Arnel Francis

My first day with Ms. Myra Beltran proved to be a real opener to the world of Contemporary dance. More than I have expected it to be, dance composition has taken a higher plane than just the dynamics one needs to learn. The technique class was an agonizing starter that made me love the floor and realize that the dancer needs to embrace his basic space- the floor or the ground. Finding one’s center and making it the source of all movements make everything easy. Yes, this was easier said than done. I have learned this in our Modern Dance class but there’s a time to rekindle and relish every bit of the feeling again. Laban cube taught me the basic of going from one point to another and finishing it into a LINE without compromising the process. Every choreographer, I believe, should go back to these essentials. True to what Ms. Beltran has said, a lot of movement and meaning can be drawn if a choreographer views the space from the outside. As complex as it is, breakin...

A big night of big REFLECTION The MKD Big Night is a conglomerated school activity with the intention of joining the P.E. and Humanities Nights into one purposeful event. In believing that LEARNING transgresses the four walls of a classroom and a measure of innumerable angles of intelligences, it has metamorphosed into more than what is EXPECTED- the students stepping into the mold of MATURITY in such a short period of time. Basic performing arts discipline are enmeshed with the textbook knowledge that students have drawn through the course of study, exhaustingly realizing the value of believing in oneself- that there is something everyone can SHARE. Leadership skills are fine-tuned, abilities in script-writing and delivery are augmented. Added to that, raw gifts for stage designing, managing, costume making and even to the higher end of directing are tapped, developed into serious considerations. In support, the faculty has proven to be sure-fire of the entertainment vit...

" Time, time... just when we're starting to think that we have it, a fraction has been gone " - A.F.V. Morales "What day is May 5?...how 'bout May 13?". My unending recall of deadlines and activities gave me the urge to refer to a calendar. Being in the middle of a jeepney ride, I resorted to a pocket calendar which I remember I had from a shop in SM. To my dismay, the calendar was of no use. It was 2008, still crisp from being kept long on a wallet section... Funny, I said to myself, it seems like I had this last January 2010. It was an instance again that I really felt TIME passing so quickly... Have I taken for granted the nonchalant onset of it? I wondered. What have I done all these years? I esteemed teaching very late. It was only six years ago. I juggled my MA classes, earned Summer units in Education ...

For LEASE: A beautiful place that looks similar to this… With mango trees spread on a 1T sq.meter area. For green-thumbed enthusiasts, a place to indulge.

Arnel Francis: LEARNING

THE REAL ESSENCE OF LEARNING On the last meeting in our Philosophy of Man class, my first day of pondering began. I never thought that at the very last hour the ultimate LEARNING would come. It was so strong that it still remained resounding in my heart up to now. My usual idea of "just-read-and-you'll-never-fail-the-course" attitude paved the way for me to rummage on books at the Ateneo library. The question of "Why Philosophy?" was more of a question to be answered rather than a topic to be discussed. "Why do I need to take this course when I had it in College before?", was a reluctance I have to abide. Days passed and our supposed "journey" has to conclude. Since I swam over the vast ocean of PHILOSOPHY and "learned" about great philosophers, their precise philosophies, I presumed it was adequate enough to close the books. Our teacher then asked, "Who am I?" Everyone was quiet. After that, she associated this q...

My years of studying Linguistics offered me the windows of fathoming dance. Like verbal language, I came to understand more its structure- the morpheme it offers and the semantics it conveys. The Chomskyan in me is just starting and I suppose I may “structuralize” it. When I first came to learn the formal “words” of dance, I was mesmerized by the selective high-sounding ones. Later did I know that the meaning of Modern Dance could oppose yet equal the beauty of Classical Ballet. Like a child babbling its first words, I mustered a few and began lavishing it, augmenting my lexicon. But it was still a raw battle for LEARNING. I felt I only knew its derivational properties and not the inflectional side of it. Come to think of it, a second language sprouted just when the first language was still substandard. When my vocabulary grew to a handful ones, I realize the functions of each and how it could be used in a sentence called dance phrase. Now the theories I cling to...

I am now a confirmed LECTURER!...an arduous task built on what we call DETERMINATION. The evening my doctoral professor, Dr. Riceli Mendoza offered me the job through an internet chat, the urge to ask her..”WHY me?” was kept at the back of my mind. It was four weeks away and the idea of me becoming a RESOURCE PERSON for a two-day seminar was a scary joke… I have never made a seminar in my entire life and it is not only a seminar but a “Seminar-Workshop”… Giving it a thought, I said why not? I immediately rummaged resources from the internet, skimmed on what was available on my booklists and “designed” on what was to be the SCENARIO..Suddenly, flashes of ‘what if’s ‘ adorned my idealistic fancy and imagined myself with the ambition. I need to make it. The problem of creating activities seconded my worries on how I could SUFFICE my heterogeneous attendees. I was told that teachers and English-major students would be my participants and “jury”. The idea of both teachers and stud...

“ Nocturne ” which means that of “a night scene” is a light, contemporary dance done on a pop song. It depicts the travails of a person deeply in-love and feeling the gruels of loneliness and yearning.

“ Nocturne ” which means that of “a night scene” is a light, contemporary dance done on a pop song. It depicts the travails of a person deeply in-love and feeling the gruels of loneliness and yearning.

“ Pa, I need 800 pesos..” Sean asks you one time at the dinner table.“ What for?...” You are hoping that he was just kidding. "Our JS Prom? …” Sean adds with a tone of ambivalence…Suddenly you feel a tinge of exhilaration beneath your skin, not knowing whether it is rooted in joy or disbelief. You are faced with accepting the truth – your oldest son has grown. Your financial worries are upstaged by your excitement of imagining him dress up for the occasion. Thinking of ways of how he could get the most of these numbered-in-life events, you plan. It has to be special. A complete transformation just as you see in reality TV shows gives you the idea. You begin counting days until D-day finally comes. Absenting your self from work you run to the mall without taking your lunch and allow him to be pampered in his first-ever “salon-experience”. “I want his hair lightened, no sign of waves just do whatever you can…give my son a transformation!” you request. The next thing you nee...