Skip to main content

From the Streets to Ballet School


Tuloy Foundation has rescued a lot of street kids in the urban jungles of Metro Manila and helped them find new hope through ballet. The children's inspirational story is the subject of an ongoing documentary project called Street Dance, and its producers have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds, which will be used for repayments and to complete the film.

   "For the past year we have been financing our documentary film on our own and we will continue to do so as much as we can," wrote producer Dale Tippin. "But, we need your help."

   Manila-based artist and creative director Andy Maluche began filming in June 2013, and once the work is done, he hopes to premiere Street Dance at major international film festivals, including Cannes and Sundance. In addition to this, the producers expect that one or more of the ballet students may eventually be invited to study at the Royal Ballet School in London, which is one of the world's greatest institutes of classical ballet training.

About Street Dance 
This documentary takes place primarily in Metro Manila, Philippines, one of the most densely populated metropolitan areas in the world. Out of this population are tens of thousands of "street children"; children who have been neglected or abused in one way or another and have chosen to live in the streets or have simply been abandoned by their families and have been left to fend for themselves. Street children face daily hardships including drug addiction, health concerns, child prostitution and other forms of child abuse and would seemingly have no where to turn. Street Dance is an uplifting documentary which studies one particular group of street children from their early lives as children of the streets, their introduction to a foundation dedicated to the caring, healing, teaching and ultimately the reintegration of these children into mainstream society. The children that are followed in this film are given the opportunity to enter a ballet program sponsored by the foundation. We will follow them through their journey over a period of 3 years documenting their ups and downs, trials and tribulations and hopefully through to their ultimate success.

   Check out a sneak peek from the documentary below:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The building blocks of your childhood dreams have finally arrived

Mini Materials in Winter Springs, Florida produces beautiful miniaturized construction materials at 1:12 scale. The cinder blocks are made from actual cement, the bricks are made from real terra cotta, and the pallets (which double as coasters) are built from real wood. For added durability you'll probably want to use their mortar that's thankfully easier to mix than the real thing. Whether you want to build your own miniature version of Winterfell Castle, the White House, or the X-Mansion, Mini Materials will let you make them as sturdy as their real-life counterparts. [h/t: Uncrate ]

Weirdly Charming

If you’re a fan of art that makes you do a double-take, you need to check out  Richard Brener . Based in the UK, Richard is an internationally collected artist who works primarily with ink, fineliners, and gouache. When you first see his pieces, they actually look pretty playful. Then you realize the entire canvas is packed with thousands of tiny, ghost-like shapes he calls "champs." They’re all squeezed together like commuters on a rush-hour train, and the level of detail is honestly mind-blowing. Richard spends hundreds of hours drawing these little guys over and over. It’s obsessive, very intentional, and a little bit wild. The cool part is that the longer you stare, the more the vibe shifts. Check out more photos below:

Hand-Painted Movie Posters by Tony Stella

In the 70s and 80s movie theaters in Manila were usually standalone buildings with nice seats and red curtains. To sell tickets, cinemas needed to advertise their offerings. But they did not have the original posters, or the means to print alternatives. So they made their own, commissioning local artists to hand-paint them. I really miss those hand-painted posters and billboards, which conveyed an artistry that was a form of visual hyperbole. But hand-made objects always have a way of returning. In this digital age, people will always look for things made by hand. I recently stumbled across the work of Tony Stella, whose genuinely cool movie posters have caught the eye of film enthusiasts and art lovers worldwide. He likes to work in watercolor and ink wash but sometimes he will make an oil painting, depending on the film. Tony's very active on social media, and his Tumblr blog contains a massive collection of illustrated movie posters that are often better than the original. ...