Adib Noor

While there are challenges when it comes to pursuing a passion for music, there are also opportunities if one allows themselves to take the chance, and with enough passion, self-love and determination, there will always be a beacon of hope. Such was the case for up-and-coming local artiste Rofini Zainal.

The R&B and soul inspired singer shared an update on her latest single, while also reflecting on her journey so far.

After her love of singing was showcased at a reality singing competition in Brunei last year, Rofini continued forward in her musical endeavour with the release of her first single and future work with producers from Indonesia.

Looking back, the singer said, “Growing up among musicians, I learnt to play the piano when I was seven. Music provided me a safe space and escape from pressure.”

Her love for singing, however, came later when she was asked to perform for her university in the United Kingdom. After her performance, she realised that singing was her passion and something she could build a career on.

Upon coming back to Brunei, she did not know where to start or how to pursue her passion, and it was eventually swept under the rug.

However, it was in 2022 when an opportunity beckoned in the form of local reality singing competition Bintang Search. Rofini took the chance to chase her dream and ended up as a finalist. From there, she would go on to write her first single Kupilih Diriku.

Her ongoing musical journey has been full of twists and turns, and she has come face to face with multiple rejections, professionally and personally. However, time and time again, the pursuit of embracing her passion gave her the will and motivation to carry on, and helped her learn to love herself above all.

Through her music, “I hope to inspire and motivate by spreading positivity, especially in matters of self-belief, self-love and strong affirmative messages,” she said.

As an artiste, Rofini is influenced by R&B and soul. However, from working on her own music, she is finding her voice in other musical forms such as ballads and pop. Her songs are both meaningful and contemporary.

The young artiste’s music has led her to work with others from outside the Sultanate. Her latest single Masih Ada was written and produced in Jakarta, Indonesia by producer Dennis Nussy, whom Rofini first came into contact with through the mastering of her first single.

“At its core, it is a love song. However, it is one unlike any other,” said Rofini. “The song is a reminder that love does not always come in the form of a significant other. At your lowest point, or even during your greatest wins, look around to see who the constants in your life are, be it grandparents, parents or even friends.”

In terms of current and future plans, the singer shared that she has been spending her time writing music to motivate and encourage the people to love themselves and always make themselves priority.

“It is this determination that pushes me to keep making music, and to inspire other aspiring artistes to chase their dreams.”

MIYAJIMA, JAPAN (AFP) – At a hillside temple, a monk in saffron robes blows a refrain on a conch and begins chanting prayers as thousands of origami cranes donated to Hiroshima burn.

For a decade, the Daisho-in temple on Miyajima island, facing Hiroshima, has held ritual burnings of the millions of origami cranes sent to the city each year.

The ceremony is intended to honour the sentiments folded into each of the miniature paper birds.

And since 2015, the ash from the burned cranes has been used to glaze ceramic incense burners and candle holders, including one given to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky by Japan’s prime minister on a trip to Kyiv.

Cranes have arrived in Hiroshima for decades, inspired by Sadako Sasaki, who was just two when the United States (US) dropped an atomic bomb on the city on August 6, 1945.

She developed leukaemia and in hospital began folding cranes in keeping with a tradition that holds folding 1,000 can make a wish come true.

She died aged 12, one of about 140,000 people killed by the bomb immediately or in the aftermath, and has become a powerful symbol of the bomb’s effects and a popular way to educate children about the attack.

For years, the cranes sent to Hiroshima were simply left at memorials, with municipal cleaners occasionally disposing of them.

It wasn’t until 2012, as the city searched for a better way to handle the cranes, that Kinya Saito of the Nagomi Project, a peace group, proposed ritually burning them.

“I thought about the idea of emotions being released with smoke and sent up to the victims of the atomic bomb,” the Hiroshima native told AFP.

A monk at Daisho-in Yoyu Mimatsu has led the burning ceremony for the past decade.

After blowing the conch, he sits at a table in front of the fire pit and strikes a prayer bowl before beginning chants for the souls of bomb victims.

He also prays “for the emotions and prayers of people from all over the world, the prayers for peace folded into each of the paper cranes, to reach the heavens”, the 57-year-old told AFP.

While Daisho-in was willing to burn the cranes, they weren’t sure what to do with the leftover ash.

They found a solution in Taigendo, a pottery studio that for over 100 years has produced ceramics using sacred sand from under a Miyajima shrine.

The third-generation potter running the studio – Kosai Yamane – was already using ash from an eternal flame burning on Miyajima to glaze his ceramics and was open to using the crane ash in a similar way. It was an artistic project, but also deeply personal for Yamane, whose mother was 14 at the time of the bomb attack.

“She had burn scars on her elbows, and as a child, I never saw her wear anything except long sleeves,” Yamane told AFP.

