IHT: Prison Break

International Herald Tribune
Dance is part of rehabilitation at Philippine prison
By Alexandra A. Seno
Tuesday, January 15, 2008

CEBU, Philippines: Six months ago, Crisanto Niere and Wenjiel Resane were just two more inmates at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, serving time for drug trafficking. Today, they are Internet superstars.

YouTube footage, uploaded in mid-July, shows the prisoners dancing to the Michael Jackson song "Thriller." It has been viewed more than 10 million times and become one of the most popular clips ever on the video-sharing Web site. The skit features Niere, playing Jackson, and Resane, as the "girl," along with more than 1,500 other inmates performing in the background.

This month, the prison authorities tried to take their show, in a manner of speaking, on the road. Byron Garcia, a security consultant for the prison, tried to enter a troupe of 100 inmates in the Sinulog festival this Sunday, a lavish street-dancing festival in honor of the child Jesus and the biggest tourist event in Cebu.

Citing security concerns - 70 percent of the prison's inmates were convicted of serious crimes like murder, rape and narcotics trafficking - Mayor Tomas Osmeña, who oversees the festival, rejected the prison's bid. He told reporters: "Not even if Michael Jackson" - the real one - "joins them."

But inside the prison, the beat goes on.

Inmates spend up to four hours a day practicing a growing repertoire of more than two dozen dances. In addition, those who signed up for auditions and made the troupe have continued rehearsing their Sinulog choreography. Although they have been barred from performing at the site of the main festival events, they are planning shows within the prison itself. The prison is giving away 200 free tickets to each of three shows Friday.

The Sinulog would not have been the Cebu prisoners' first public performance. In August, dozens of inmates, including Niere and Resane, were escorted under armed guard to the provincial capitol building for a public holiday celebration. They performed several numbers including "Thriller" for a clearly delighted audience.

"The videos I uploaded were never meant for entertainment," Garcia, the security consultant, said in an interview. "I wanted to inform other jails about what was happening here."

In 2004, as a security consultant to the provincial government (his older sister, Gwendolyn Garcia, is governor), he was brought in to address problems at the prison after a series of riots. He recommended that the almost 2,000 prisoners be moved from an ancient stockade, which had been built with a 200-prisoner capacity in mind by the Spanish, whose colonial rule ended in 1898. The prisoners were transferred to a new, larger facility.

Garcia also fired dozens of jail guards for corruption, installed an enhanced security system, broke up gangs, banned guns and the use of cash (opening bank accounts for inmates) and enforced an exercise regime that in the past year evolved into dance classes.

Garcia said that what had been weekly outbreaks of violence have subsided, inmates' health has improved and recidivism rates are down dramatically.

He only went the YouTube route, he said, because his attempts to draw public attention to these changes were ignored. "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country," said Garcia, citing one of his favorite passages from the Bible.

Since then, Cebu's Internet fame has prompted other Philippine prisons to pay heed. By the end of 2007, eight others had begun adapting some of his methods, including dance. He has yet to visit them, but he says: "Dance is just the icing on the cake."

Life at the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center is no country club. Prisoners sleep on hard pallets more than a dozen to a cell and are held to a strict schedule of work and other activities from dawn to lights-out.

Still, inmates say conditions are better. "It's really nice here compared to the old prison. No more drugs, drinking, look how big our stomachs are," said Rodolfo Ruiz, 47, who has served seven years for multiple murder, jokingly sticking out his belly. He said he had kicked the crystal meth habit he developed at the old facility.

Pepe Diokno, 20, a film student at the University of the Philippines who has toured several prisons while making the documentary "Dancing for Discipline," said the Cebu facility "has the inmates with the biggest smiles."

Dance "gives the inmates something to do, something they can be proud they're part of," Diokno said. "It lets them know that they can be productive, that they aren't useless scum of society. This is rehabilitation already."

In the Cebu prison courtyard, Gwendolyn Lador, a professional choreographer, is shouting into a microphone: "Crawl like spiders! Crawl like spiders!"

The prison brings her in most days to teach inmates. Hundreds of prisoners, in bright orange uniforms, hang on her instructions.

"The situation here is O.K.," Lador said in an interview. "I don't fear them, and they listen. I think it is easier to teach them than other people. You really see how hard they try to get it right."

Later, sitting in his neat cell, one of Lador's Sinulog troupe, Aldren Tolo, 25, in prison for drug dealing, said: "I like dancing. It is a way we get to show the world that even if we ended up in prison, we are not totally damaged people."

Marfury Barberan, 27, a murder convict, is rehearsing John Travolta's role in a "Grease" number the prisoners are preparing for later this year. "Because our families have seen us on TV and the Internet, things are better," he said. "They don't worry about us so much and don't think so much that we have no more hope."

More than two dozen prisoners have tattooed Garcia's name on their bodies alongside those of former gang affiliations and loved ones, openly proclaiming him their "idol." He clearly bristles at suggestions that he forces prisoners to dance. "Do they look like they are forced?" he asked, visibly irritated.

He did say they sometimes receive extra snacks for participating.

The prison's dancing program put it on the shortlist for the 2007 Gawad Galing Pook, a Philippine award for excellence in local governance. Garcia said a private prison operator in the United States has offered him a job, something he is not considering seriously.

"My work here is not yet done," he said. "I am not finished."

Not if he is to keep abreast of the competition he has inspired.

