Rory´s Rhythm and Rant

Upcoming Sziget Festival 2018

By Rory Winston & Karolina Alanko

Among the many renowned artists slated for Budapest's Sziget Festival 2018 is the highly original folk/ethnic/world music band known as Värttinä - an ever-evolving group whose current members include vocalists Mari Kaasinen, Susan Aho and Karoliina Kantinen, accordionist Matti Kallio, bass player Hannu Rantanen, and percussionist/drummer Mikko Hassinen. Adding to the fusion, their featuring artist this summer will be hip hop/folk musician/rapper and local Finnish legend Paleface.

As a band whose evolution ran a parallel course to groups the likes of Hedningarna, Värttinä has outlasted most of those who aligned themselves to recasting ancient folk motifs within the realm of a more contemporary sonic sensibility. Having been highly selective when choosing both projects and collaborations, Värttinä's recent foray into a world of lyrics that are - if Paleface's presence is anything to go by - steeped in socio-political commentary is bound to be both emotive and thought-provoking.

Besides Värttinä, Sziget's World Music stage will host other exciting juxtapositions of sounds such as UK's Transglobal Underground who will be featuring the highly acclaimed artist, Natacha Atlas. When it comes to fanciful frolic there's always France's Les Negresses Vertes, a band that manages to blend flamenco, medieval ballad and the world of Enrico Macias into one ongoing party. Likewise, Hungary has several enigmas at play. Pannonia Allstars Ska Orchestra merrily belies all assumptions that revolve around its name to create some very memorable and unpredictable melodies, while Zuboly fuses jazzy Broadway brass with quirky soundscapes and spoken word. As for undeniable humor and groove, there's the Israeli band the Jewish Monkeys who take kvetching to the next level by making it sexy and fetishistic to boot… or to shoe, or to the feet in either boot or shoe.

When it comes to Finland's neighbors, Scandinavia is amply represented at this year's upcoming Sziget Festival. On the main stage there is Kygo from Norway, and the and the dazzling vocalist and earthy indie blues rock band Kaleo from Iceland. From Sweden, there is stormy and outspoken Lykke Li/ , the heartfelt singer/songwriter Zara Larsson, and the feverishly pulsing experimental electro sound project Fever Ray (Karin Dreijer of the Knife). From Norway, singer/songwriter Aurora, And returning for her umpteenth time from Denmark, the anarcho-punk-to-pop princess MØ who rightly believes that Budapest is a party capitol where unfiltered enthusiasm and emotion both flow as freely as the fine local wines.

While folk music is bound to heat up at Sziget's World Stage this year, if you're one of those folks that want to see summer sizzle, the Main Stage will likely do the trick.
SZIGET 2018i

Chester Bennington's Volt Festival Gig

By Rory Winston

Could you see it coming? Could you even hear it coming? No. It’s not very likely anyone had. At least, I didn’t. Not when it came to Chester Bennington. And despite the long succession of suicides running from Chris Cornell to Robin Williams, all the way back to when my own dear friend took her life years ago, I – despite all my own proclivities towards depression – didn’t see a single one of those coming. Just like Bennington didn't see it coming for his dear friend of years, Cornell. The truth is, it’s not likely they themselves had known what moods would be fatal until they presented themselves. At least, not until the very last week, the very last night, the very last moment, when they decided – either with certainty or simply with partial commitment that, sadly, happen to work out to carry out that which so often tempted them before but proved no more than a passing mood. And still people ask. Did I notice anything odd at Volt Festival while Linkin Park was playing? Was there a moment, a single instance when…? A harbinger of sorts, a telltale sign….? No.

Having grown up with Rage Against the Machine, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Tribe Called Quest and a bevy of groups that influenced the alternative nu metal rap rock that became Linkin Park’s genre, it was hard not to share Bennington’s mood swings, well rhythmed angst and sharply juxtaposed directions that veered from cynical to sensitive to haunting in the matter of moments. Then again, it’s not likely that even Bennington had planned out the actions he’d be taking just weeks later. At least, not on that sunny June 27th when, in the company of other band members, he looked out over an enthusiastic fairground in Sopron, Hungary as Linkin Park played in the country for the very first – and what was clearly Bennington’s last – time. Certainly, not on that balmy day when Bennington performed songs ranging from the more forgettable electro-poppy Talking to Myself (the third track on their new pop-infused album One More Light) to the evocative classic In the End - a show-stopper that was followed by encore numbers such as Numb.

To be sure, Volt Festival is a strange concatenation of longing and memory - one that lives up to the multiple (if inadvertent) connotations inherent in its moniker. Though named after a popular local cultural magazine, Volt culls forth very distinct images that range from voltage – the electric potential energy inherent in something – to the Hungarian word ‘volt’ meaning ‘had been’ as in ‘all that which had come before.’ While it may be an unintentional bilingual homonym, there is something to the notion of ‘things passed’ holding the key to our as-of-yet ‘unrealized future.’

As with the best music, emotive moments are built on acquired taste while nuance depends on finding exciting variations to oft-recurring themes. The echo of past motifs sits dormant in every potential song. When it comes to great rock festivals: they carry the ‘electric feel’ of the past, releasing otherwise dormant ancient energies. A primeval mood hides in the contemporary. An unspoken pagan world is alluded to in each rocker’s chant. Behind the rhythm, layers of ritual. Behind the dancing masses, hundreds of thousands of years of tribal communion - body paintings, colorful powders, flashy tattoos. All the paraphernalia, noise and sets are merely echoes of a long lost world - a primordial garden that beckons us, albeit in a distorted way, asking us like Nirvana to come ‘as we are, as we were, and as we are, likely, meant to be.’ To come and to become in the very same instance. Like the best of rock festivals, Volt is the very essence of this dichotomy – it is a rich field where nostalgia and nuance dance with one another, where each spectator unwittingly acts out a past destined to alter another onlooker’s future.

In musical terms this juxtaposition means that the young contemporary DJ Martin Garrix works the same audience as Fatboy Slim while Australia’s Pendulum plays alongside the 80’s British rock band the Cult. Here post-hardcore experimental rock band Enter Shikari takes over from R&B singer songwriter Jess Glynne, iconic indie pop Ellie Goulding precedes US heavy metal band Of Mice and Men, Australian electro dance duo Knife Party warms up for the US alt rock pop punk band Paramore, and blues and soul inflected indie rock band Imagine Dragons leaves us in the hands of those like the house dance pop Dj Sigala.

Besides the battery of international superstars, the festival is rife with Hungarian oddities as well - those that range from well-established songwriting legends such as Janos Bródy to alt rhythm and blues rockers Kiscsillag, melody-laden Quimby, the highly theatrical Anna and the Barbies and their more self-ironic post-modern counterpart, Peterfy Bori and the Love Band. As for some of my own personal favorites, they came in the form of a newer generation of Hungarian artists such as the infectiously humorous Elefánt, the highly emotive Marge, the Hungarian Franz Ferdinand-styled band, Ivan and the Parazol, its spinoff indie folk band Fran Palermo, the electro-chill feminine answer to Chris Isaak in Belau, and the haunting artistry of Babé Sila.

Though the focus remains music, an old school ambience pervades Volt - a traveling carnival-like atmosphere evinced by period-evoking amusement park rides, barnlike dance joints and copious amounts of reasonably priced local wines, craft beers, cocktails and foods. More importantly, the audience itself is strikingly diverse with visitors of all ages from all walks of life. Located in close proximity to the Austrian border - Vienna being the closest big city - the Festival sports has grown in both size and international repute. Despite the recent attention, Volt has nevertheless maintained a Mid-1900’s kind of appeal with its limited number of stages, its easily walkable grounds, and its highly manageable venues.

The overall feeling is that of meeting world renowned artists within the context of their own hometowns. Though a good number of the visiting bands and artists come to Volt at the height of their careers, the quaint setting endows them with a sense of vulnerability, making their presence feel almost intimate in nature - as if they were neither more nor less remote than local bands. It is this laidback atmosphere that lasts the entire duration of the festival.

Removing the veneer of fame and the artificially generated distance it often engenders, Volt turns otherwise inactive voyeurs into genuine participants. Despite the exceptional effects, elaborate lighting and projected images that went into many shows, it was a given that the bands performing sensed the individual presence of audience members throughout.

Still, like many, the thought of Bennington continued to return as I continued to rack my brains, for clues. But, although hindsight often comes to the rescue of memory, making irrelevant moments significant while turning pivotal moments into negligible ones, there’s little I recall from Linkin Park’s Volt performance that makes his demise more comprehensible. No eureka, no flashes of insight, no telltale omen temporarily forgotten. Not a single image that resurfaces in my dreams to presage his death or foreshadow the onset of a severe depression. But why would an audience member be expected to detect something when even those closest to him sensed nothing just days prior to his suicide.

No I hadn’t seen, heard or sensed it coming. Not by a long a shot. What I did sense on those glorious days in June was voltage… pure voltage - potential energy being released, an ancient ritual being realized, the electricity of emotion as it surges from performer onto onlooker, working its way through the audience, holding all who come in contact with it in its grip. It is not what Bennington died from but rather what he, and those like him, live for. As the renown Linkin Park song goes, Bennington, like many must have felt Volt was “somewhere I belong,” somewhere that ‘Lost in the Echo’ of our collective past, somewhere everyone can remove social constraints, connect and “Burn it down” together.