“She never talked about it. I felt she was trying everything to avoid being noticed, to avoid talking about it.”

Yamane knew immediately the crane ash could not be used to glaze everyday items like cups or bowls.

“I wanted to make something that would convey a message of peace from Hiroshima,” he said.

He settled first on a delicate crane-shaped incense burner, and later began producing candle holders.

They have a dome-like top modelled on the shape of the Children’s Peace Memorial and are etched with cranes.

The candle sits under the dome on a plate glazed with the ash, the glaze helping reflect the light to produce a warm orange glow.

Yamane was shocked but delighted to learn Japanese Prime Minister Kishida presented Zelensky with one on his March visit.

“I felt that people’s message of peace was in the right place,” the 60-year-old said.

“The message gathers in Hiroshima, but it does not come only from Japan, it comes from all over the world, and is brought together when the cranes are burned.”

Group of Seven leaders, including US President Joe Biden, are expected to visit peace sites in Hiroshima during this week’s summit, where Kishida will push for action on nuclear disarmament.

“Hiroshima is now a synonym for peace,” said Saito.

But it is also “a place that directly illustrates how terrifying and horrifying nuclear weapons are”.

“I want the leaders to understand what happened, to listen to what people say.”

THE WASHINGTON POST – For a subset of Disney superfans, preparing for a day at the theme parks means asking, “what would Snow White wear?”

Or maybe Donald Duck. Or Tiana from The Princess and the Frog. Or the iconic Haunted Mansion ride. Or even a theme park garbage can.

Welcome to the creative, colour-blocking, accessory-rich world of Disneybounding, a practice that allows Disney adults to channel their favourite characters, experiences or objects without running afoul of the company’s no-costume rules for grown-ups. Outfits are inspired by characters but use everyday clothes.

Disney parks don’t allow costumes or masks for anyone 14 or older, except at certain special events. Because the company has its own costumed characters that interact with guests, it doesn’t want those likenesses to be misrepresented.

“It’s a fun way to, as an adult, have a similar interaction to what a kid would have when they’re in their costumes,” said Leslie Kay, who coined the DisneyBound term, runs sites devoted to the practice and wrote a book on the topic that was published by Disney in 2020.

Kay, who is in her early 30s, started blogging in 2011 in anticipation of her first Walt Disney World visit as an adult; the name came about because she was bound for Disney.

She started pondering what the character Rapunzel – star of the 2010 animated film Tangled – would wear to the mall, pulled together outfits from fashion websites and posted them on the blog.

That simple beginning has grown into a web presence that now has more than half a million followers on social media, Kay said. On TikTok, the #disneybound hashtag has nearly 770 million views; 1.8 million posts on Instagram use the tag.

A challenge that inspires participants to come up with new theme bounds every day takes place each March.

Though adults can’t go in full costume to parks, Disney sells its own merchandise that can be used for bounding. In response to a question about the trend, a company representative provided a statement embracing the endeavour.

“We are incredibly humbled by the deep connection our fans have with Disney stories, and are blown away by the creativity they show in the love for our brand,” the statement said.

Unlike cosplay, the intricate and true-to-character dress-up seen at events like Comic Con, Disneybounding is generally more subtle.

It can be as simple as choosing shorts and a top in the colors a character is known for, though many bounders says accessorising with jewellery, Mickey Mouse ears or backpacks is key.

A Snow White outfit might include a denim shirt, yellow shorts and apple-shaped purse, while Princess Tiana might wear a green romper with frog jewellery. A trash can? Well, that’s open to creative interpretation.

“Every time I see a trash can Disneybound, you just know that the person has the best personality,” said Kay, who has her own marketing company.

A lecturer at Texas Tech University whose dissertation included a study of Disneybounding Stephanie Williams-Turkowski said she found that princess characters were popular as well as the “fab five” of Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Donald and Daisy. With the opening of Star Wars-themed areas, she said characters from those movies were also big.

“I found that when you recognise somebody and their efforts that they put toward bounding – whether it was on the simplest side of the scale or the most extravagant – it was not only validation to them, but it was also like a nod to a secret club,” said Williams-Turkowski.

Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan are also perennial favourites, Kay said.

“Millennials I find really like the ‘Never grow up’ themes of Alice and Peter,” she said in an e-mail.

Participants, who may wear their outfits in regular life or exclusively on theme park visits, said they love the creative outlet and the community they’ve found in Disneybounding.

“There’s very few things that I’m super confident about, and Disneybounding is one of them,” said Uriel Diaz, 36, of San Antonio, who has been bounding for five or six years. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m extra or what.”

Diaz, who helps run a family retail business, has more than 233,000 followers on TikTok as @the_huntysaurus, often using a wall of themed Loungefly backpacks as a backdrop.

Visiting Disneyland earlier this year with their husband, Diaz wore a dress when bounding as Daisy Duck. It was, Diaz said, a “big deal” because they didn’t know what people would say.

