20 years of experience in channel management, having worked with global organisations, ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies.

Adel joins Sophos from CyberArk where he managed a channel sales team and developed a comprehensive strategic alliance, enhancing its partners’ security expertise and ability to drive new business opportunities. Prior to CyberArk, Adel spent 9 years with Cisco where he held various roles including sales responsibilities for distribution in Southeast Asia.

At Sophos, Adel will lead the channel program for Asia Pacific and Japan, focusing on partner growth. He will also collaborate with distributors, global systems integrators, value-added-resellers, managed services and learning partners to launch and drive Sophos’s synchronised security program that addresses advanced cyber threats including ransomware. 

“I am delighted to welcome Adel to our team and am confident that he will lend significant value in strengthening our operations in the region with his expertise in channel, sales, and marketing. With extensive experience in driving channel programs, Adel will help us deliver strategies centered on growth and innovation for our partners,” said Joergen Jakobsen, Regional Vice President & Managing Director, Asia Pacific & Japan, Sophos.

“I am thrilled to join Sophos as it prides itself as a channel-first company. With my experience in channel management, I am looking forward to working with Sophos partners to provide them with the competitive advantage to achieve channel excellence”, said Adel Eid.

Adel holds an MBA in International Management from the United Business Institute.

He will be based in the Sophos Singapore office reporting directly to Joergen Jakobsen, Regional Vice President & Managing Director, Asia Pacific & Japan, Sophos.

You Can’t Miss This Pop-Up Interactive Digital Park in Manila!

Press release

Prepare to take off and see what the future beholds at the Future City – open for one weekend only!

The uncertainty of the future can be an overwhelming prospect—especially for parents concerned about their child’s future.

For one weekend only, discover and explore how you can reshape the future today, at the Future City: An Interactive Digital Park. Primed to offer an experiential and immersive way of giving you a glimpse of the future with the latest creative media technologies and innovative artistic experiences from all over the globe!

To be held at the SMX Convention Center on September 9-10, 2017, this pioneering interactive educational experience offers enriching sights and activities that gives kids and kids-at-heart a glimpse of the world of tomorrow with its spectacular 7 unique and engaging stations— from a dome that will take you to the far future in an instant, a sketch village that will make your visions come to life, to interactive games, 3D wall art installations and so much more— all are dedicated to promote self-directed learning and explorations that will surely open the mind.

Witness and experience the future now and catch it before it’s gone.

Future City: An Interactive Digital Park is an event by The Future Park, sponsored by Nestlé NANKID Optipro. Future City: An Interactive Digital Park will be open to public on September 9-10, 2017 (Saturday to Sunday), 10:00 am to 9:00 pm at the SMX Convention Center, SM Aura, Taguig City. To learn more about this exciting pop-up interactive park visit www.facebook.com/NANKIDOPTIPRO. Limited slots available so hurry and pre-register online at FUTURE CITY PRE-REGISTRATION WEBSITE..

Dinosaurs Come Alive At The Mind Museum

There’s no kid who does not like dinosaurs. Even adults are fascinated with these prehistoric creatures. Reason why we like these creatures because dinosaurs and humans are separated by 65 million years.

The Mind Museum will take us back to the age of The Dinosaurs rule the world. Back to the time when the continents were still connected as one supercontinent called Pangea. The dinosaurs are brought back to life by the Imagination Station, the same group that brought the Leonardo exhibit to Mind Museum years ago.

Just like the Leonardo event, the Dinosaurs are also a traveling exhibit that toured worldwide. The exhibit includes being interactive like comparing your feet and height to the dinosaur’s footprints and gigantic size, and measuring the actual size of a dinosaur bones and excavating it like a paleontologist.

Thanks to animatronics, the dinosaurs can also move. The dinosaurs are done in detail based on the dinosaur bones found. There are also fun activities a scavenger hunt and become a Mesozoic Journalist for a day. There are also curators that can tell you more what you don’t know about dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs Around The World-Passport To Pangea will be exhibited for a limited time. You can choose to see the travelling exhibit or include the regular exhibit. If you need something to do with the kids for the weekend, this is a good place to bond with the family. If you haven’t scheduled an educational field trip, now is the best time to include The Mind Museum as part of your itinerary.

Follow this blog and like https://www.facebook.com/LENSblogs/ for more update of Mind Museum. To book a pass, go to https://www.themindmuseum.org/