In December, 425 inmates at the Pagbilao jail in Quezon Province received a $500 prize from a national TV station for best video interpretation of the "Papaya Dance," the Philippines' current pop craze.

International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com

IHT - Josie Ho: Tracking a star, from Hong Kong to Sundance

Josie Ho in "The Drummer." Photo: Courtesy of Kenbiroli Films




By Alexandra A. Seno
Tuesday, January 8, 2008

HONG KONG: 'Hello! This is Rich & Famous!" chimes the telephone receptionist to Josie Ho Chiu-yee's manager. Ho is indeed one of the most recognized faces in Chinese entertainment, and her father, Stanley Ho Hung-sung, built a multibillion-dollar fortune operating casinos in Macao. Rich & Famous seems the perfect name for a company handling the 33-year-old actress, even if it was already one of Hong Kong's top talent agencies even before it signed her on.

In the very commercial and conformist Hong Kong entertainment industry, Ho's career stands out. Not only is she still working when many actresses her age have retired to become full-time wives or girlfriends, Ho is genuinely a bright star in Asia's burgeoning independent cinema scene. If plans go ahead for her to begin producing movies next year, she could also be a star maker.

But first, later this month, audiences at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival will get the chance to see Ho showcase her dramatic talent in "The Drummer," in which she plays the go-it-alone daughter to Tony Leung Ka-fai's mobster-dad, and the caring sister to a lost soul portrayed by Jaycee Chan. The film, directed by Kenneth Bi, is the first Hong Kong production to compete at Sundance.

Ho keeps a packed calendar. Aside from gearing up for her Sundance debut, she has been in negotiations to star in a small film by an American director.

"I'm just a working girl," she said, wearing a bib of diamonds in a floral design around her neck. The bling was on loan for a modeling job with a jewelry convention, a paid gig assigned by her managers. Before going backstage to talk, she spent the morning at the trade show opening the ceremonies, then posing for photos with guests Doing corporate work is part of the celebrity game in Hong Kong; a way to keep up visibility.

Her latest Mandarin-language rock-pop CD is due out in a few months. She is also in the restaurant business and co-owns a marketing company looking into bringing projects to Macao, where her family opened an MGM Grand last month.

Her entertainment career, however, is a priority, and she's constantly looking for good parts in films. "It has to be challenging," she said. "I like tough, modern, independent women. Psychological roles attract me. I like going on an emotional ride." In the industry, Ho has a reputation for frankness and for standing up for herself.

Since starting out in the early 1990s, she has appeared in more than 30 films. In Chinese cinema, she has been a frequent nominee for her acting for years. She was a finalist for a Golden Bauhinia best actress prize from the Hong Kong Film Critics Association in 2005 for the lesbian drama "Butterfly," and the year before that she was proclaimed best supporting actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards for the comedy "Naked Ambition." She has a 2002 Golden Bauhinia supporting actress trophy for the AIDS-themed "Forever and Ever."

Being taken seriously as a female film talent in Hong Kong has never been easy, and Ho reckons it is only getting more difficult.

"All these big, billion-Hong Kong-dollar movies funded by China need to cast big names like Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Andy Lau Tak-wah so they can make back investment," she said. "But because of the China quota system, a third of the stars need to be from China, so it usually goes to a mainland actress. All us Hong Kong girls are left out."

Having a penchant for offbeat roles, like Ho does, has made it even more challenging. Not that the self-described "tough chick" lets difficulty stop her often. Her passion for performing started at home, where it all nearly ended. "At family gatherings, I would be pushed to the center to sing and I loved it," she said. But when she wanted to join the entertainment industry, initially as a singer, her father balked.

The intervention of her formidable older sister, Pansy Ho Chiu-king, who is also their father's business heir-apparent, made him change his mind, if a bit reluctantly. "Pansy was the only one in the family who didn't think I was crazy," said the actress. "She knows that if I don't do this, I would not fit in anywhere else. It is my way to express myself."

She describes the Hos as a "close family," the kind that has dinner together every Sunday. (She has been married to the musician and filmmaker Conroy Chan Chi-chung for four years.) Though her father is now more accepting of her career, he doesn't get involved and doesn't bankroll her movies.

"He knows about my achievements but he doesn't have the time to go to my concerts and watch my films," she said. Forbes Magazine estimated the family to be worth $7 billion. In addition to gaming, they hold interests throughout Asia in companies involved in transportation, real estate, finance and hotels. Stanley Ho runs the only casino in Pyongyang, North Korea.

"Josie is very smart," said the Hong Kong director Nicholas Chin. He cast her as the lead in "Tai Tai," a 14-minute drama chosen by the 2002 Cannes Film Festival to compete in the short film category. She takes pride in getting recognition away from home. "Outside, people don't care who I am. In Hong Kong, everyone knows about my family," she said.

To prepare for the role, Chin gave her a list of movies to watch, and she did her homework. When asked, Ho easily rattles off the directors she admires most: Noah Baumbach, Paul Thomas Anderson and Julian Schnabel, and can discuss many of their works at length.

In "Tai Tai," she portrayed a fictional privileged Hong Kong lady who lunches. "She knows about the lifestyle, obviously, but she had distance because she has chosen a different way," he said. "She brought in the claustrophobia of the life, the hidden stuff."

The director added: "Josie is willing to do things differently. The craft is very important to her. She is not doing this to be famous, she isn't doing it for the money."

International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com