Though many Hungarians who attended the festival, and many Brits who attended Linkin Park’s later and final gig in Birmingham continue to speculate about whether Bennington acted any differently than usual, the fact is that a person can remain alive when acting out of character as easily as he can off him or herself when otherwise being very much in character. Neither usual or unusual behavior is a failsafe way of measuring volition and level of commitment. The truth is people are as likely to succeed when only half-sure as they are when they are certain of what they want since positive results are as common to happen when one least expects them as negative results when one would expect them. This by no means implies that we need not be vigilant and do whatever is in our power to stop a suicide attempt. If we even half-suspect it, we are morally obligated to do whatever we can to prevent it because ignoring it is tantamount to abetting the suicide. That said, it does not mean the signs are always present or readable.

On that day of late June, I, and, more importantly, many who had seen Bennington up close, and known him for years, would say they weren’t. On that day, just weeks before his death, Bennington seemed to be enjoying himself - singing, dancing, in perpetual motion and filled with as much hope and angst as he likely had been on the very first day he took to the stage
Press here to find out more about volt

Reprinted with the permission of the NY Resident Magazine

By Rory Winston

“Please. A quick look. Just takes a second. Yeah, I know I’m really bad with faces but I swear the guy looks like some long lost cousin of Tony Blair.”

Annoyed by my insistence, my fiancé finished pouring the Black Magic sauce on her red tuna sashimi and, with resignation bordering on disdain, panned her head past the figure in question as though she were merely intending to get a glimpse of the full moon hovering beyond his table.

“Well, you really do have bad eyes,” she noted while dabbing at the wakame salad accompanying her dish. “He doesn’t look a bit like Tony Blair. He is Tony Blair.” The matter settled, my unimpressed Finnish companion returned to sipping her Chardonnay. What was Blair doing here? Here in Israel? And, more precisely, here at the Ritz-Carlton’s Herbert Samuel restaurant in Herzliya? Slightly nonplussed by my fiancé’s blasé response, I quickly busied myself with the Salmon tartar.

Though I had hardly taken notice of the seemingly benign little fellow with whom Tony had been sitting, I suddenly couldn’t shake the suspicion that he looked familiar. More poignantly, that I had seen him in the Gatekeepers - a documentary on the Shin Bet. At least, that’s the explanation my action-starved mind longed for. Be that as it may, the arrival of the waiter put a pause to my musings. Artichoke barigoute and Tomatoes Salad 'Herbert Samuel,’ each accompanied by an earthy regional wine – one which my fiancé rolled, swished, swallowed and approved.

Indulging in the starters, my fiancé turned to me bemused,

“So this is what Kosher food is like? Rumor has it that -”

Rumors. Yes, that was it. The rock band Tony Blair had belonged to in his youth. Ugly Rumours. That was the name I had been trying to remember. As for Kosher food. Rumor had it right. No, this wasn’t what Kosher tastes like. This was what the Herbert Samuel tastes like. On the few earlier occasions when I had gone to an explicitly kosher restaurant – always as a concession to an observant relative or friend – the food could at best be described as homey and wholesome. It was a place that reeked of grandma, a place where you felt you were helping starving children in Africa by finishing everything on your plate. Herbert Samuel was different. It was well-honed culinary art with an uncompromising approach to ingredients. Maximizing on local produce, the establishment employed highly skilled chefs to create the paramount in Mediterranean fusion cuisine.

As my fiancé took a bite of the Baby Red Snapper and baby fennels bathing in a unique pastis and tomatoes sauce, a smile erupted on her face, leaving nothing but dimples and intensely glowing slits for eyes. I grabbed my phone to immortalize the moment and began framing the shot.

“Very inconspicuous,” announced my fiancé, “How subtle. You might as well stand on the table and yell ‘Hey Tony, over here.”

Caught. She noticed me arrange the angle to include Blair. “He’ll hear,” I whispered louder than intended, and way louder than her initial comment, while nervously jostling the plates. Defeat. We now had the attention of all the adjacent tables. My partner glared. Though slightly flustered, I couldn’t help but notice the remarkable texture of the grilled fillet I’d been chewing on. Soon, we were, once again, absorbed in the meal, sharing and switching dishes between us.

Har Braha, a tahini sorbet with espresso and sesame, arrived in the company of Madame Pavlova, a meringue adrift on crème anglaise with buoying berry and mango. The exquisite dessert duo elicited the type of orgasmic sound from my companion that immortalized the rom-com line, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Needless to say, it was at this point Tony Blair, unexpectedly, stopped by our table. Despite the voice in my head greeting him with the words, ‘Hey aren’t you the guy from the Ugly Rumours (the band Blair had once been a part of),’ what I knocked out instead was something on the lines of it being a privilege. Blair seemed equally befuddled since he was under the misapprehension that he should know me and we’d met somewhere earlier. Though his colleague paced impatiently, Blair stayed to ask if we’d enjoyed our dinner. Exchanging a host of superlatives, it was evident that both our parties found the restaurant equally praiseworthy. Clearly, being out of the public eye had its perks. Blair could overtly indulge his gastronomic fancies without fear of appearing out of touch with the “common man.”

Returning to our suite at the Ritz-Carlton, Herzliya, I plugged my Ipod into the docking station and put on a Jazz compilation while heading with my fiancé onto a deck balcony that overlooked Israel’s largest and most entrancing Marina. “There, look” said my fiancé facetiously, “maybe it’s me but don’t those stars reflected on the water look like long lost cousins to the ones in the sky?” Embracing her as she giggled, we toasted Tony Blair. The moon’s swollen form floated on the water, quivering in time to a sailboat that rocked by its side. Radiant, I thought. Brighter and closer than the one that lights the sky. A resplendent rumor far more wondrous than the reality of which it was born. The Ritz-Carlton Herzliya like Israel itself was aspiration as much as it was a finalized construct. It was a dream that built itself a home, a myth with a roof, a rumor with a view.

Some of the content is based on material that has been previously published by The NY Resident Magazine. Those parts are reprinted herein with the magazine's consent

By Rory Winston

Yeah. I admit it. It’s fun. Nothing quite beats a good ‘I told you so.’ Especially when being returned to those who lobbed the ball over the net in the first place while they gleefully looked on with disdain certain in the fact that you’d never be able to smash it back into their court. Well, here’s to you, here’s to the returned volley, here’s to the ball coming right back into your court, straight across the net, smack dab into your field of vision. You didn’t expect it? It feels slightly uncomfortable? Well, you have to admit, I told you so.

To those who scoffed, to those who stood about with self-satisfied grins, to those who thought it was idiotic to fund someone who wasn't a product of their schools, I told you so.

To those who with conceited smiles could make no time in their schedules and believed he'd never get anywhere without their approval anyway and especially to those who threatened to have him blacklisted if he went public about being fired off a show moments funding came in and days after he did the work that foreigner investors responded to... oh, there is certainly a bit of poetic justice in saying: I told you so.

To those who threatened, to those who claimed he was burning his bridges. Ahh, those lovely allegorical bridges you pointed to whenever someone questioned your judgment. Did you imagine that everyone relied on it for crossing? Couldn't you see that there were those who would simply build a boat and sail clear to the other side?

Well, I suppose I could say, I told you so. But instead of saying ‘I told you say,’ perhaps I’ll simply say: Ricky Carranza.

Surely you remember Ricky. Oh, I’m absolutely certain you recall at least one variation. You see, Ricky’s the one whom you told to keep quiet after he choreographed a work for which your friend took credit. Or, isn't Ricky the one whose name that didn't get mentioned in an award ceremony he helped you win? Or was Ricky the one who taught your whole crew how to dance just two days before you laid him off? Wait, now I remember. Isn’t Ricky that guy you thought was out of his mind when he asked you for subsidies for a dance film you didn't beleive in? Well, regardless which Ricky you knew, it was just a few days ago that all those Rickys won Best Documentary at the IFFM 2016 in NY. And, yes, it was a film on dance.

Although I’m not quite sure why the highly talented Philippine born dancer, Ricky Carranza, made the gesture, his award winning feature length film was slated as a Finnish entry. Self-funded, self-motivated and working against all the odds, Ricky paid tribute to the very nation that did little more than stand in his way.

For a view on Filipino Street Dance and the respective mavericks whose contributions still inform the field, Ricky Carranza’s Beyond the Block is a cinematic study on hip hop dance, one that is nothing if not ‘extensive.’ For how else can one describe a film that clocks in at 167 minutes and takes viewers from the late 1960’s to 2016 - one that starts in Manila and goes to Sydney, Helsinki, London, Venice; Helsinki and Las Vegas, one that begins in a Filipino slum with children imitating moves they had seen on Soul Train and ends with their descendants taking First Place in an International Dance competition.

In addition to getting a myriad of interviews with renowned dance-innovators scattered across the globe, we witness the precise evolution of the form as it goes from disco to American show-dancing to a hybrid genre where street dance is infused with tribal Filipino movements. From there it’s off to b-boy heaven; a world of toprock, downrock, power moves and freezes that soon gives way to locking, popping, spinning, and floor-maneuvers. Finally, our own playing field emerges. Today, pyrotechnics have become the norm; and, as long as the contenders demonstrate precision and panache, crews now have the freedom to battle in whatever style strikes their fancy. Gymnastic leaps, complex air-born rotations, spasmodic digressions, krumping, vogue… nothing is expected but, as always, impressing the judges demands a certain level of artistry.