“I literally felt like a princess that day, and it was a really, really strange but amazing and magical experience,” they said.

Rachel Gagné, a calligrapher in her 30s who started bounding in 2018 after moving to Southern California from New York, said characters in the parks are often excited to see people paying homage to them with their outfits.

On a visit to Disneyland with a total of 13 family members last year, each one dressed up as a different Marvel character.

She said the Thor and Loki characters at the park took note, gathered the family around and “put on a whole show” telling the story of the first Avengers movie using different members of the group.

“It was one of the most magical moments I’ve ever had at Disneyland,” Gagné said.

As a New Yorker, she said her closet was full of black clothes; her first Disneybound was as Darth Vader. But more recently, she’s been inspired by characters who represent her background with a Chinese mother and Puerto Rican father: Meilin from Turning Red and Miles Morales from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

“I tend to do them over and over again,” she said. “I love feeling connected to my culture.”

Tiara Henderson, a 36-year-old stay-at-home mom in Houston, said she has found a community among fellow Disneybounders after once feeling like she was “the weird quirky Black girl who likes Disney”.

As a plus-size bounder, she has drawn inspiration and gotten tips from others, and was recently featured in a fan magazine for her look as Scar from The Lion King.

“If you love Disney and Disneybounding and you feel like you’re not going to fit in, you probably just haven’t looked,” she said. “I’ve never felt more included probably in my life as I have the last three years.”

Many bounders – including Henderson, Gagné and Diaz – have social media followings and consider themselves Disney content creators.

Lilly and Paul Davis, who are on TikTok as Dear and Darling, have nearly 121,000 followers and say they get stopped and recognised regularly in the parks.

The Salt Lake City couple have been bounding for just a year, but have already created some viral videos – for better or worse.

Turns out not everyone appreciates a video titled 40 Year Old Princess Squad Has Arrived, which has been played more than 860,000 times.

“They’re brutal,” Paul Davis, 38, a chiropractor, said of some of the comments.

Said his wife, 42: “We’re in such a beautiful day and age where people are being seen and heard. Not Disney adults. We are the exception to the rule.”

Still, the couple – who both grew up loving Disney and went to the parks more than a dozen times in the first couple years after they met – said they don’t offend easily. They create videos with rapid outfit changes and seek comments on which look is the best for a given character and occasion.

When they go to Disneyland about every other month, they will sometimes do two outfits in one day to create videos, and bring “comfies” at night, Lilly Davis said. They’ve also done family bounds inspired by Star Wars and Peter Pan with their six kids, ages eight to 18.

“Disneyland was already like one of our favourite places in the world,” Paul Davis said. “I think it’s a little bit of a cherry on top.”

TYSONS CORNER, UNITED STATES (AFP) – It could be the ultimate blend of art and science – a new seven-suite “space symphony” inspired and illustrated by NASA’s latest mind-boggling images.

The world premiere outside Washington last week of Cosmic Cycle showcased vivid imagery compiled by the United States (US) space agency alongside the first-ever public performance of the music.

The symphony’s American composer Henry Dehlinger describes it as “almost like a total artwork”.

“It’s not just music, it’s not just visuals – it’s not a score for a film either,” the 56-year-old told AFP before the concert.

“It’s more of an immersive experience that encapsulates both visuals and sound.”

A similar effort was undertaken over a century ago by English composer Gustav Holst – but when he wrote his famous ode to The Planets, much in astronomy remained only theoretical.

Since then, humans have walked on the Moon, sent roving research labs to Mars and probed across the solar system with powerful telescopes allowing us to peer billions of light-years away.

The images from that research, compiled by NASA producers into seven short films, served as the inspiration for Dehlinger.

“I had to almost pinch myself and remind myself that this isn’t pretend – this is the real deal. Not science fiction, it’s the actual science,” he said.

Music director and conductor of the National Philharmonic Piotr Gajewski explained that the idea for the project came after previous work with NASA on visuals to go with a double-billing of Claude Debussy’s La Mer (The Sea) and Holst’s The Planets.

For their next collaboration, 64-year-old Gajewski said he suggested to NASA “that we turn the tables on them”.

“Rather than them getting a piece of music and putting pictures to it, that they start by putting short videos together… of their very, very best work.”

For executive producer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Wade Sisler, the challenge was worth the effort.

“It’s a journey unlike one that I have ever helped anyone take,” Sisler, 64, told AFP.

The seven-part piece begins at the heart of our solar system – the Sun – with shots of its swirling and gurgling surface, and explosions of particles out to the planets.

The next two movements focus on NASA studies of our home planet, from a global perspective and then through Earth photographs taken by astronauts in orbit.

