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Native creativity

Sunday Times

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C & C - Lawyers Office

Partners:Rui J. Da Cunha*

lvaro Rodrigues* Nuno S. da Mata*Zhao Lu* Connie Kong

* Notary China Appointed Attesting Officer

www.ccadvog.com

Trainee Lawyers:Maria A. Giestas

Eullia SouzaCarlos S. FerreiraOctvio Tavares

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02 August 2009

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18 World of Wonder 28 Offbeat This Day in History

29 Infotainment

34 Zoomby Diana do Mar

Universal Yoga Asia Ltd. Av.do Infante D. Henrique, 43-53A, second floor, Macau Square, MacauPhone number (853) 2899 5599 Fax number (853) 2899 5533http://www.universal-yoga-asia.com/

Cover story

4Native creativityby Antnio Espadinha Soares

26Ask the Vet

Spaying and neutering your pets

by Dr Ruan Du Toit Bester

16by

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10Do you know Macau?

Macau Grand PrixA Different Car Racing

Sport by Chris W. C. Sam

32 Yoga and Capoeira

For kids by Torey Lee Farmer

12Medellin is (also)a city of fashion

shows

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From Macau to Lisbon

Castles, Vampires and Stray Dogs

by Rui Freitas

31Law & People

Alteration of the Criminal Imputability

Regime and Its Effects in the Criminal Record

by Iclia Berenguel

Sunday Times

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M acaus gambling industry is the epicen-tre of the territorys economy. It has been for the last few decades, and will probably keep on being the central pil-lar around which every other economic activity in town is structured upon. In hopes of diversify-ing the local economy the government has been invest-ing money into several areas, namely the arts sector, in an attempt to promote Macaus creative sector not only in the territory, but on the international stage.

Besides some of the bigger names and initiatives, some entrepreneurial young people have also taken the per-sonal initiative to promote themselves and Macaus creative talent in the territory and on the regional and international stage. The group Macau Creatives (MC) is one such initiative, a group of Macau resi-dents, many of whom are from different parts of the world, who took it upon themselves to come up with marketable projects that could help establish and promote a creative industries market in Macau.

Teething pains

Sio Ng, the originator of the project, was in-terviewed by the Macau Daily Times and talked about the roots of the association, how it began, developed, and what it has now shaped itself into.A Macau native, Sio worked as a

freelancer for numerous types of multi-media projects, and at the time of the interview was wait-ing to take up a new university position. In 2005, while living in the UK, she started an on-line group in the so-cial networking site Friendster. Follow-ing that, she created a blog and started sending images and messages to all the different creative Macau people she found online, asking them to post their work on her blog so that it

Native creativityby Antnio Espadinha Soares

02 August 2009

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Salsa Night co-organizer Lionel Hun

Native creativitycould be showcased together. It consisted of basically, Macau peo-ple from around the world.

At that time, Sio was working as a multimedia designer in the UK. When she began gathering with her friends online she realized that if they were to have a real network, instead of yet another random on-line group, theyd have to cooper-ate in a project together. In order to take advantage of all of the groups creative talent it was decided that

a short film would probably be the best way to utilize everyones skills in a productive way. Fashion de-signers can work on the costumes, and photographers can work on the camera, and everyone can join she said.

Things didnt get off to a com-pletely smooth start however, es-pecially given that no one was will-ing to write the script, a job that Sio took upon herself to complete. Myself, and my other online friend

started working on the script and eventually, another girl joined, and by that time I called a meeting, al-though I was in the UK. The peo-ple who were in Macau had some kind of pre-production meeting in Macau and then in Christmas of 2005 we had a little pre-produc-tion work. Then I came back, and we started shooting our very first project, Macau Xmas 2005, and it was shot during that period, she said. And after that, actually I

The association was able to screen their short

documentary several times in Macau and abroad.

Sunday Times

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never packed my stuff up at home so I never meant to come back, and then when we were finished here, we thought maybe we should show it to people to find out whether [the movie was] good or not. This is a project of networking. So we reg-istered the group in 2006, in sum-mer, in June.

The fruits of labour

The registration as a formal as-sociation came out of the desire to showcase their work in an ap-propriate venue such as the Macau Cultural Centre, and for that they could not submit the film as the work of an informal group of indi-viduals. Sio said, not only did they

need a venue, but a proper set-up as well, so by registering as an as-sociation they were able to make use of the established infrastruc-ture. Afterwards they produced the films DVD and were able to get it screened in Macau an additional three times in two different venues, after which Sio said they went to a University in Taiwan and in China to screen the short film for educa-tional purposes. The film was also played in several film festivals in the European Union.

The short film that we did is about finding someone who has the same goals as you. We have difficulty as creative workers in Macau, but when you cooperate with someone else you find out that you want to

do it together. And thats why our associations slogan is Together we make magic. Basically were a liv-ing collective force. Were a multi-media cultural force which encom-passes individuals from different disciplines.

In their second year, the asso-ciation published a book. It talks essentially of Macau. People, loca-tions; things that are disappearing. And we also have a website regard-ing the music for this book and the documentary said Sio. The book, Untitled Chapters, is commercial-ly available in several book shops throughout not only Macau, but also through distributors in Taiwan and Hong Kong. This commercial success has helped them in achiev-

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Some of Macau Creatives native talent shooting video for the Inside Out DVD.

Recording facilities such

as these were made

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association by friends of some of the

members.

02 August 2009

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ing the associations established goal of undertaking an inter-nationally marketable project every year.

Their third project was a concert named Inside Out, of which there is a CD/DVD set available for sale throughout Macau. At the time, Sio said that the association pro-moted the event heav-ily, which she credits for its popularity at the time. But part of it might have also been due to the content of the songs. According to Sio, Inside Out, the CD/DVD content, is not only a CD with a certain number of songs, but each song actually depicts issues, or situations cur-rently affecting Macau. Basically its about all Macau things, from teens to families, to traffic prob-lems, to us, certain topics, about life in Macau. And we have an art book which consists of illustra-tions, comments, creative writing and short stories.... According to Inside Outs website, the album consists of eight tracks in a wide ranging gamut of music genres. The DVD contains seven music videos, in differing styles, from a more conventional approach with live action and beautiful scenery to 3D animation, motion graphics and stop motion according to the websites introduction page. The book that accompanies the CD/DVD package has further illustra-tions, photographs and short sto-ries related to the songs.

This year, the association have decided to capitalize on its past work and promote it in the region where its been well received. They will be travelling to Hong Kong and Guangzhou to hold a concert

as well as screen their film, some-thing which they plan to do early this month. Were going to Hong Kong and Guangzhou in the next few months because Inside Out had a really good response after it launched and we have it sell-ing now in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Hong Kong and media in other places are interested enough that were just concentrating on net-working this year, she

said, adding that when they go out-side of Macau to network, they also take advantage of the opportunity to promote the association mem-bers individual work.

The Inside Out CD/DVD and book set available in Macau and throughout Asia,

reflects the concerns of Macaus creative youth.

Sunday Times

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Joint efforts

As with many other associa-tions, MC also receives gov-ernment funding, although i