And all this so far is only approximately half of what Beyond the Block is about. The more understated but equally enticing parallel plotline details the ongoing saga of Carranza himself – his artistic, philosophical and personal journey. Taking us from the impoverished streets of Manila into the posher local TV studios, we see as Ricky’s dance crew achieves its first modicum of success, only to be shown how celebrity status comes at a price and that criminal gang lords in the Philippines are never far behind the scent of newly made money. In an effort to avoid what could become a precarious existence, Ricky suddenly doffs his sneakers, abandons his crew, and sets sail for a new life. He becomes a missionary, free from all former ties – he learns, experiences and travels.

Paradoxically, just as Ricky settles into his new life, the past beckons his return. His philosophical forays having reached fruition, he – upon good consul - is advised not to abandon his gifts but to use them in the service of his recently discovered commitment. In short, under the auspices of the church, he begins to teach children to dance – a temporary bridge which soon lures him back into the more demanding world of professional performance. From instructing dancers to creating elaborate choreographies for shows and videos to meeting his future wife and founding his own school in Finland, Style Dance Industry, Ricky is back with a vengeance.

By the time Carranza is making this film, we understand that he has come full circle - the culmination of his story being the very documentary we are watching. The street on which we stand with him is the one where it all began. Looking through the lens with Ricky, we notice something has changed. His childhood home is missing. It is, in fact, the only house on the block that has been gutted and torn down. As metaphors go, this is perhaps the most apt vision a dancer could hope for. Dance, by its very nature, demands unrequited love. By the time you have mastered all its techniques, nuances and ‘made it your own,’ it’s time to retire. Having achieved the perfect balance between athleticism and artistry, the body begins to give. As the old joke goes, ‘we age at just the wrong time.’ And so, just when dancers could theoretically contribute the most artistically, they either end up settling for teaching or – a lucky few - are asked to choreograph for others. For someone used to regularly learning, moving and being creative all at once, this is meagre recompense indeed.

Clearly, Ricky had planned his escape from physiological constraints just in time. And the medium he was using to convey this message was itself the answer: Film. In a sense, the creation of Carranza’s all-encompassing documentary is a form of majestic delirium, one that is guided by the very same passion, discipline, and stamina it was meant to portray.

It would be journalistically amiss if I didn’t disclose the fact that I have known Ricky for some time – more specifically, throughout the five odd years I spent in the UK and Scandinavia. It was while engaged on a TV pilot there that I hosted a comic daily drive time FM radio show with rotating celebrity guests. After realizing that many of the recording artists that had come on my show had music videos which were either choreographed by or featuring dancers that had been trained by Carranza, I asked Ricky to join me on air for Rhythm & Rant (a show later menacing dubbed, Rory’s Rant thanks to some very flattering threats I received on air). It didn’t take long before the two of us became friends, made new enemies on air, and vowed that anything was preferable to either resignation or stagnation.

Not more than a few days passed since our first encounter when we decided to embark on a project together; and so began a long series of regularly scheduled meetings wherein we worked through long nights on a feature film script based primarily on Ricky’s experiences as a dancer. Despite setbacks and respective difficulties with questionable producers on other projects, we managed, in the end, to work through several drafts of the script, honing what we both perceived as being a highly idiosyncratic and exciting story. Since neither of us had great faith in the fact that we were in the right place to find a production house for a dark multicultural drama set to dance - especially given that the entire saga starts in Manila and traverses several genres (crime, action, dance, romance) – we held off on pitching the material locally and opted, instead, to wait for a time when at least one of us would be within driving distance of a more urban setting.

As I left for the UK, Ricky’s partying words to me were, “When – not if - we make this movie, I want to know enough about directing so we can do it ourselves and not have it turned into one of those sappy afterschool specials they usually call dance movies.” Rather than viewing the interval of time between our finalized draft and production as a delay, my soft shoed Bojangles did a silent heal click and jumped so high emotionally that even I started feeling lightheaded about the prospects. As a dancer who knows how to bend his knees before descending, Ricky cautiously added, “the thing is it’ll take time to get this baby up and running so meanwhile I’ve decided to go ahead and make a documentary film on the kind of characters and places that are part of the story anyway.” As I learned, Ricky had started to do research for a documentary on Filipino Hip Hop Dancing. “No one’s really done a substantial one yet,” he enthused; “And the contributions from that place are just incredible.” Eyes ablaze, Ricky went on to explain that not only will the experience of shooting a documentary on Filipino dance familiarize him with the locations, sets and the themes in our script but the small self-funded project is a learning opportunity – one that will give him time to practice some of the technical ins and outs of filmmaking. One that will allow him to fine-tune his craft so that by the time funding does roll around, he himself might be able to make a bid on directing his own life story.

Absurd? Hardly. As someone who spent his youth studying dance and performance, I understood the logic. Although my own dancing career only lasted from ballet academy to Off-Broadway and summer stock, I knew enough about the respective art forms to understand that interdisciplinary marriages often made for the most stable long term relationships. As a long-time fan of Bob Fosse, the idea made profound sense to me. Maximize on the art you are most familiar with and realign the aesthetics of the given medium so that it can “dance” in time with its new partner. In this case, the partner that film would have to learn to dance with would be hip hop dancing itself. This was the same methodology evoked when Fosse directed All that Jazz, the same more finely honed methodology he employed when he took the Broadway musical, Cabaret by composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb, stripped it of Harold Prince’s direction, revised and altered the choreography of Jerome Robbins, wed Joe Masteroff’s libretto with a parallel plotline made up unused material by Christopher Isherwood (on whose short stories everything was originally based anyway), and juxtaposed all of it with the historical period’s zeitgeist.

Merely two weeks had passed when Ricky emailed me stating that he was on his way to making a documentary on Philippine dancers like himself who had bounced their way from the gutters and made a name for themselves abroad. As research into both filmmaking and the world Carranza intended to represent in his future feature film, I could think no better a mission.

Without any state funding, without any endowments from the arts, Carranza had been set in motion. Of course, as we’ve all been told, ‘it ain’t over till the fat lady sings’ or – in this case – till the b-boy drops or pops. And pop he did. From one continent to the next. From one dance studio to another. And all on a shoestring budget of his own making. Keeping up with his list of interviews, locations, and his endless pursuit of hunting for the origins of certain dances was enough to make even reading his correspondences exhausting. The one thing it didn’t do, luckily, is make Carranza give up.

No producer, no marketing agent, and with still no promise of distribution from the country in which he resided, Carranza had his film in the can but had no place to send it. The entire filming process boasts the kind of resolve and endurance that leave studio executives wondering why those without any funding often get more done than those they have chosen to invest in.

And so came part two of the independent filmmaker’s ‘all dressed up but nowhere to go’ saga: emails, phone calls, and hustle, pitch, hustle. The result being that Beyond the Block was accepted into the first annual Hip Hop Film Festival NYC where I finally got a chance to see the fruits of Ricky’s labor. Clocking in at 167 minutes, the film was a heady rollercoaster ride through several decades dotted with several dozens of dancers, it was educational and entertaining, intimate and inspirational. In short, it felt like binge-watching a brilliant PBS or BBC series.

No more than a week later and the film was part of the Special Selections group in California’s Long Beach International Film festival where it was picking up a slow but sure following from luminaries in dance and hip hop. By the time Ricky had returned to Helsinki a few weeks later, he was informed that the International Film Festival Manhattan (IFFM) had officially entered his film into their competition as well. And it was just a few evenings ago, as I sat here writing this article that Ricky called to inform me: “Bro, we won!” And when it comes to Ricky, the ‘we’ is genuine. His ‘we’ includes the dancers who had taught him, the innovators who had inspired him, the choreographers who provoked him, the colleagues who had danced alongside him, the students whom he teaches and those like myself whom he sometimes works with. Ricky’s ‘we’ is legacy and legend. It is his lifelong ability to learn from others as much as it is his devotion to teaching others. ‘We’ is the enduring vision of earlier masters whose elemental force is found in the pyrotechnics of contemporaries. ‘We’ is the humility of acknowledging the past and the hunger in working alongside others to pave a future – a path upon which to dance, a yellow brick road with an endless number of wizards along the way. Approaching film with as much ferocity as he has dance, it is more than likely that the next time Ricky clicks his heels to go home, that home may well turn out to be somewhere in Hollywood. Or, if poetic justice does come our way, Ricky and many of the aforementioned under-the-radar talents will one day bypass Hollywood altogether and end up with the global distribution they so justly deserve.

And if all this should, as I suspect it will, come to pass, wouldn’t it be nice that instead of having someone telling you, ‘I told you so,’ it would be you – A&R’s, members of the Finnish Film Foundation, producers of Music Videos, TV shows and films – telling me: "Hey, you think I don't know my business... I got two words: Ricky Carranza." It sure as hell beats 'I told you so.'

Original NY Resident Magazine Film Review Article on IFFM 2016

By Rory Winston
Photos by RockStar Photographers

Hitting the stage with their usual dose of high octane folk rock, the ethnic fusion band Värttina has clearly not had any of its luster tarnish over the years. As muscularly earthy as ever, the music took its usual leaps into whimsical and soulful while nevertheless retaining its pop-structured hooks and well-honed dynamics. Hungary makes for a good crowd – appreciation for singular artists was perceptible amongst all audience age groups.

