Philippine dance

BALLET PHILIPPINES Founded in 1962, the alliance Ballet Philippines was initiated by Anita Kane. It brought together dance teachers, choreographers, and artistic associates to standardize training, professional- ize performance, and form a parent ballet company of "national status." Kane was chairperson of the board, Remedios de Oteyza was vice-chairperson, with Sony Lopez-Gonzalez and Julie Borromeo as members. Its premiere and only performance as a company was at the Rizal Theater, 28-29 Apr 1964, in a program that included Kane's Winter Dream (Tchaikovsky), Manalo Rosado's Serenata d'Amore (Mantovani), Lopez-Gonzalez's Grandes Valses (Glazounov), Cesar Mendoza's Etude Moderne (Shostakovitch), Rose Borromeo's Opus Jazz, and De Oteyza's Ballet Concer- to (Grieg). Before that, informally, it had supported productions like Lopez-Gonzalez's staging of Swan Lake with Nora Kovach and Istvan Rabovsky. The alliance did not function for long. Soon the affiliated studios and teachers were staging ballets on their own again. Ballet Federation of the Philippines, which existed for three years in the 1970s, was a later and larger equivalent. • B.E.S. Villaruz

BALLET PHILIPPINES Founded in 1969 as the Alice Reyes and Modern Dance Company, renamed in 1970 as the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Dance Workshop and Company, in 1974 as the CCP Dance Company, and in 1981 as Ballet Philip- pines. Returning from the United States in 1969, Alice Reyes proposed a modern dance concert to CCP presi- dent Jaime Zobel de Ayala and artistic director Lucrecia Kasilag. It was produced on 19 and 21 Feb 1970 at the CCP Main Theater (now Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo), with 16 members including Reyes as artistic director. After its Manila performance, the company toured the provinces, initiating its outreach program. The following June, Reyes and Eddie Elejar orga- nized the first CCP summer dance workshop. Its suc- cess encouraged them to form a small but full-fledged dance company. With the help of Ma. Teresa Escoda- Roxas and Sixto Roxas of the Bancom Development Corporation, the CCP Dance Workshop and Company acquired a management staff and an artistic staff. Shortly after, the CCP Dance School was also estab- lished. In 1972 the company went on its first international tour to London and Spain, reaping accolades for its repertory that combined American modern dance and Philippine traditions. In 1974 it toured Australia and Southeast Asia, making the same strong impression

BALLET PHILIPPINES

with what was becoming the company's hallmark- the definition of Filipino culture through dance with the use of Western forms and technique. Succeeding tours were to Germany, 1975; Thai- land, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the United States Gacob's Pillow Dance Festival, 1977 and the American Dance Festival, 1984); the USSR, France, Italy, 1978; Taiwan, Hong Kong, 1979; the USSR, Taiwan, Greece, Ger- many, 1980; Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, 1981; Taiwan, 1982; Venezuela, Thailand, 1983; China, Ger- many, 1985; USSR, Indonesia, Czechoslovakia, Singa- pore, 1988; Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, 1989; Hong Kong, 1990; Spain, Germany, India, 1992; and Japan, 1993. These tours provided the opportunity for foreign audiences to evaluate Asian dancing at par with its Western counterpart, but speaking a language of dance that was uniquely Filipino. In 1974 the company became the CCP's first resi- dent dance company, receiving an annual partial sub- sidy and the use of CCP facilities. The CCP Dance Foundation, now Ballet Philippines Foundation, was set up to provide a more solid financial and organiza- tional base, with Reyes as its first president in 1977 succeeded by Nestor Jardin in 1989 and Maan Hontiveros in 1993. The foundation's chairpersons were Zobel de Ayala, Bea Zobel, Escoda-Roxas, Ching Montinola, Ernest Escaler, and Antonio Cojuangco Jr. Its programs included the CCP Dance School, the sum- mer dance workshop, outreach program, Ballet Philip- pines II, the scholarship program, the Society for Ballet Philippines, the Friends of Ballet Philippines Interna- tional, and the School Parents Association. Artistic director emeritus Alice Reyes directed the company from 1969 to 1991, with Elejar as co-director from 1969 to 1976, and Vida as associate artistic direc- tor in 1983. Denisa Reyes has been director with Sicangco as associate director since 1991. Through time, Jardin has served as company manager, adminis- trator, and president. Salvador Bernal has been the company's resident production designer since 1973, and currently serves as its artistic consultant as well. Rudy Vidad who has been with the company since its inception has served in numerous capacities as photo- grapher, archivist, researcher, and artistic consultant. In 1983 the company formed Ballet Philippines II, headed by resident choreographer Agnes Locsin. Composed of young and talented scholars and Com- pany apprentices, the junior group's mandate in- cluded training young talents for the main company, developing new works, and performing the com- pany's repertoire pieces not presented in the season through touring programs, lecture-demonstrations, and workshops. To date the group has had numerous

