Philippines prison dancers’ best Michael Jackson tribute

I know it’s several months late, but I didn’t see a lot of sites spreading this around. Back in 2007, after the prison in Cebu, Philippines started using dance as a way to rehabilitate its prisoners by having them participate in a group creative endeavor and letting them perform for visitors, a video of the inmates grooving in the prison yard to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” became a runaway sensation on YouTube — as of this writing, there are a mind-boggling 34,505,236 views and counting.

They’ve danced since then to rock, classical, R&B and Filipino music. The prison’s security consultant, Byron F. Garcia, the man who came up with the idea, even has a byronfgarcia YouTube channel where he shares the prisoners’ awesome performances.

But the coolest and most moving of them might be the above 10-minute tribute to Michael Jackson, which was choreographed and rehearsed in a 10-hour-straight session after the prisoners heard about his death, and performed performed on June 27 (Jackson died June 25 in the U.S., but it was June 26 in the Philippines by then).

It’s a testament to Garcia’s progressive thinking on rehabilitating criminals, that these men (and some women, who are in a separate wing) can pull together and create what are essentially great performance art. Back in 2007, on the video of the Pointers Sisters’ “Jump,” Garcia notes, “This is a tribute to all Prison facilities in the Philippines (8 and counting) who are now adopting this non-violent approach to rehabilitation! Thank you, inmates deserve a second chance! If we make prisons a living hell for them, then we might just be sending out devils once they are released. Cruel methods to achieve discipline are a thing of the past! So, keep on dancing!”

Here are the original “Thriller” video, and a performance of “Dangerous” (you can click to see all the videos of the inmates, and subscribe to them on Garcia’s YouTube Channel page): Continue reading

“Lumina” Asian American/Canadian online web thriller filmed in Hong Kong debuts

"Lumina" is an online-only series, an independently-filmed thriller written and produced by Asian American Jennifer Thym in Hong Kong.

You’ve gotta love the Internet. I was contacted some weeks back by Jennifer Thym, the Asian American writer and director of “Lumina,” a new online-only thriller serial debuting this summer.

The movie project features an Asian American lead as well as Asian Canadian actors, and the whole thing is filmed in Hong Kong, where Thym has lived for the past two years.

The trailer certainly is cool and mysterious and makes me want to see the series kick off (I subscribed to the email alerts from YouTube whenever a new installment is posted):

Here’s what she says about the project on her Rock Ginger blog: Continue reading