LIFESTYLE36 TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2015 Features Gloria and Emilio Estefan celebrate immigrants in musical

ith some US presidential candidates on the campaign trail demonizing immi- Wgrants, a powerhouse husband-and- wife team, who both happen to be immigrants themselves, hope they can offer some balance - and some pop songs. Gloria Estefan and her hus- band, Emilio, are shepherding their musical biography “On Your Feet!” to Broadway this fall. It’s a show that celebrates two Cuban-Americans who embraced the American Dream and now own enough Grammy Awards to fill a swimming pool. “We’ve been around long enough already to South African artist Lehlohonolo Mkhasibe points at a collective artwork have gone through several election cycles. Every done for the Soweto Theatre. —AFP photos single time, fear gets brought into the equation,” said Gloria Estefan. “This is a great balance because we need to remind people, ‘Hey, we’re just people.’” The musical uses the Estefan hits “1- 2-3,” “Turn the Beat Around” and “Conga” to tell Cow dung and old tyres the story of how the budding singer and pro- ducer met, battled for crossover success, han- dled interfamily squabbles and overcame a bus crash that nearly claimed Gloria’s life. It’s the spe- inspire South African cific story of two people who fled the country of their birth, made a new life in Miami and rose to the top of the music world. But the Estefans say township artists it’s a celebration of immigration for a nation of immigrants. File photo shows Gloria Estefan, left, and Emilio Estefan pose for photos at the 68th annual Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall in New York. —AP Mexican and Muslim immigrants “It doesn’t matter where you come from. life. Do what you think is best for you,” he said, moments. She walked in and there was just Unless you’re a Native American Indian, you’re laughing. something. Then she sang. She didn’t particular- not from here. Somewhere down the road, you The team they’ve assembled is impressive, ly sound like me but it didn’t matter because we came from somewhere else,” said Gloria Estefan, including “Kinky Boots” director Jerry Mitchell, were drawn in.” who has sold over 100 million albums. “It’s “Memphis” choreographer Sergio Trujillo and It was only after Villafane got the job that always the last person in that gets bashed.” “On book writer Alexander Dinelaris, who wrote the Gloria learned the young woman was half- Your Feet!” comes as some Republican candi- “Birdman” screenplay. (“I’m glad we got him Cuban, raised in Miami and even attended her dates for the White House have slammed before he won the Oscar or else we wouldn’t high school, Our Lady of Lourdes Academy. “She Mexican and Muslim immigrants. “One thing have been able to afford him,” jokes Gloria knew culturally where I come from,” Estefan said, those people don’t realize is that we don’t take Estefan.) Finding the actor to play Emilio was The musical, which will have seven members of this country for granted. We want to make a con- easy. Josh Segarra, on Broadway in “Lysistrata Miami Sound Machine in the orchestra, will also tribution,” said Emilio Estefan, who has guided Jones,” won the role at the initial readings. (“He’s feature an original song with lyrics by Gloria and the careers of such luminaries as Shakira, Ricky so good-looking that Emilio didn’t want to look music by their daughter, Emily. Emily Estefan, Martin and Jennifer Lopez. anywhere else,” Gloria Estefan said.) who will be 21 in December, is a dead-ringer for While they acknowledge their life story hasn’t her mom and attends the Berklee College of included typical dramatic fodder for a musical - a ‘Magic City Memoirs’ Music. She recently surprised her parents with descent into drugs, say, or infidelity or murder - Landing the right actress to play Gloria was news that she had quietly written and recorded the Estefans think it will connect with audiences. harder and it came down to the wire. The winner an album in her Boston apartment. “I’m in awe of “We haven’t led controversial lives, but it’s was Ana Villafane, who appeared in the film her,” said her proud mother. If she sings and human. Everybody’s going to identify with “Magic City Memoirs” and who initially audi- looks like mom, why not ask Emily to play her somebody on that stage,” said Gloria Estefan. tioned via video. “Ultimately, what it came down mom in the show? Gloria asked her daughter Emilio Estefan hopes some of it can be inspiring. to was not somebody who was going to be my exactly that and got this response: “Are you kid- In high school, he asked a teacher if he could clone at all. I wanted somebody who could inter- ding me? I’d have to kiss my dad. It’s too weird.” learn music but was told he was too old. “I won pret my life,” said Gloria Estefan, who is a seven- That made sense to Gloria: “I thought about it 19 Grammys. So don’t let anybody change your time Grammy winner. “It was one of those and said, ‘You’re right.’” —AP

South African artist Lehlohonolo Mkhasibe stands by one of his sculptures at FUNDA art foundation. That New York twang: Nashville calls on Big Apple schools