Echoing the zeitgeist, the feeling evoked by the city of Budapest and the mood of the nearly half-million passport carrying ‘szitizens’ of Sziget Festival 2016, one voice captured it all. The incandescent sound shuddering its way through the audience carrying with it the familiar but evocative cry: “Shine bright like a diamond” belonged to none other than Sia.

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Unlike the gyrating megastar, Rihanna, who had days earlier received ovations on the same main stage; the song was being sung by the vulnerable soulful Sia (Sia Furller) who - together with producers Benny Blanco and Stargate - had penned the chart-topping Diamonds. Reiterating the self-generated sentiment of our post-ironic age, Sia belted out “I choose to be happy” while several thousand gaping mouths merrily concurred.

In truth, Sia’s show was a watershed for large venue performances, a benchmark in ‘how to’ when it comes to dazzling festival audiences. Hidden behind her iconic window-curtain of a two-toned wig with oversized bow, Sia stood unobtrusively stage right while her leotard clad alter-ego - played by a top ranking modern dancer – in the company of several brilliant mimes, articulated her vision in a highly entertaining cross between installation art, performance art and modern dance choreography à la Ryan Heffington.

Relying on large screens, laser lighting and smart stage sets and costumes, Sia reconciled the world of pop music with something that would otherwise have felt as remote as Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle. Singing Cheap Thrills(presently #1 on Billboard Hot 100) along with classics like Breathe Me, Sia’s multi-layered performance is a keen reminder of why she is the mastermind behind songs for Beyonce, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Christine Aguilera,Jessie J, Will Young, Kelly Clarkson, Kate Pierson, Kylie Minogue, Gwen Stefani, Shakira, Neon Hitch, and, among many others, of course, Rihanna.

So whether or not you acknowledge her as one of the most innovative forces in pop today, it is more than likely that Sia is already the hidden voice behind one of your favorite hits. As a festival that prides itself in being a cross between Art and Music, Sziget did well by being the first to host Sia’s formidable fusion of a show – a paradigm shift as acts go – one that will leave audiences world-over in awe.

As for the ‘Shooting star I see, the vision of ecstasy,’ part of the Diamonds song, well, that glitz-blitz of a title still belongs to Rihanna. After a characteristic late start, she made good on expectation, delivering a glam-slam of a performance with just enough ‘flirt and dirt’ to keep her audience revved. Though the heartfelt evening of sultry song, steamy dance, and touching asides came with few surprises, she managed to keep the momentum going strong till the end.

FROM BROODING TO AMUSING TO MUSING
If there is such as a thing as antidote to hosting Sigur Ros - the ethereal slowburners whose swirling mass of architectural sounds flow endlessly between the icy sheets of static melodies while Jonsi Birgisson’s frail but gravity-defying falsetto hovers plaintively across a cacophonic swell of complex chords – it is the operatic circus-like push-it-beyond-the-limit melodramatics of Muse. Muse is a band forever attempting to recreate the big bang, going from zero to hero, from supernovae to black hole in a matter of incalculable decibels. With all the subtlety of Queen on steroids, Muse is a band made for a massive audience. As for the visuals, the show came off like a puppeteer’s digital nightmare with godlike electro-magnetic hands moving the band to play, sing and finally recoil. Like deities of yore, Muse relies on bolts of lightning and thunder. They are in their element when covered in mounds of riffs and heaps of reverbs.

For fans who have more of a proclivity to metal – albeit with a decidedly romantic melodic core – there was Bring Me the Horizon. While the lyrics and delivery screamed: blood, mud, and gore, the compositions palpitated with longing and woe. Still the most interesting thing to hear was when the main stage lent itself to brilliant lyrics, wry wit and a pop psychedelia sensibility that boasted lush harmonies with genuine dynamics. For this there was The Last Puppet Show - the recurring project band of Arctic Monkey’s Alex Turner and Rascals’ rocker Miles Kane. From understated to playfully over-the-top, theirs is serious music that doesn’t take itself seriously. In a sense, this band has Hungarian temperament written all over it.

TASTING MENU
Walking about Sziget is like being lost in a post-apocalyptical wonderland where the most versatile artists have made an attempt to save all that is best of this world on a last remaining island. Besides the main stage, there are five large venues that hold a wide range of music.

The A 38 stage boasted renowned acts like the theatrical and highly eclectic electronic trio Chvrches, the electro-rock band the Editors, the gypsy punk band Molotov, the fearless post-disco singer Roisin Murphy, Bullet for my Valentine and the angry Canadian band, Crystal Castles, (now without their dynamo stage villain, Alice Glass) to name but a few of my favorites.

Of course, Telekom Festival stage was where I finally got a chance to listen to some noteworthy Hungarian artists like the stark hypnotic electro vibe of indie band Passed and the quirky world of Bin-Jip where clever electro grooves try desperately to keep up with vocals that sound like Karen O overdosing on Bjork with lyrics that oddly juxtapose Beat poetry with advert slogans. Then there was the conscientiously savvy Mary Popkids with their well-integrated indiepop by way of funk, electronica, soul and Motown; as well as the synth world of MGMT meets Hole by the highly dramatic and stage worthy Anna Pasztor of Anna and the Barbies.

As for surprises, it was Péterfy Bori and the Love Band which – despite classification as alternative rock – defies even the most ‘alternative’ of expectations. The Love Band is one that veers from spaghetti western motifs to ethnic themes to chanson moods all while managing to come off as though these eclectic juxtapositions were the most natural things in the world. With cinematic soundscapes, rock drive, indie matter-of-factness, punk edge and even ethno-electro moodiness, this is retro-music as defined by someone living in the year 2500. Of course, as it turns out that someone is the musical genius whose signature one can hear throughout each song, Ambrus Tövisházi, an artist who makes even the most difficult leaps in genre sound like the most conventional step someone could have taken. In my own opinion, just about anything Tövisházi touches – whether its Erik Sumo and the Ice Cream Band, Amorf Ördogok or the many intriguing film scores he has created - is a world onto itself, a fun-loving world that is very much worth worth listening to even for those of us who are not privileged enough to make sense of the the seemingly random but always emotionally genuine choices.

Another band with a very distinct edge is Best Bad Trip. Their sound is the patterns one discerns in chaos and the chaos one notices after staring at order for far too long.

Like a band schooled on John Zorn, Trey Spruance, and Primus - with a heartwarmingly idiotic touch of the Lounge Lizards – The Best Bad Trip are educated enough to allow for silly, savvy enough to be boyish, nihilistic enough to flirt with romance, cool enough to suffer fits of angst, and smart enough to give way to just the right amount of stupid. Mostly, of course, the Best Bad Trip is young – young enough to love everything that had come before them and young enough to demonstrate their love in a wonderfully irreverent fashion. In a sense, ‘lovingly irreverent’ defines Sziget Festival itself.

Having drawn guests from over 100 countries, the festival is one that seems to be growing exponentially by the year. Thankfully, unlike most other massive festivals whose increase in size and numbers has led to a mainstream homogenous look, Sziget has managed to maintain its very distinct personality. Its signature is evident in the myriad of different activities and in the joy seen on the faces of even those who work there to what I assume is a level somewhere beyond exhaustion. There's a sense of community and spirit that pervades the atmosphere - one that makes locals and guests alike reluctant to upset the balance. To illustrate the level of trust that existed on the festival grounds, let me just add that three different people I know had lost their phones while dancing over night, and -as 'Szigetian' fate would have it - all three of those people had managed to get their phones back the very next day at the Lost and Found.

SZIGET SHINES BRIGHT
When it comes to week-long festivals, Sziget is in a category all its own. Throughout the Island one saw wine bars sporting brilliant vintages, pubs with craft beers and even specialized Palinka stops.

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As fireworks lit up the sky on the final night, I couldn’t help but think that Sia was onto something. It was evident in the many thousands of radiant bodies moving to the music, evident in the ecstatic faces glowing in the dark, evident in the many eyes that were as resplendent as the stars they were watching overhead that each and every person at Sziget understood that "We’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky." 

By Rory Winston

“I came through it and I shall return,” railed Douglas MacArthur during WWII in 1942 as he fled from the Philippines moments before the Japanese invasion. A mere two years later and he made good on his word. He was back alright. Back with a vengeance. Fate being a reputedly fickle but recurring ordeal, it was no more than a half-century later that a highly gifted Filipino found himself fleeing another sort of island, a sanitary but lonely one, an island bearing all the hallmarks of a socialized oasis and all the frailty of a multiculturally deserted rock washed by the rising tides of xenophobia - namely, the linguistically isolated island of Finland. Well, “Love it or…” and so he left it.

No – there was no one chasing him off, no enemies at the gate, no specific threat being levied at his person. And yet he was leaving. Uttering his words more tentatively than MacArthur, Ricky Carranza said with equal parts resignation and resolve: “I must go. I can go no further here. No one here to help me make things happen. It’s not likely I’ll return.”

