AS one of the happiest people in the world working in the “Happiest Place on Earth,” the talented Filipino performers in Hong Kong Disneyland (HKDL) don’t quite see work as a job. It’s a natural fit, like fish to water. If anything, it’s just like a walk in the park. Earlier this month, the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in September, released a song with a music video thrown in for good measure, made by Filipinos for the Filipino and centers on Pinoy pride in Disneyland. Titled “Find Your Light” (https://tinyurl.com/kad8tnf), the Disney song with a Tagalog chorus is part of the “Show Your Disney Side” campaign in the Philippines.
In a recent media tour of the Park, Rony Fortich, HKDL’s music director and the song’s composer, said that “Find Your Light” is a “story of Filipinos inviting fellow Filipinos to come and show their Disney side. It’s also about them telling fellow Filipinos how happy they are performing and what reward can be [reaped].”
Of the five locations in the world that houses a Disney-themed park, HKDL is the closest one to our shores and as such, HKDL welcomes a huge amount of Filipinos guests every year. Also, it employs a sizable number of Filipinos that make up it 7,800 strong team.
“Filipinos are huge part of Hong Kong Disneyland, so when they approached me with the idea of creating a tailor-made campaign for the Philippines, and I would get to write a song specifically with Filipinos in mind, I couldn’t be happier,” Fortich said, who is one of HKDL’s pioneers, having joined the group three months before the park opened. “I think it’s a really cool tribute to both the Filipinos who work here and the Filipino guests who come over.”
With an extensive experience in Manila’s musical theater scene prior to his move to HKDL, Fortich said that the song’s title is actually an often-used term in theater where directors instruct actors to literally find their spotlight on stage to be seen. Of course, it’s also the perfect title for a song that urges Filipinos to shine:
“Tayo’y managinip kasama ang mga bituin/At ang lihim mong ginto ay ating tuklasin.”
HKDL Director of Entertainment & Costuming David Lightbody said that in his current job and in his earlier endeavors in musical theater with the world’s leading theater companies, Filipinos have always stood out.
“They are globally respected as a different, amazing talent,” Lightbody said in an interview at a restaurant in one of HKDL’s three newest park offerings, Mystic Point, which opened in May 2013.
It is part of the park’s 25-percent footprint expansion; the other two offerings are Toy Story Land, which opened in November 2011, and the one-of-its-kind 1900s Western mining town “Grizzly Gulch,” which opened in July 2012.
“Being here in HKDL just reconfirms that Filipino performers have a very special quality. It’s also their approach to their work, that great and amazing commitment and dedication. There’s also an inner passion—a happy passion that bursts out in their smiles, in their faces, in their eyes, and in the way they perform onstage,” Lightbody added. “It’s that energy, that happiness, that positivity and professionalism.”
According to Fortich, while all the ingredients of a magical Disney song have been stirred into “Find Your Light,” from the strong melodic hooks and goosebump-inducing instrumentals, to the inspiring messages, qualities that are present in celebrated Disney songs, such as “A Whole New World” and—most recently—“Let It Go,” he also studied the dynamics of what will make a song truly Filipino, bearing the “Filipino spirit” in mind.
“When I was writing the song, I was listening to a lot of OPM—everything from 1970s disco to 1980s, 1990s pop hits and more modern music—to get a feel of it and put myself in that mind-set. That music inspired the song, and lyrics-wise, it’s the idea of inviting [everyone] to come up and perform,” Fortich said, who also penned HKDL’s fifth anniversary theme song “Celebration in the Air.” “I also kept in mind what the Filipino mentality is: How much they enjoy having fun, or how we can be facing a crisis and still find ways to smile. It’s about thinking as a Filipino and listening to what we listen to, what we enjoy. Hopefully, it translates to a lot of the park guests.”
HKDL park choreographer and fellow Filipino Jaime del Prado, for his part, ensured that the moves in the song’s music video have the ability to connect to its target audience. Speaking to the media during a behind-the-scenes peak of the Festival of the Lion King musical, a sought-after live performance in Disney theme parks around the world, del Prado said one of the dancers in the music video was actually breaking out Gary V. moves. “When I first heard of the music, I knew it was Manila sound,” he said.
With all the elements of a true Disney song and Filipino dance moves in the mix, Fortich needed parts of the song’s lyrics in Tagalog to drive the point home. That’s where his regular songwriting partner and brother-in-law Louie Laparan stepped in.
“He knows the language, he knows how to get poetic, so he wrote the Filipino lyrics based on the English ones,” explained Fortich, who also gave credit to the “wonderful job” of arranger Marvin Querido. “He was able to bring out the beauty in the Filipino language. As we all know, sometimes [the words] work really well in Filipino but don’t translate well in English. “‘Sana’y wala nang wakas,’ ‘Bituin walang ningning’ are beautiful lyrics but when translated, it’s not quite the same.”
As for the singer, Fortich tapped Raki Vega, another Filipino who’s a performer in the park, as “the perfect person to sing the song because of her personality.”
Vega is a seasoned veteran in the local music industry with extensive experience in the musical theater scene in the Philippines, two full-length albums, and a handful of global recognitions as a performer to show for. But even she knows the moment she stepped onto this world of magic, she was up for something else. “This is a different arena. This is Disney.”
The Cebu-native joined the park in 2010 after auditioning in Manila. She was initially given the role of the Tarzan singer for The Golden Mickey’s Show, a renowned show in Disneyland parks. Four months later, Vega was promoted to a much bigger character, “Bebe,” the host of the program who holds a running commentary and interviews Disney’s famed characters from Mickey Mouse to Goofy. In HKDL she is tasked to deliver the lines in Cantonese for the whole program.
According to Vega, when Fortich approached her to sing “Find Your Light,” she felt jittery as she never expected the project to be that big. “I’m very honored and humbled na ako ’yung napili n’ya among sa Filipino singers dito sa Disneyland. I’m very proud to represent our country.”
Meanwhile, with more than a whole day’s worth of 100-plus attractions and parades—from Broadway-style musicals to new adventures, such as the technologically advanced nighttime parade “Disney Paint the Night”—Lightbody assured there are a lot of things to look forward to in HKDL this year when they turn 10 and next year when they open the much-awaited Marvel attraction that offers the “Iron Man Experience.” “I can’t say anything in particular yet, but we have a lot of exciting things in store.”