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ARTISTS

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BALT, SAMO SARIP b. Balindong, Lanao del Sur 29 Dec 1959. Researcher, choreographer, director. Her parents, Hadji Mohammed Bampang Esmael and Hadji Sitti Rachman Decampong Sarip, are both members of Maranao royalty. Her father, who has occupied posi- tions of public authority, is also an orator, a bayok singer, and a musician. Balt finished high school at the Palindong Islamic Institute, 1972, and obtained a bachelor's degree in elementary education at the Min- danao State University (MSU) in Marawi, 1978. Her work as a researcher at MSU resulted in the Buklod ng mga Kabataang Kawani and the Kalilang Festival, participated in by Mindanao tribes, both in 1979. In 1986, she designed the Cultural Exchange Exposure Journeys or CEEJOURN, a project to reorient tourism so that it promotes the mutual benefit of visi- tors and visited, induces positive posttravel responses,

and upholds respect for different religious cultures as well as the social and physical environment. In 1987, Balt initiated an Alternative Crafts project to popula- rize indigenous crafts and show these as products of a unique sociopolitical and economic-cultural context. Also in 1987, she produced Sindao (Shadow), whose cast was composed entirely of elderly people, as old as 80, from five municipalities. The following year, she organized the Maranao cultural troupe, Sining Pananadem, which has toured Mindanao and the rest of the Philippines. • B.E.S. Villaruz

BANEZ-ALONSO, VEDA BORBON b. Abra 23 May 1952. Dancer, choreographer. The moving spirit in the growth of the Metropolitan Dance Theater Com- pany (MDT), she is the daughter of Antonio Banez and Vesta Borbon. She is married to actor Ramon Gil "Chinggoy" Alonso with whom she has three children. The eldest, Ralion, is a resident choreographer of the MDT, as well as its lead male dancer. She studied high school at St Theresa's College in Quezon City, then took up broadcast communication at the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication. She started dancing at an early age. At eight, she was tutored by Benny Villanueva Reyes; then she ac- quired more professional training under Sony Lopez- Gonzalez, Inday Gaston-Manosa, and Totoy de Oteyza. In the early 1970s, she took up modern dance under Alice Reyes and Tony Fabella at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). She also studied a variety of other dance forms, such as Hawaiian- Tahitian dances, Asian dances, Philippine folk dances, Spanish dancing, and tap dancing. Her training with the Hariraya Dance Company, 1965-1969, developed her on more classical lines. Banez-Alonso was appointed dance director of the MDT Company by Conchita Sunico, executive director of the Metropolitan Theater, in 1980. The MDT grew from a group merely accompanying major musical pro- ductions from 1979 to 1985, to a group performing on its own. The change began in 1986, when it developed a varied dance repertoire ranging from Broadway, clas- sical ballet, jazz, modern, and folk dances. In 1990, Veda was appointed Met production and artistic director. She choreographed some of the major productions of the Metropolitan Theater: Juan Tamad vs. Paltos V, Batibot, Kapinangan, The Great White Way I & II, The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, and The Flower Drum Song. She choreographed Mutya ng Pilipinas USA, 1987 and 1988, held in San Francisco. She was a member of the UP Filipiniana Dance Company, 1970-1972, and

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member and soloist as well of the UP Concert Chorus for which she choreographed some productions, 1972- 1975. She was a representative to the ASEAN Dance Conference in 1986. Banez-Alonso has been teaching ballet, Hawaiian-Tahitian, Spanish dance, folk dance and interpretative folk dance, jazz, and modern ballet, since 1965. • M.L. Maniquis