Despite being in charge of an entire flotilla’s worth of up and coming dancers, Ricky Carranza could find neither national support for a feature film script (a fascinating story on which I myself had been working with him, a story born of Ricky’s own experiences in the Philippines and Finland) nor could he even get financing for a documentary on the history of Filipino street dancing and its Finnish counterparts - this, despite the fact that the subject matter was his acknowledged area of expertise. Though Carranza had successfully created a thriving dance center on the outskirts of Helsinki – one that not only produced some of the most noteworthy hip hop dancers in the country but one that had become a production house for championship teams and a home to visiting guest teachers of international renowned – when it came to realizing his own dreams, Finland had abandoned him. Having carried the country from one victory to the next (proudly advertising the benefits of a Scandinavian society), the country itself had, in an ironic twist of fate, turned its back on him.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, Ricky was getting by just fine. He had for years been a great silent partner to a host of ambitious locals. His style had shimmied its way up from student to performer to teacher to a next generation of acclaimed choreographers. Finns had often even used his tapes and credentials to land prestigious international jobs, making sure to take him off their team only after their bids had been approved from abroad. In fact, it was not long ago that an American representative (who wishes to remain anonymous) from a major record label confided “yeah, we know it’s crappy that Finnish locals at Sony BMG pulled him off a job when he was the determining factor in getting it green-lighted, but we don’t get involved in the dirty politics of our partners from small countries. Corrupt…? Hell yah - but it’s for them to sort out.”

Whether or not Ricky would return to Finland - either temporarily to wrap things up or in the more prolonged departure elicited by having a family to support – one thing was certain: his work, like the Terminator, would ‘be back.’ Like most descent works of art, Ricky's work was bound to saunter its way back across the border. Decked out in the full regalia of international recognition, it would one day have to reappear. Perhaps, it would cross under cover of a film, or sneak back under the invisible wires of xenophobia as part of an international festival, or attach itself to a world famous pop star invited for a gig, or even drop from the air in the form of an American TV series.

Oh, it would return alright. As certainly as MacArthur it would 'come through it all' and return. One fine day, it was bound to take up residence in the hearts of a new generation – a generation that would silently admonish their parents with a knowing glare, one that said, ‘What were you guys thinking? We had him in our midst and you didn’t even bother collaborating?’ The embarrassed few will likely concede that they were ill-equipped to gauge the caliber of Carranza’s talent. The majority will shrug as if they had no idea.

For now, however, one thing was certain: recognition in Finland would simply not be forthcoming until a more self-assured and informed international public appraised the quality of Carranza’s work and gave locals the permission to like it. To like something without fear of looking like a fool… this was an epidemic of national proportions.

Luckily, recognition – despite the lack of local help - now seems closer than ever. Ricky did not heed the advice he was given in Finland; he did not allow those who dismissed his work to sabotage his aspirations. Despite years being spent in what can only be described as a 'hospice for ambition', Ricky persevered. And, as poetic justice would have it, his work not only managed to get a good bit of attention in a short span of time but has already been invited back to the country from which it absconded.

It was just a few days back that I gave myself the enjoyable assignment of covering Ricky Carranza’s self-financed documentary, Beyond the Block for the New York Resident magazine. He had completed the work just in time for the first annual Hip Hop Film Festival New York City – a magnificent #Powertothefilmaker venue where the emphasis lay in community, growth, workshopping and getting true talents the attention they need regardless of financing, country of origin, or status. Started painstakingly by the passionate duo, CR Capers and Julien Henri Lockhart Miles, the festival is as close to the heart and inception of hip hop as any urban event is likely to get. None of the hype, none of the "bling-for-your-supper" mentality, this lovechild born of the imaginations of Capers and Miles returns the kind of guerrilla must-do integrity that often gets buried under mounds of self-adulation. As organizers go, HHFF’s crew flies under-the-radar while shinning their spot on those they feel need and warrant the attention.

Since this festival, Carranza’s film has been part of an ongoing conversation about the contributions made to the hip hop dance genre by countries other than the US. Presently being screened in LA at the Long Beach Convention Center as part of the Long Beach International Film Festival, Carranza's film is also finally receiving some attention back home. Both homes to be precise - the Philippines, where they had long been routing for its success and Finland where ...well, I wouldn't venture to know what they were routing for. But, at least, news has it that Ricky's film will now be given a special screening at CAISA, the international culture center in Helsinki. If nothing else, this may be an important first step in finally getting Finns to realize some of the overlooked foreign talents living in their own backyards.

Beyond the Block delves into the long and winding history of Filipino hip hop dancing and those who catalyzed its growth. At 2 hours and 48 minutes, the film is ripe PBS or BBC material and can foreseeably enjoy a 3 to 4 part run on many educational channels. The film manages to tell several stories simultaneously. It details how street dance became stage-worthy, how locking, popping, and breaking were each introduced into the form and how a generation of impoverished youths responded to the changes. The film also explores Philippine culture, explaining how a people with a natural sense of rhythm who had expressed themselves for years in both tribal and ethnic dance turned to hip hop dance as a means of redefining themselves within a contemporary context.

American shows like Soul Train and films like Saturday Night Fever caught the imaginations of Filipino youths and they – along with Ricky – soon took the streets to practice what they saw. It was an era devoid of Youtube – one that relied on watching television, one where the imperfections (sic) of memory advanced creativity. After all, when someone couldn't precisely recall all the moves they had witnessed on TV, they would fill in the gaps by creating their own moves. It was, in short, an era of paradigm shifts in the arts, one that culminated with local shows like Dance 10 – a weekly dance competition TV series that became a springboard for an entire generation of new talents.

Taking us from American legends like Michael “Turbo” Chambers of Breakin renowned to Filipino visionaries such as ex-BMXer Larry Moncado, Carranza’s film is a comprehensive look into several movements in the world of international dance. With interviews that include: B-Boy Ronnie, Jojo Alejar, Xernan Alfonso, Boogaloo, Sunny D-Lock, J-Masta, B-boy Mouse, Kobra, Scoo B Doo, Dj Drexx, SkeeterRabbit, Sugarfoot and Jet-Li just to name a few, the film is a testament to an era of change. It explains how and why we got to where we are today.

Giving us world famous Filipino dance crews like A-Team, Jabbawockeez, The Crew, Manouvres, Poreotics, Rockstars and Ricky’s passionate - albeit humbler - brotherhood of dance, Funk System, the film shows as much as it tells.

With a keen eye for capturing both visual details and personalities, Carranza displays his love of education and entertainment as two inseparable forces. Beyond the Block has just about enough élan, substance and storytelling to let us know that Carranza is more than just an expert in dance, he is very much a serious film director in the making.

As a man who successfully went from dancer to missionary to teacher to choreographer, Carranza knows how to move from one discipline to another without abandoning what he had learnt along the way. It is this ability to adapt – from life in one country to life in another, from one profession to another, from one ambition to the next – that becomes evident in his interdisciplinary approach when making films.

While the monologues breath with cross-cultural perspective, the dynamics of the POV and editing smack of hip hop. As for the drive that made it possible for Carranza to complete this film without any funding, it has missionary written all over it; 'If there’s a message worth delivering,' Carranza seems to say, 'there will damn well be a way of getting it out there.'

Having first met Ricky Carranza while scouting for interesting guests for my radio show, I have remained in contact with him ever since. It was, to be sure, a serendipitous moment for us both as shortly after this meeting, the two us dived into an intense period of collaboration. We began to discuss different subjects for feature films and ended up completing a full draft of a screenplay for a fiction film that was based on his life story. While in the process of writing with him, I not only became certain that Carranza harbored talent as a filmmaker but knew that he would do all he could to impregnate any film with his choreographic sensibility. In short, his films would all have to learn how to dance.

As someone who has spent years not only working with screenplays but reviewing films, I can conclude that Carranza has an idiosyncratic approach that is closely in keeping with his own personality. I can easily envision Carranza seeing the dialogue between his camera and his actors as a hip hop dance battle – frames locking, dialogues popping, and editing ‘breaking,’ in time to the story. As assuredly as Bob Fosse had brought theatrical jazz dancing into framing the scenes in Cabaret and even in Lenny (a film that although has nothing to do with dance bears his signature POV's and editing style), and as poignantly as John Woo had martial arts movements dictate the fluidity of his cameras movements, Carranza would bring street dance into his filming methodology.

As for Finland, well, it’s not an overstatement to conclude that Ricky Carranza has already leapt ‘beyond its blocks.’ And much to his credit, he has done so: ‘lock, pop and breaking barrel,’ - most importantly, by breaking free of his surroundings without any help from the cultural establishment. As any boy from any hood knows, it’s only a matter of time and talent before those who have left the block start having streets named after them.

[i]For the film review on Ricky Carranza's Beyond the Block as part of the Hip Hop Festival New York City please check: Linkki

[i]For more information on the Hip Hop Film Festival New York City: Linkki

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."
- Elie Wiesel; Nobel laureate & Auschwitz/Buchenwald survivor

By Rory Winston

“Empathy suffers from jet-lag - it often wakes up only after it’s no longer possible to do anything to help,” said my father, a man who lost many relatives to the holocaust. He was convinced that most of us want to feel like good people so long as we never have to act accordingly. And so, words like ‘rescue’ are often preceded by 'would have' and followed by 'if only.' Everyone today would have tried to rescue Jews from the Nazis if only they would been alive at the time. Everyone would have put an end to the era of witch trials if only they had realized it was no more than a veiled misogynistic attempt to oppress women. As for most of the actual people who were alive at the time and could have done something to stop the atrocities, they acted like most of us do today when confronted by humanitarian crises such as refugees and saving children from starvation. They would have done nothing. With few exceptions, most of us do no more than furrow our brows, pout a bit, and look forward to feeling publicly bad about it later.