s the Bronx middle scholars based out of the Country Music Hall Paisley, Paul Simon and Carrie Full backpacks harmonized in their auditori- of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Underwood. “It’s not different for whoever Aum and plucked out basic which provides a curriculum for For many of the New York kids, you’re writing with. It’s about get- chords on ukuleles and guitars, in both music and language arts country music was unfamiliar territo- ting them to talk,” she said. “And walked their music instructor, Liz teachers to develop language skills ry. Corey Stuckey, 12, said he has then I would ask them questions Rose - a Grammy-award winning through the art of songwriting. been inspired to write songs in the and put a line together.” country songwriter from Nashville. past by hip-hop and R&B artists such Ultimately they wrote: Rose has penned tracks for some of Education programs as R Kelly and Ludacris. But now he is “Everybody’s Perfect,” an homage the biggest names in the business, The Country Music Association opening up to country, too. “I like to the difficulties of life at a new including Taylor Swift. But on this Foundation wanted to bring the two country music because of the tone school. Moesha Masters, 11, recent fall day, she helped 19 stu- together, and the program was born. of it,” the seventh-grader said. “It’s helped come up with the inspira- dents write an original tune called tion for the title. “I moved a lot “Everybody’s Perfect.” and it was hard making friends,” “Y’all are awesome,” Rose said as she said. “And I realized I’m not she approached the stage. “Y’all perfect. But after I looked at that I made me cry.”Country music and realized everyone’s perfect in oth- New York City don’t go hand in er ways.” “Ice cream, money and South African artist Mzi Gojo stands in his studio among his artworks at the glove; the city has only one country MetroCards and full backpacks FUNDA art foundation. radio station, which came on the air and school is hard!” the students two years ago after a 17-year sang. With lots of oohs and aahs n land that is both a marshy field no art shop in Soweto. We don’t have the drought. Nonetheless, Music City and an upbeat, catchy melody, the and a rubbish dump in the town- money. So we had to come up with an musicians are partnering with a students’ song emulated more the Oship of Soweto, artist Mzi Gojo is alternative way,” said Lehlohonolo nonprofit that is providing music contemporary pop-country of looking for a special material to use in his Mkhasibe, one of the group’s founding education in New York City schools Taylor Swift than the old-country latest work-cow dung. “The good thing members. “We wanted to create a new to help boost it as a core subject. twang. about summer is that the cow dung is language, away from the conventional The students at Pelham Gardens Peter Pauliks, director of pro- very green and it stays very green on my techniques created by the old masters,” Middle School in the Bronx are grams for Education through canvas,” he explains. Gojo is a member of he said, dressed in a black beret and among 500 students in 15 schools Music, urged the students at the Ubuhle Bobuntu (“beauty of humanity” wearing circular John Lennon-style glass- around the city to participate; they rehearsal to enunciate every word in Zulu), a group of artists who use recy- es. “I was so stressed (after I left school). It receive 10 lessons on how to write so that a diverse audience would cled materials and experimental tech- is so hard to find linocard. I could not buy lyrics, and one class in each school understand the song’s message. has a videoconference session with In this photo, Liz Rose, center, a Grammy-award winning coun- “In Nashville, I don’t think they niques to express their own lives in mod- any. I had to think outside of the box.” a musician in Nashville. try music songwriter from Nashville, rehearses a song with even have MetroCards,” he remind- ern South Africa. The 12 artists are all Mkhasibe, who uses his garage as a The Nashville-New York connec- students at Pelham Gardens Middle School in the Bronx bor- ed them. from Soweto, the former heartland of the studio, spent months developing a tech- tion is made through the Country ough of New York. —AP Kyle Young, chief executive offi- violent struggle against apartheid that nique in which he stacks strips of old car Music Association Foundation, cer of the Country Music Hall of has now developed into a sprawling tyres together to create a canvas and which began in 2006 to help fund Rose, who won a Grammy with Swift kind of like reggae, but it’s different Fame, says he was moved when he town of brick houses and tin-roofed then cuts into the material to create a music education programs in for best country song in 2010 for because it’s more calming.” Rose said saw the students from the Bronx shanks outside Johannesburg. black and white image. It is a method Nashville and is branching out “White Horse,” first met her students she applied the same techniques she onstage at All for the Hall, dressed