BARREDO, MANIYA (Josephine Carmen Imutan Barredo aka Honey Barredo) b. Manila 19 Nov 1951. Dancer, trainor. Born to Grizelda Imutan of lloilo and Eugenio Barreda of Manila, Barreda belongs to a family of artists. Her sisters sing and dance, her brother is a visual artist, her uncle Manuel Barreda is a tenor, her cousin Lea Salonga is an international performer, and her aunts include actor-singer Carmen Barreda and dancer- choreographers Julie and Rose Borromeo. She graduated from St Paul College high school in Manila and trained with the Hariraya Dance (later Ballet) Company. In 1970, she attended Robert Jaffrey's American Ballet Center in New York, joining the company in 1972. She also danced for a time at the Radio City Music Hall. In 1974, she joined Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal where she became a full-fledged ballerina. In 1976, she guested at the International Dance Festival in Cuba, organized by Alicia Alonso. In 1977, she joined the Atlanta Ballet where she remains its prima ballerina and a senior coach and teacher. In 1979, she joined Margot Fonteyn's Stars of the World Ballet tour. While in Manila, Barreda created the roles of the Sarimanok in The Legend of Sarimanok by Reynaldo Alejandro and Roberto Caballero in 1965, and the Girl in Cesar Mendoza's Difficult Years in 1968. Barreda has danced most of the ballet classics, including Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Coppelia, La Bayadere, and Paquita, and contemporary classics like Cinderella. She danced or created roles in the ballets of Brian McDonald, Fernand Nault, John Butler, Bruce Wells, Robert Barnett, Mannie Rowe, Thor Sutowski, and Thomas Pazik. Choreographer Mikhail Lavrovsky chose her for the TV film Ali Baba in the USSR. Barreda's periodic homecomings have always been major events. In 1977, she performed in Giselle, and included a provincial tour for the Ballet Federation of Philippines. In 1979 she premiered Nault's La Fille Mal Gardee in Manila. In 1980 she occasioned the complete performance of The Sleeping Beauty. In 1982, she did her first full-length Swan Lake with Ballet Philippines, repeated in 1989. In 1990 she premiered in Manila Thomas Pazik' s Romeo and Juliet. Barreda's dancing has grown from youthful virtuosity to mature expressiveness, filling out her

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redoubtable technique with comic or dramatic artistry. Critic John Unterecker remarked on her "extraordinary pow~r [that] is an amalgam of technical precision and the sort of fierce musicality that welds the dancer not just to the beat of the music but to its spirit. She is, in fact, music's visible manifestation." Clive Barnes wrote that she is "beautiful, a real find and has the makings of a great ballerina." National Artist Leonor Orosa-Goquingco hailed her as "a superb artist, who could favorably compare with the greatest the rest of the world has to offer." Finally, critic Felicitas Layag- Radaic called her "the country's first prima ballerina assoluta." Barreda's awards include: the JDR III Fund grant, Aliw Award, 1977; Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan award, 1978; Atlanta Pacesetter, 1979-1980; Ten Out- standing Young Men or TOYM award, 1987; the Bruna P. Seril Advancement of Philippine Culture Award, New York, 1988; and Gawad CCP Para sa Sining, 1992. She is listed in the Who's Who in America, 1980 to the present, Who's Who in the World of Women, 1983, and Who's Who in Music, USA, 1984. • B.E.S. Vil- laruz

BARROSO }R, 0SIAS GEPILANO b. Manila 23 Feb 1965. Dancer. His parents, Anita Gepilano and Osias Barroso, were amateur musicians. He graduated with a degree in mass communications from the Uni- versity of ·santo Tomas. He trained in ballet with Vella Damian and soon joined the Dance Concert Company (DCC) under the artistic direction of Eric Cruz. He rose to be company soloist, and guested with Quezon City Ballet and Dance Theater Philippines (DTP). With DCC he assumed many principal roles in the ballets of Cruz, Damian, Basilio, and Teresa Cutaran. With DTP he danced the role of the hero Tasmi in the 1979 revival of Julie Borromeo and Felicitas Layag- Radaic's Mir-i-nisa. In 1987, he joined the newly formed Philippine Ballet Theater (PBT) where he rose to be a soloist, dancing many principal parts. With PBT he danced the Bluebird in The Sleeping Beauty; the Peasant pas de deux in Giselle; the Drummer Boy in Graduation Ball; Frantz in Coppelia; the Poet in Les Sylphides; Don Jose in Carmen; Jasper in Pineapple Poll; Sharpless in Madame Butterfly; the waltz in Sere- nade, and the grands pas de deux in The Nutcracker, Don Quixote and Paquita. Also in 1987, he attended the Balanchine and Fokine seminar in Varna, Bulgaria. In 1990, he guested in Tokyo, and cities in Cuba in the course of the 12th International Ballet Festival orga- nized by Alicia Alonso. In 1992, he joined the First Diaghilev Ballet Competition in Moscow. In these

