Home and Beyond is an integrated communication tool for the PETA members, staff and partners of the PETA Mekong Partnership Project. It consists of a weblog and occasional e-newsletter containing project news updates, reflections, journals, messages written for internal reading/sharing of members and alumni of PETA and its Project partners.
Members can share their thoughts and reflections on our practice of theater and cultural work within and beyond the boundaries of our “homes”.
Home and Beyond provides avenues for a more informal exchange and open dialogs among performing artists, theater/drama practitioners, and cultural workers from the Southeast Asia Region to encourage critical reflections and sharing of insights on theater and cultural work.
This also aims to maintain closer communication links and relationships between and among PETA members and Project partners through the sharing of personal experiences, opinions, feedbacks, and reflections on our respective roles as artists.
WRITE IN!
Members, staff, and partners are encouraged to post short articles, their encounters or thoughts on theater praxis and cultural work, and share photos on the weblog.
We request that members, staff, and partners who own Gmail accounts to email us at peta.sea.group@gmail.com, so that we may add you to the list of Contributors. If you are not familiar with posting on a blog, you may also send them via email to peta.sea.group@gmail.com and we shall be the ones to post it for you.
Timely entries will be featured in the occasional Home and Beyond e-newsletter and sent to members and partners of PETA via email.
Friday, 17 July 2009 Breaking Barriers, Converging Arts: The Arts and Media Festival 2009
The Mekong Sub-Region composed of Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam holds the remarkable distinction of being one of Asia’s cultural lifeblood. Its interesting cross-cultural diversity and the rich mix of history and art provide for a great backdrop for organizing the Mekong Arts and Media Festival 2009 this November 23-27 at Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Organized by the Philippine Educational Theater Association – Mekong Partnership Program in conjunction with Phare Ponleu Selpak, Save the Children-UK, and Center for Community Health Research and Development, the Festival is seen as an opportunity for artists, media practitioners, cultural workers, and key players in development work to showcase and exhibit artistic works that have contributed to the development of new, innovative communication channels for advocacy and transforming communities. The Festival is also slated to be one of the highlights and culmination of PETA’s five-year engagement in mobilizing the creative communities in the region using the arts and other creative media as tools for advocacy and development work.
The Festival is a five-day event that will converge the diverse cultures and various art and media forms of Mekong. During the Festival, the arts communities will go center stage and present the range of forms and creative expressions that they have been continuously developing for the past years as alternative tools for advocacy and social transformation.
En route to a new path of meaningful expression by blending arts and media, the Festival hopes to cover the potential range of talents by providing venues for sharing of skills, techniques and building partnerships for collaboration. Delegates and visitors can expect performances, conferences of interest groups, workshops, visual arts and photo essays, short films and documentaries. Special events like the opening and closing parade will feature in full regalia the various cultural symbols and icons of the different countries in the Mekong Region. To get a taste of each culture, a Mekong cultural trade fair will showcase and sell various arts,crafts and products of the participating countries while respected individuals of the Asian art scene will also facilitate the different workshops.To preview what’s in store at the Festival, click this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OgVHPrnRYI.
Full and partial scholarships are available for groups and individuals who are nationals of the Mekong Region. For more details and information on the Festival program, schedule, registration fee and other particulars, please email Festival Secretariat at peta@truemail.co.th or mekong.artsfest2009@gmail.com.
The Mekong Arts and Media Festival 2009 is supported in part by The Rockefeller Foundation, European Union, Japan Foundation, and Heinrich Boell Foundation-Southeast Asia.
Home and Beyond is an integrated communication tool for the PETA members, staff and partners of the PETA Mekong Partnership Project. It consists of a weblog and occasional e-newsletter containing project news updates, reflections, journals, messages written for internal reading/sharing of members and alumni of PETA and its Project partners. 
Members, staff, and partners are encouraged to post short articles, their encounters or thoughts on theater praxis and cultural work, and share photos on the weblog.