Apart from photos and videos, interspersed throughout the seven films are a “mesmerising collection of data visualisations” created by NASA, Sisler explained.

Data on ocean currents, for example, “look like Van Gogh paintings when you put them in motion. The colours are beautiful, you see patterns that you never realised before”.

A fourth segment on the Moon is followed by profiles of each planet – including a focus on images of the Martian surface taken by NASA rovers.

Jupiter, a “regal subject” according to Dehlinger, is introduced by roaring chimes and horns.

The symphony also takes a detailed look at recent experiments on asteroids before a big finale of nebulae, black holes and other galactic phenomena.

In addition to two performances at venues outside Washington, NASA has released the videos to its YouTube page with a synthesised version of Dehlinger’s soundtrack.

To hammer home the equal importance of the music and video, conductor Gajewski explained, they decided not to aim for exact synchronisation, but to be more “fluid”.

That approach allows him “to find some moments that are different each time and each performance”.

“We really wanted people to be able to experience the music, the performers themselves, and also the science in a balanced portfolio,” Sisler added.

Knowing the images and missions were real, Sisler said, elicits a stronger audience response in the digital age, when “you can conjure up anything through AI, conjure up anything in digital effects”.

“People are interested in real results. Like ‘wow, we really went to that asteroid. Wow, we’re really bringing it back here to Earth’,” he said, referring to the daring OSIRIS-REx sample retrieval mission.

That awe-inspiring factor made the images perfect companions to orchestral pieces, Gajewski said.

“What is it that all of a sudden makes us emotionally weak when we hear one kind of music, or proud when we hear different kinds?” he asked.

“It’s all a great mystery, and of course space is the other great mystery, so they complement each other very well.”

SANTIAGO (AFP) – Thousands of miles away from conflict in the Middle East, the Palestinian flag flies on a cold autumn night at a football stadium in the Chilean capital, Santiago.

Hundreds of fans have come out to support their team, the Palestinian Sports Club – a professional football club which plays in the green, black, red and white colours of the Palestinian flag.

The left sleeve of the team’s jersey sports a Palestinian map – as it appeared before the creation of Israel exactly 75 years ago.

Politics is never far away at the club created by Palestinian expats in 1920.

“More than a team, an entire people,” proclaims the club’s logo.

“We even have songs: Gaza resists/Palestine exists,” a 29-year-old businessman and fan Rafael Milad told AFP.

“Palestino is 100 years old, older than the State of Israel,” he added, using the team’s nickname.

At the beginning of the 20th Century, Christian Arabs from the towns of Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahur arrived in distant Chile and founded a South American community that today numbers around half a million people – the largest outside the Arab world.

They became successful textile merchants, and their descendants entered the political sphere: 35 have been ministers or congressmen.

Three decades after it was formed in 1920, the club made its professional debut.

“Palestino is Palestine and Palestine is Palestino. We are always very concerned with the cause,” said a former club player Roberto Bishara. The team has won two national titles (1955 and 1978) and made it to a semifinal in the Copa Libertadores in 1979.

In 2014, the team changed the number one on the back of their jersey to the elongated shape of the Palestinian territory before 1948, but were fined and banned from wearing it by the Chilean football association after a complaint.

Once, the players also caused controversy when they wore the keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Middle Eastern men, onto the pitch.

In 2019, the club arranged giant screens for the fans in Ramallah to follow an international duel against Argentina’s River Plate.

Today the squad no longer has players of Palestinian origin. The last was Nicolas Zedan, who left the club in 2021.

But the team continues to represent “all those Palestinians who are there having a hard time. Each Palestino triumph… is a small joy among the suffering they have every day,” a 49-year-old lawyer of Palestinian origins Miguel Cordero, told AFP.

When not at the stadium, fans gather to watch matches at a clubhouse, also in Santiago, which boasts some 4,600 members.

The venue flaunts a historic Palestinian map, a mural with the figure of leader Yasser Arafat and plays Arabic music in the background.

Francisco Munoz, 48, is perhaps the team’s most colourful fan.

He frequently goes to the stadium dressed up as an Arab “sheikh” and his home is a shrine to the team.

“I was at a conference… where I saw the Israelis taking people out of their homes without warning and killing them. There I began to have sympathy” for the cause, he said.

In Chile generally, “there is no confrontation (with the community)”, except with very extreme sectors”, said Palestino Vice President Sabas Chahuan.

Contrary to the situation faced by women in the occupied Palestinian territories, where they can face pushback for activism against gender discrimination, according to the United Nations, the Palestino team works actively on promoting its female division.

“I’m here in football, which used to be for men only, and I think of Palestinian women. It would be nice if they had the freedom to express what they feel,” said coordinator of the women’s team created almost 25 years ago and winner of the league title in 2015 Isabel Barrios.

The Chilean club finances football schools for boys and girls in the Palestinian territories.