We ‘care’ as long as caring remains at a safe distance from taking an action. We ‘care’ as long as it costs less than the ‘we couldn’t care less’ alternative. But ‘care’ should not be confused with mere concern. Care - by very definition - is both a noun that involves vigilance and awareness as well as an action verb that entails providing for the needs of others. In short, caring about something is not the same as pressing Like under an article about a philanthropic cause; rather, ‘care’ means making it our business to know who needs our help and how to take action. It is little wonder then that the charitable organization that goes by the name of CARE is so focused on South Sudan.

The WOMEN of TOMORROW
As a primarily Christian based nation that divorced itself from Sudan in the early part of this decade, South Sudan is presently – as of July 9th – celebrating its fifth anniversary. Torn by interethnic tribal warfare, the world’s youngest country has, over the course of its very short existence, been plagued by one of the most tumultuous and deadly armed conflicts in the history of the region – a civil war that began in 2013 and has already claimed up to 300,000 lives and has resulted in a further 400,000 fleeing to neighboring countries and more than 1,000,000 being displaced. With notorious events such as the Bentiu massacre being one among many of the recent calamities to affect the local population, it does not take a great leap of imagination to fathom the plight of the country’s children. Because CARE has long believed that empowering women is a fundamental tool in fighting poverty since it benefits the economy of each family and the community at large, what better way to see both the shortcomings and the hopes of this fragmented nation than by surveying several of the women of tomorrow with the help of CARE’s photo journalists. Since the country itself is celebrating its fifth birthday, its only apt that we take a perfunctory look at some of the five-year old girls who may become the leaders of tomorrow – women who may usher in a more peaceful and more prosperous era, one capable of turning South Sudan into the great unified nation it is capable of becoming.

The Shadows of South Sudan
Zeieya does not attend school. Like most local girls her age, she is already a fulltime laborer for whom education is an unattainable luxury. With the highest ratio of girls who can’t attend school of any country in the entire world, South Sudan holds little promise of any kind of future for young women; instead, these young inhabitants court death at every turn. The tribal wars coupled with the bleak and sweltering landscape where temperatures soar to 38 Celsius (approximately 100 F) and water – let alone clean water – is a rarity turns every single day into a game of mortal combat.

Having been exposed to the history surrounding the holocaust from an early age, I find it eerily easy to understand how otherwise civilized people can remain utterly indifferent to the overwhelming suffering of others. While the fate of Jewish children in the Warsaw Ghetto was mostly limited to death by starvation and disease or death by extermination, South Sudan’s 680,000 malnourished children are caught between annihilation from famine and disease or death as a casualty of war. Though I am in no way making a comparison between these two events, the one constant in both is the muted response of the “civilized bystander.” The fate of the South Sudanese is a painful reminder of the one recurring historical theme: indifference. A vast multitude of people still live in an environment that we as Westerners all but ignore. For those like Zeieya, the world remains as cruel and inhospitable as ever.

Back in 2014 – as the civil war swept through the country– 2.3 million locals lost their home. Zeieya was one of them. Today, she spends most of her day collecting firewood which she then sells for a pittance in the hopes of making enough for her and her family to get by on. Though her own means of existence is tenuous at best, she is nevertheless proud of her ability to keep another living thing alive as she joyously tends to their family’s one hidden treasure, a solitary goat. Feeding and grooming this goat on a daily basis, this creature has come to represent a glimmer of hope for a better future. After all, if all goes better than expected, the goat may one day give birth to a kid which would mean that their family would temporarily have some milk to drink. This vision of brighter days ahead, coupled with a strength derived from keeping another life form alive endows Zeieya with a strength and wisdom that almost seems oddly out of place on a five-year old child. Then again, perhaps it is precisely the fact that another life is dependent on her that drives her to persevere. Her sense of responsibility for another’s existence is a valuable reminder for all those who have lives far less perilous than her own and especially all those, like us, who have the means of helping others – such as Zeieya herself – survive.

IMAGINARY FOOD for the SOUL
Though Zeieya has no toys, she is like any other child and so she plays. Her favorite game is a third world favorite: the preparation of an invisible feast. Diligently collecting imaginary sorghum – a grass-like plant – Zeieya meticulously grinds the invisible ingredient into a fine powder before carefully collecting each speck in a sack made of air. Once gathered, she methodically prepares an elaborate meal for herself and her family. Although to the untrained eye, Zeieya’s prized dish may seem like no more than a delusion born of famine – an emotional equivalent of a mirage for the thirsty wanderer in a desert – for those like Zeieya, the sacred invisible meal is nourishment for the soul. It is food for hope, aspiration and hunger cooked at just the right temperature. Along with 2.8 million people in South Sudan, Zeieya is among those in urgent need of food assistance.

Like Zeieya, Nyahok had lost her home to the war as well. It had been burnt to the ground. With precious few clean wells in her area, she – like the other children in her proximity – is forced to drink dirty disease-laden water. Nearing on five, Nyahok subsists on a porridge of grains and wild leaves.

With no crops or cattle in their region, these ingredients are the only thing her mother can feed her. Nyahok’s favorite game is mixing dirt with water and pretending she’s cooking food.

EMPATHY SANS FRONTIERS
Though this may sound like something from the mouth of a B-movie screenwriter at a pitching session in Hollywood, the following statement is true: A five-year old girl whose house was destroyed during a military siege runs into a forest where she survives on her own for days before finally finding shelter in a UN camp. Chianyal, the resilient character in question, is not only a real person but is someone whose inner strength, gumption and perseverance continues to mystify.

Having contracted malaria in May, Chianyal still suffers from sporadic fevers in the night. Though the UN has declared that the recent outbreak of the disease is both dangerous and unprecedented, Chianyal continues unimpeded, skipping rope and making mud figurines with other children in the camp.

Despite her age, Chianyal – like all the other kids – does not attend kindergarten. Instead, the five-year old looks after Nyanen, her baby sister. Although Chianyal’s ordeal leading up to rescue may be singular, the events that preceded them and followed are a normal part of life in South Sudan where 2.3 million inhabitants have lost their home since the fighting first began in in 2013.

Like Chianyal, 180,000 South Sudanese live in UN protection camps, and like her, all of those camp inhabitants depend on aid groups simply for having access to clean water. At present, water is still so scarce that Chianyal and many like her can only wash themselves with a very limited number of cups (sic) of water. For all its lack of resources, the UN camp remains a lifeline to many in need.

In fact, it is in a UN camp just such as this that Nyasunday – also age 5 – has been living since her home was burned down. Rather than attending school where there would be no food anyway, Nyasunday spends a portion of her day helping her mother carry buckets of drinking water to their compound. Severely malnourished, until CARE had given her food, Nyasunday has made a remarkable recovery and can be counted among the lucky ones who have survived thus far.

South Sudan may not be a country familiar to all, its geopolitical turmoil not of the type to affect us directly, its tragedies not among those considered most newsworthy, its humanitarian crisis not of the ilk to elbow its way into our daily conversations; but ignoring the imminent threat to millions of South Sudanese lives makes us complicit in murder. Apathy to their suffering turns us into the willing accomplices of famine, the enablers of deadly diseases, and the callous silent partners of uniformed thugs. Indifference to the plight of men, women and children anywhere is a drone strike whose target is our own humanity. It will hit us where we live, altering our core values and our lives forever. At present, we are living in the shadows of the Dark Continent – their ongoing pain signals our own unwitting demise. Until we take concrete action, until we help organizations like CARE improve the existence of those less fortunate than ourselves, the shadow cast by their suffering will grow until it eclipses our very future. As the renowned playwright G.B. Shaw wrote in the Devil’s Disciple: “The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.”

All photographs have been taken by CARE as part of a photo essay collaboration on the subject of 5 year old girls in South Sudan. The article has been syndicated and is published herein with the explicit consent of Women's Rights News, a member of the Viral Women

AN EXCLUSIVE WITH ANAT HOCHBERG-MAROM, AN ISRAELI COUNTER-TERRORIST EXPERT WHO SEES MARKETING AS A NECESSARY WEAPON FOR DEFEATING ISIS.

By Rory Winston

Way before idiosyncratic fictional characters like Homeland’s Carrie Mathison or State of Affairs’ Charlie Tucker took hold of our collective imagination, there had already been a host of women such as former CIA analyst Gina Bennet and Lindsay Moran who not only excelled in the art of espionage and counter-terrorism but had risen to the highest echelons in their respective fields without relying on either bedroom eyes or pouty lips. As Tamir Pardo, the director of Mossad, confided to Israel’s Globe as early as 2012, “women have a distinct advantage in secret warfare because of their ability to multitask.” Listing talents that ranged from a keen ability to suppress their ego to possessing special awareness to being more fit at reading situations, Pardo concluded that female agents were in many ways superior to their male counterparts.

With the present war on terror having expanded into areas such as combatting social media-incitement and internet-recruitment, there has been a growing need for more than just operatives and assets. In an effort to keep up with the contemporary threat of a rapidly evolving terrorist state, ISIL, skilled specialists, theorists and strategic consultants have become indispensable. One such pundit is the highly esteemed Dr. Anat Hochberg-Marom – an Israeli expert in both political marketing and counter-terrorism, a woman responsible for a paradigm shift in understanding ISIS.

As someone with keen insight into how corporations and businesses function, Hochberg-Marom has a unique interdisciplinary approach when it comes to grasping the modus operandi of ISIS. Analyzing the terrorist organization from a marketing perspective, she is able to gauge the way ISIS employs a modular system that allows them to cater their ideology to the local needs of a prospective target audience.

