Glenn Sevilla Mas has been with the theatre arts program of the Ateneo de Manila University and its theatre company, Tanghalang Ateneo (TA), for more than 15 years. He was TA’s artistic director for four years and now serves as coordinator of the program.
He is an award-winning playwright whose works often have gritty plotlines and tend to draw inspiration from his hometown of Antique. He wrote “Rite of Passage,” a coming-of-age play, while completing his master’s degree in playwriting at the Catholic University of America and presented it in a staged reading at the Kennedy Center, Washington D.C.
Glenn, who started his career as a stage actor, has appeared in numerous television dramas and an acclaimed indie film, “John Denver Trending.” He continues to mentor theatre students at the Ateneo and budding playwrights under the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ (CCP) Virgin LabFest Writing Program, a three-week mentorship program that attracts the most promising playwrights all over the Philippines.
The Philippine Congress recently passed the Creative Industries bill that aims to incentivize businesses in the creative sector. Glenn talks to The ASEAN about the challenges faced by performing artists and freelancers, particularly during the pandemic. He muses why people need to find meaning in the arts and support the artists who create them.
In 1996, Rusdy Rukmarata and his wife Aiko Senoesenoto founded Eksotika Karmawibangga Indonesia or EKI to nurture young dancers and enable them to earn a decent living.
The power of the creative industry has been much talked about globally over the last few decades with a show of promising statistics. Its capacity to generate high GDP and jobs has been underscored to encourage government investment in the sector.
When COVID-19 first emerged, the speed at which it spread across the globe caught the world completely off-guard, triggering the worst global health crisis of our time.
On 30 January 2020, WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. As of 16 July, almost 200 million cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed globally, including more than four million deaths.
COVID-19 continues to threaten people’s lives in every aspect, in all corners of the world, with children most impacted. In East Asia and the Pacific, the latest wave of the pandemic rages on while changes dominate the landscape.
In mid-2020, Thailand planned its rollout plan to ensure the inoculation of 70 per cent of our adult population by the end of 2021, using millions of doses of locally produced AstraZeneca’s vaccine, together with imported vaccines procured through bilateral deals.
Scientists around the world raced at lightning speed to produce COVID-19 vaccines that are safe for millions of people worldwide. Indonesian scientist Carina Joe was one of them.
“From the legend of Rama to the wisdom of Buddha our ties are founded on a shared cultural heritage” -Prime Minister Narendra Modi
ASEAN countries were among the first to be affected by COVID-19. But for 18 months, we managed to keep the virus’s spread below levels experienced in other regions, accounting for less than 5 per cent of global cases and deaths.