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Josie Natori is a Filipino fashion designer who has made it in New
York and is thus a worldwide fashion icon. Strangely for such a
personality, she does not particularly like fashion shows and hardly
ever has them. But she will tonight in a very unorthodox way in
order to raise funds for Filipino artists. Josie Natori has a
passion for the arts. She was a child piano prodigy and pursued a
concert pianist education until the world of business and fashion
captured her. But she still is a serious pianist devoting Saturdays
to playing on one piano while her music teacher plays on the other.
Ten years ago Josie, on one of her regular trips
to Manila, convinced a few friends to put together a branch of the
Asian Cultural Council, a New York-based grant-making foundation for
Asian and American artists. In truth, the Asian Cultural Council had
already in a sense been in the Philppines since 1963, having made
grants to Filipino musicians and scholars like the
internationally-known musician and scholar, Jose Maceda, the
National Artist Jose Joya and Lucrecia Kasilag, the musicologist and
first Cultural Center of the Philippines artistic director. These
three were among many other Filipino artists and scholars who
through the years had been given grants by the council to study,
travel, exhibit or apprentice in their fields and commit to come
back to the country and practice their art or scholarship. On the
average, the Philippines would receive three or four grants a year
at the most. There were competing Asian countries like Japan,
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, India and China.
When Josie Natori managed to have the Asian
Cultural Council–Philippines organized and ready to do its part
and help out with funding the Philppine grantees, the number of
grants went to an average of six to eight a year. They have ranged
from visual artists, to stage artists, to filmakers, to
photographers, to museologists and art managers. They have also
included archaeologists, music composers and performers.
Among the current grantees are Grace Nono and
Michiko Yamamoto, the scriptwriter of acclaimed Filipino films
like Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros and Josefina Estrella,
theatre designer of Tanghalang Pilipino. There is much talent in
this country that needs opportunity. The Asian Cultural
Council–Philippines knows this and maybe Josie Natori knew it
first.
Therefore, tonight Josie Natori will present the
The Art of Natori and the Asian Cultural Council will include some
of its Filipino grantees and one Indonesian grantee in dance in a
program in partnership with the Asia Society Philippine Foundation
to raise funds for Filipinos artists and scholars who early in their
careers need a push and a lift to take them to greater experience,
wider vision and self-confidence, enough to enrich art and culture
into the everyday Philippine experience.
Josie Natori gives back to her country. It is a
lifestyle we should all learn.
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