FANATICISM, The FRANCHISE
Creating what can best be described as a ‘user-friendly fanaticism’, ISIS invests a slanted version of a 7th century Islamic dogma with the localised biases of each given society they wish to win over. And they do so by employing all the cutting edge technology of the 21st century. In effect, they create an easily mass-produced generic product that can then be localised and plugged into whatever circuitry is present. By way of example, Hochberg-Marom explains how ISIS caters its version of Jihad to fit in with the needs of a given populations. For instance, in Jordan ISIS has framed their struggle as a revolution to overthrow the monarchy, whereas in Syria they aligned their terrorism with being a liberating force against the cruelty of the Assad regime. This while in Western Europe, the focus is presented as a war against a permissive decadent culture and lifestyle. As for the US, they have fused their Jihad with an anti-capitalist ethos and, in so doing, have projected an image that is the antithesis of 'America's cynical materialism', becoming the tireless knights who fight a self-serving system with 'genuine values'. It is this ability to reinterpret vitriol so that it smacks of commitment and to invest hatred with a local target that gives ISIS its global appeal.

Likewise, it is precisely this level of malleability that makes ISIS impervious to defeats by strictly military means. While Dr. Hochberg-Marom does in no means underestimate the legitimacy and importance of strategic airstrikes, economical boycotts and intelligence activities, she also knows they are not on their own enough to put an end to the threat that terrorists the ilk of ISIS pose.

THE E-JIHAD
In order to abolish ‘global Jihad’, it is necessary to curtail the group’s influence – and by influence, Dr. Hochberg-Marom means incitement by way of social media. The E-Jihad, as she calls it, is by no means a second tiered front. It is the main line of offense (sic) for an organization that manages to continuously reboot itself with new recruits.

ISIS, explains Hochberg-Marom, must be seen for what it is: a terrorist organization that has adapted the very modern management, organizational and marketing disciplines that are a staple of global corporations. Their product is the fanatical ideology that proclaims the superiority of a distorted variation of Islam over democracy and all other faiths. While each terror attack certainly creates damages and casualties, the main objective is to maximize impact and shift world public opinion. The attacks themselves are marketing campaigns. They have, in today’s world, evolved into a highly orchestrated ‘ad campaign of terror.’ This terror is not a by-product of the current Jihad but rather a critical component of its overall structure. It is the multinational design of ISIS that separates it from all historical predecessors - whether IRA, the Italian Red Brigades or Baader-Meinhof. To overlook the corporate vision behind their madness would be a fatal error.

TERROR’S POP STARS
While Jihad's traditional channels of distribution have included radical Imams and those operating under the cover of given mosques, today their main means of promotion has become the internet. It is in this virtual arena that the role models, opinion leaders and governing hopefuls of ISIS are born. While the new kingpins of horror may be motivated by distorted religious ideology, the key to their success is as vapid as that of their pop cultural counterparts. It is sex appeal, the promise of adventure, and the illusion of power and fame.

Understanding Jihad from a marketing perspective provides us newer tools with which to confront the threat. As Anat Hochberg-Marom insists, “The West must acknowledge that we are in a battle of ideas and the war we are waging is for the souls and minds of mainstream Muslims and western youth.”

The good news, as Hochberg-Marom explains, is that our knowledge of e-marketing is vast. It is a discipline we are not only familiar with but it is one that we have successfully deployed in the world of business time and time again. Leveraging our expertise in marketing is a necessary move, and it is one that would provide us with a more long term and efficient way of winning this war.

It does not take much for me to be reminded that the world of business and marketing have indulged in warlike terminology for years. We have had our share of ‘headhunters’, ‘hostile takeovers’, ‘corporate spies’ and ‘ corporate raiders’. Our Gordon Gekko’s have often come complete with their copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War while dressing themselves in military visions of grandeur prior to each battle. Perhaps the time has come to realize that while the language of war may have pervaded business – becoming a facile if inaccurate metaphor for self-anointed Napoleons - it is our business acumen that may provide us with an ideal way of defeating global terror.

In a world where corporate minded Jihadists wage ad-conscious campaigns of terror, perhaps it is time we prepare ourselves for an ideological battle fought on the frontline of marketing. With perspicacious and vibrant women like Anat Hochberg-Marom at the helm, we may yet be able to build a formidable army of copywriters, art directors and social media experts capable of marching into battle against fundamentalist propaganda. Armed with slogans, graphics and a solid marketing strategy, we have the intellectual capacity to win this war. Our creativity may just prove to be our best long-range weapon when it comes to driving terror out of business.

Annie Leibovitz reinvents the Calendar Girl in a feminist tour de force

By Rory Winston

“Photographs shock insofar as they show something novel,” commented Susan Sontag while also coming to the conclusion that ‘capitalist society requires a culture based on images in order to stimulate buying while anaesthetising the injuries of class, race and sex.’ It should come as little surprise then that the late great writer’s former life partner, world renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz, has managed to produce a series of calendar girl pictures that manage to shock precisely by avoiding the commodification of women’s bodies.

In an all-out departure from the given genre, Leibovitz created what can best be described as an ‘anti-pin-up girl series’ that celebrates remarkable women for their accomplishments and inner strength. Deconstructing the prestigious Pirelli calendar, Leibovitz gives us 13 important women (only one of whom is presented in the nude).

Although confounding expectations has been a staple of Leibovitz’s work from as early as 1981 - when her Rolling Stone cover contained a naked and embryonic John Lennon curled in the arms of a fully clothed Yoko Ono - this is the first times that Pirelli’s highly exclusive mailing list will be receiving photographs that eschew eroticism in favor of content. Over the years, Pirelli has allowed their photographers to break with tradition – a good example being when Karl Lagerfeld used his own male muse Baptiste Giabiconi to star as Apollo in his 2011 mythological rendition. And while 2013 did have Steve McCurry show how the organic beauty of a Rio de Janeiro fruit seller was as sensual as anything executed by well-trained supermodels, this is the first time that the calendar is devoid of any taint of sexually exploitative matter. As Leibovitz told Vogue magazine, “Perhaps clothed women are going to have their moment.”

These clothed women include none other than Annie Leibovitz herself. Besides her, there is Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Serena Williams, Tavi Gevinson, Ava DuVernay, Yao Chen, Mellody Hobson, Shirin Neshat, Agnes Gund, Kathleen Kennedy, Natalia Vodianova, and the one nude, comedian Amy Schumer who tweeted, “Beautiful, gross, strong, thin, fat, pretty, ugly, sexy, disgusting, flawless, woman. Thankyou @annieleibovitz.”

So besides, artist Yoko Ono, rock legend Patti Smith and tennis star Serena Williams, it would behoove us to know the others on Leibovitz’s list of female greats.

Born in 1996, Tavi Gevinson was named amongst the top 25 most influential teens of 2014 by Forbes. Starting with a fashion blog Style Rookie at the age of 12, Tavi soon shifted focus from purely aesthetic concerns to ones of feminism and pop culture. As a writer and editor-in-chief, Tavi has extended her repertoire to include acting and singing. It’s unlikely her role will be limited to one of one-time wunderkind.

Director and screenwriter Ava DuVernay is responsible for Selma, a film that garnered a Golden Globe Award – the first ever to be given to a black female director. In addition, she was the first black woman to be nominated for Academy Award for best Picture. Along with Oprah Winfrey, she created and executive produced the upcoming drama series Queen Sugar while also executive producing the pilot to CBS’S civil rights crime drama For Justice.

Yao Chen is not only a Chinese actress with the largest number of fans but someone who has protested her government’s censorship and has actively engaged in attempts to change the status quo. From work with refugees to being a proponent of free press she is an activist who has brought much needed attention to many a worthy cause.

Power business executive, Mellody Hobson is a self-made success who is both President of Ariel investments – one of the largest African American mutual fund companies - as well as the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Dreamworks Animation. Serving on the board of the Chicago Public Education Fund, the Sundance Institute and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, she is active in a wide range of areas while simultaneously holding the tile of director at both Starbucks Corporation and The Estée lauder Companies inc.

NYC-based Iranian artist, Shirin Neshat is renowned for her bold studies, receiving attention as far back as 1993 for her early photographic work Unveiling and Women of Allah – works that explore feminism within the realm of Islamic fundamentalism. Turning to film early on, Neshat’s oeuvre evolved to include both cinema as well as visual art employing the medium of film. Her directorial debut Women Without Men won 2009’s Golden Lion at the Venice film Festival. Beyond representing the ongoing ideological war between the secular world and Islam, Neshat portrays the endless struggle of human rights attempting to surface from under otherwise hostile and repressive regimes.

Philanthropist, patron of the arts and collector, Agnes Gund has devoted years of her life to women’s issues, environmental concerts and art. As President Emerita of MOMA and chairperson of the International Council, she is an Obama nominated member of the Board of Trustees of the National Council of the Arts.

American film producer Kathleen Kennedy is a major force in Hollywood with over 60 films and 120 Academy Award nominations to her credit. From raiders of the Lost Ark to E.T. to films such as Schindler’s List and Munich, Kennedy is not only a regular in the Spielberg franchise but someone who sits on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The rags-to-riches Supernova – Natalia Vodianova – is a supermodel who devotes a great deal of time to philanthropy, having founded the Naked Heart Foundation – an organization that provides safe and inspiring environments for children in urban Russia while supporting families who raise children that suffer from disabilities. Besides the myriad of charities she is involved with, she is someone who has successfully inspired many others to get more involved. Having been awarded Harper Bazaar’s Inspiration of the Year Award in both 2010 and 2013, she has also been honored as the Voice of Children at the 2014 Glamour Woman of the Year event.