Gojo, 33, carefully mixes the dung in that earned a commission from Austrian across the country. In recent years, over Skype. Rose helped them write uses when collaborating with profes- in their blue school uniforms water-and adds a little bit of glue-to energy drinks company Red Bull. For it has donated to the New York- the lyrics for the song, which they sionals. She had the students shout under T-shirts for Words & Music achieve the variety of colors and textures Victor Mofokeng, bread can be trans- based nonprofit Education Through performed this past week at All for out whatever was on their minds, and Education Through Music. needed to produce his mysterious, ele- formed into the perfect means of artistic Music, which helps provide music the Hall, a benefit concert for educa- and they said things like, older kids “This is why we go to work every gant abstract paintings. As well as a nor- expression by molding it or toasting it, education to all students in 50 low- tion programs at the Country Music are tall, ice cream and hallways. She day,” he said. “It’s not about the mal brush, he uses a broken comb, a and the stale loaves thrown away by income elementary and middle Hall of Fame and Museum at the quickly jotted down everything they genre, it’s about giving kids an blade or a piece of plastic grid. “Cow supermarkets produce a vivid green. schools in all five city boroughs. It Best Buy Theater in Times Square. said and then started to place the opportunity to express themselves dung is like a soccer ball. I can control it,” One of his painting uses a stunning also works with Words & Music, Students shared the stage with Brad words together like puzzle pieces. and create.” —AP he told AFP, wearing an immaculate spectrum of subtle colors to depict white shirt and brown chinos on his youngsters who brandish banners read- search through wasteland and stagnant ing “No work, No food”. The intriguing water for the exactly right droppings. techniques and production of Ubuhle Oscar winner Annaud slams Academy for China film block “Winter cow dung makes a nice brown Bobuntu have attracted increasing atten- (color). Calf dung is yellowish because tion since it launched in 2011, with exhi- cclaimed film director and Oscar win- his attempts to raise a wolf in captivity. AFP by telephone: “I believe that the selec- they only drink milk, but it is so hard to bitions already held in Soweto and at the ner Jean-Jacques Annaud furiously It was filmed in China using Chinese tion committee completely forgot the impor- get it here. “I was using this material “Museum Africa” in Johannesburg. This Adenounced the Academy Award actors, and Chinese media reported widely tance of actors in a film. It’s the same as when I was young. I used to clean the year, the group’s best-known artist organizers yesterday after he said they that it would be the country’s 2016 candidate ignoring the content of the film. “I am stupe- house, and we used dung to make huts. Pauline Mazibuko, who works with recy- ordered his Sino-French co-production “Wolf for Best Foreign Language Film. But Annaud fied,” he said. “Suddenly, the rules changed. It It reminds me of the good times,” said cled magazines to make colorful col- Totem” out of the running for being insuffi- cited a letter from the Academy as telling was almost a banana republic-level of arbi- Gojo, whose paintings sell for between lages, exhibited her work in Santa Fe, ciently Chinese. Annaud told AFP he was “stu- him: “When we looked at the creative make- trariness.” The Academy picks nominees for 5,000 and 50,000 rand ($370 and $3,700). New Mexico. For Charles Nkosi, the pefied” by the last-minute move and accused up of Wolf Totem and realised that the direc- the foreign-language Oscar from submissions enthusiastic head of fine arts at the the Hollywood-based Academy of Motion tor, two of the three writers, one of the pro- from individual countries, which can only put ‘An alternative way’ Funda art college school in Soweto, the Picture Arts and Sciences of a “banana repub- ducers, the DOP (director of photography), forward one movie each year. Chinese con- Every artist in Ubuhle Bobuntu has group represents an approach that says lic level of arbitrariness”. Wolf Totem, shot in the editor and the composer were not tenders are chosen by the secretive State their own technique and recycles what- much about how people live today. Mandarin and Mongolian, is based on a semi- Chinese, we determined that the film could Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, ever they can best exploit for their work: “They are reinventing the world and autobiographical novel recounting a “sent- not qualify as a Chinese entry.” Film and Television, which is also in charge of plastic bottle caps, burnt matches and beautifying it with what people dismiss,” down” youth’s time among nomads in Inner Annaud-who previously won the same media censorship in the Communist-ruled even old bread or human hair. “There is he said. —AFP Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution, and Oscar with a 1976 film for the Ivory Coast-told country. —AFP