As for sublime body studies with a self-referential edge, there is Serena Williams standing poised on top of her own image – one that was taken, incidentally, by Leibovitz for Vogue’s April Cover.

Susan Sontag in her book On Photography noted, “The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.” Looking at Leibovitz’s Pirelli calendar, it is clear that a lot more is being disclosed in each image than the subjects themselves. What we are witnessing in these black and white portraits is the innate power, vision and dignity of women who have dared to follow a course of their own choosing. While the photographs themselves do their job of disclosing, it is the women being represented therein who continue to construct. They construct their own lives as well as constructing the very fabric of a better world in which to live. Playing off the sexist tradition of stereotypical Calendar Girls, Annie Leibowitz brings us Calendar Women - the postergirls for values of which all of us can be proud.

Reprinted with the permission of the New York Resident Magazine

HALF-GEORGIAN HALF-RUSSIAN, ALEX POP SPEAKS FLUENT MUSIC

By Rory Winston

Joseph Conrad, Vladimir Nabokov… Not only had some brilliant English writers hailed from non-English speaking countries but a gifted few had even managed to surpass their native counterparts in terms of eloquence and nuance. So why was I surprised. Why did it seem strange – in a medium that didn’t even depend on a spoken language – to find someone from a remote region of the world who could ‘outBrit' the Brits in their own pop idiom? And why did it take me five extra months to discover something I would have known right away had I simply listened to a loyal member of my radio audience. But there you have it. Preconceptions. Prejudices… Just enough reservations that even after I heard the electrifyingly catchy song Wanna be your Man, I’d still hold back a few extra weeks before really giving into the world of Alex Pop.

A few months back, I spoke on air about how absurd it was that we know so little about what’s going on in terms of pop music in a region as large as Russia. Minutes later, a listener called in to say that if I was genuinely interested in familiarizing myself with a truly multi-talented artist from that part of the world, I should check out the half-Russian half-Georgian Alexander Ross-Iver whose Alex Pop Project was one of the more exciting things presently going on.

Though I prided myself on being relatively open-minded, my imagination immediately culled forth images of ancient folk instruments playing in an abandoned hall where some long forgotten Eurovision type contest had once taken place. I could almost hear the Chuniri and Abkharza doing eclectic jazz-meets-ethno fusion riffs. After all, aside from world music and classical, the only contemporary act I was able to associate with Georgia was the alternative psychedelic indie rock artist, Sophie Villy – a minor celebrity with esoteric hipster appeal, one who left my colleague smitten after a concert at the Bitter End. Remove the elusive Georgian siren from the picture, and my mind drew a blank as regards contemporary pop music from that part of the world.

I could not have been less prepared for what I was about to encounter in the media-savvy form of Alexander Ross-Iver, the artist responsible for the lucidly warped and beautifully dysfunctional realm known as the Alex Pop Project. As the brainchild of Ross-Iver, the Alex Pop Project is a parallel universe where a carefree anarchist Alex Pop juxtaposes over-the-top romanticism with playful irony, flamboyant glam rock motifs with a dressed-down minimalism, and happy hippie moments with R&B vocal flourish; the result being: a catchy Brit pop sensibility infused with an experimental electro edge.

But it would be a mistake to dismiss Alex Pop as being merely Alexander Ross-Iver’s id at work when, in fact, the elusive superhero could just as easily represent an alter ego for our own self-conscious age. Describing his métier as that of an anti-serious composer, Alex’s vision is in line with Nabokov’s comment that “the evolution of sense is in a sense the evolution of nonsense.” Offering forth nostalgia without the overdose of retro aesthetics,’ Alex refuses to play it safe. There is no ‘kitsch in quotation marks’, no calculated homage to an earlier time when art had a political message. Alex is a self-confident creature who doesn’t seem to give a damn whether critics believe he is being ironic or not. Nevertheless, for all the individuality, it was hard not to notice an ongoing allusion to iconic British forerunners like Placebo and airier Nordic artists like Ólafur Arnalds . Where were those references coming from and why the distinctly non-Slavic tendencies?

ZERO GRAVITY
Several years ago, I had a long conversation with Yann Tiersen, the renowned composer behind Amelie. Being interested in his oeuvre, I asked him whether French bands such as Indochine, Taxi Girl, Parabellum had left an impression on him. Giving me a quick once-over, he laughing confided, “Not even slightly” before going on to explain how he didn’t even know about Erik Satie, Michel Legrand or (Belgian) Jacques Brel till much later on in his life. As it turned out, Tiersen’s influences were bands like The Clash, Nirvana and Einstürzende Neubauten. Being from Brittany, he, in fact, had almost a mild aversion to anything from the mainland. Like Yann Tiersen, Ross-Iver had – from very early on – a cultivated taste for music that was very distinct from his geographical location.

For Ross-Iver avowed influences included Brian Eno, Phillip Glass, The Knife, Kraftwerk, Yello, through to Yonderboi and La Dusselldorf. With a band-like dynamics recalling (Sebastian Gainsborough) Vessel’s Punish Honey, Ross-Iver’s is less about riding a single genre to the end than about finding a musical fit for a given mood.

As with Ten Walls and Olof Björn Dreijer there is a cinematic essence in much of Ross-Iver’s work - one that creates its own space, one capable of absorbing quirky alternative motifs and making sense of them within a cohesive dramatic soundscape. This strategy works out well in songs like Fire Inside – a collaborative effort between Alex Pop, Icelandic indie producer/songwriter Gisli Kristjansson and Norwegian singer/songwriter Eliza Newman (formerly of Bellatrix). Having heard a rather progressive Alex Pop composition entitled Haused 2, Kristjansson thought the piece would prove perfectly suitable for an ambitious but radio-friendly alt pop song, the result: a 'James Bond rollercoaster' of a ride through a Sia-esque ethereal vocal landscape. Harnessing an aerial feel akin to Andrew-TVOTR-Sitek’s lush harmonic realm and bringing it into an icier minimalism akin to Oni Ayhun, the song makes use of both grittier industrial elements as well as transcendent vocal spheres.

More recently, Ross-Iver went on to create a song that features none other than the legendary Les McKeown of Bay City Rollers renowned. Wanna be your Man is a catchy U2-meets-Alan Wilder’s Recoil with a bit of punk attitude thrown in for good measure. Sung with utter abandon, the song’s hooks and élan make it feel like a fun-loving ode to the glories of adolescent lust. Neither camp enough to be written off as a genre piece nor earnest enough to pass for post-ironic posturing, the mood teeters precariously between two eras – a makeshift world wherein the McKeown of the 80’s continues uninhibitedly to thrive within a contemporary mise en scène. As the video itself indicates, McKeown remains his laidback self - older but luckily no wiser, swaggering down the yellow brick road of virility. Unabashedly smelling of teen spirit, McKeown like the production reeks of confidence. It neither hides the 80’s influence nor does it fetishize it. It is simply comfortable in its own skin and has the groove to prove it.

In reality, one common denominator in Alex Pop’s repertoire is a sense of swing. Never lacking in rhythm or tension, his tracks have dynamics throughout. From funk-infused sections to Jazzier asides, his songs inspire movement. Stringing together a battery of distorted vocal samples, he creates a uniquely organic atmosphere whose industrial edged moments remain free of the angst typically associated with that genre. Ross-Iver is what Trent Reznor might have sounded like had his therapist been Nicolas Godin of Air.

Beyond the music, there is another aspect to the Alex Pop phenomenon. It is the establishment and maintenance of two complementary websites whose premise can best be likened to an ongoing concept album. One of the sites called UKTop40Charts.com appears as though it were an official unbiased top-of-the-charts site (such as Billboard.com, officialcharts.com, or the ones provided by Voice, MTV, and BBC respectively) while weirdmusic.net reads like a label’s website – one whose focus is electronic, experimental, alternative and indie music. Besides being promotional venues, the sites are filled with interviews where Ross-Iver gives us the up-close-and-personal perspective of both upcoming and established artists.

In an industry where recognition depends as much on contacts and generating attention as it does on talent alone, Ross-Iver has turned himself into everything from his own publicity magazine to being his own product. Like those golden Hollywood figures of lore, Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer, Ross-Iver has created a parallel universe wherein he could become his own greatest discovery without once having to compromise the caliber of his art. The ingenuity and creativity involved with this feat is a testament to both his vision and his perseverance. With noteworthy mentions and rave reviews from many of the most lauded names in the industry, Ross-Iver is finally beginning to receive the kind of acclaim he has long deserved.

Having recently teamed up with producer John McLaughlin (Westlife, Calvin Harris, Emeli Sande etc.) to create a new brand of indie-pop, the Alex Pop Project is also in the works on a new album with the chart-topping team of Christophe Chantzis (LeAnn Rimes, Ace of Base, Dee Dee etc.) and Erik Vanspauwen. With scientists rather than musicians for parents, Ross-Iver is a one man laboratory whose art runs the range from electronic music to hitmaker to film score composer to producer to magazine owner to journalist to digital artist and painter. In short, Alex Pop has made music his nationality and experimentation his permanent place of residence. Nabokov is quoted saying that “a writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist.” As the son of a scientist, Ross-Iver can easily one-up Nabokov by claiming that a composer’s precision and imagination is enough to create a language free of nationality and one that is understood by all.

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