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BAYANIHAN PHILIPPINE DANCE COMPANY Founded in 1957, the company started from the pioneering efforts at the Philippine Women's Universi- ty's (PWU) Filipiniana folk music, and dance commit- tee of the 1930s to collect and preserve Philippine folk dances, music and costumes. In 1954, PWU had sent a group to the Asian Folk Dance Festival in Dacca, East Pakistan. It was headed by Dean Lucrecia Kasilag and included Lucrecia Reyes-Urtula, Violeta Bediones, Lourdes Villaflor, Celia Martinez, Ester Cornejo, Ricardo Reyes, and Castro Palacio. This experience spurred further field research. "Take it from the people" became the PWU re- searchers' guiding principle as they braved forbidding terrain, bad weather, and austere living conditions in their search for authentic choreography, music, and costumes. Various parts of the country were scoured for years by Kasilag, Urtula, and Isabel Santos. Their work became the basis for Bayanihan's choreography which adapted ethnic and folk dances to the conven- tions and demands of theater. It provided materials for regular recitals by PWU's Physical Education Club, organized by Leticia de Guzman and Urtula, and led by Victoria de Guzman and Henrietta Hofer. The club gave its first major performance at a joint celebration of civic organizations in October 1956. The theme, sug- gested by Helena Benitez, was "Magbayanihan Tayo" (Let's Help Each Other). Later the club presented Bayanihan: Philippine Music and Dance Festival be- fore delegates to the World Confederation of Orga- nizations of the Teaching Professions' meeting in Man- ila in February 1957. The Bayanihan Folk Arts Center was formally organized soon after, and in September, it started giving monthly recitals for tourists and for- eign missions. In 1959, the Bayanihan Folk Arts Asso- ciation Inc was formed. Bayanihan's first major theater production, called Glimpses of Philippine Culture, was at the Brussels Universal Exposition in 1958. It was an astounding success. Immediately after, it was invited to appear on Ed Sullivan's TV show in the United States, followed by tours of America and Europe. It was the first Philip- pine dance company to perform on Broadway, New York City, and international stages. In 1959 its per- formance at the Winter Garden Theater in New York City was met by a standing ovation. The same year it

won the critics' award for folk ensemble at the Fete des Nations in Paris. Since then, Bayanihan has gone on 11 world tours. For more than 25 years, it has unfolded before the Filipinos and before the world the beauty of Philip- pine culture. It has not only preserved but also en- sured the creative growth of ethnic culture. Artists who have worked with Bayanihan as dan- cers are Alice Reyes, Ramon Obusan, Eddie Elejar, Antonio Fabella, Robert Tongko, Rose Borromeo, Hannah Gomez Trinidad, Lito Calzado, and Rosky Balajadia. Other artists who designed for Bayanihan are Jose Lardizabal, Leandro Locsin, Rodrigo Perez III, Teddy Hilado, Monino Duque, and Jun Gomez. • L.R. Urtula

BELMONTE, PAZ CIELO ANGELES b. Daet, Camarines Norte 24 Jan 1916. Dancer, teacher, choreog- rapher. She married Ramon Dinglasan Belmonte, pianist of the University of the Philippines (UP) Folk Song and Dance Troupe. She obtained her bachelor of science in education at UP in 1936, a master's degree in physical education (PE) at the Illinois State Normal University in 1953 as a Fulbright scholar of the US Educational Foundation, and a doctorate in philo- sophy at University of Santo Tomas (UST) in 1975. Her educational career went hand in hand with her dancing. She was a principal dancer of the UP troupe headed by Francisca Reyes-Tolentino (later Aquino), from 1933 to 1939. During WWII, she orga- nized dance numbers for the vaudeville productions of Jose Climaco in State Theater and Fernando Poe Sr in Avenue Theater. At the outbreak of the war, she started teaching at the Philippine Normal School (later College, now University) where she later headed the PE department. In 1946, she organized the mixed dancing class in the college, which later became the Philippine Normal College (PNC) Barangay Folk Dance Troupe, now simply the Philippine Barangay Folk Dance Company. The adopted name came with the performance for the first Philippine Floating Ex- position to the Southeast Asian countries in 1958. As chairperson, she promoted the course in physical education in all levels, to the BSE, major in PE in 1970, to the master's degree in PE, major in dance and sports in 1976. She also became "Mommy Bel" to PE majors in the National College of Physical Educa- tion (for a time the Marcos Sports Academy and later the Philippine Institute of Physical Education and Sports), UST, and the Baguio Vacation Normal School. She was leader and president of various associations such as the Philippine Association of Physical Educa-

BERNAL

tion and Sports, Leisure Education and Recreation of the Philippines, and the Philippine Folk Dance Soci- ety. She was director-general of the 22nd world con- gress of the International Congress of Health, Physical Education and Recreation, held in Manila in 1981. Through the Barangay troupe, she continued the work of Reyes-Aquino in promoting Philippine folk dances. With the support of her husband and family, she brought the group to win international fame and recognition as ambassador of goodwill. It visited the Southeast Asian countries, Europe, Great Britain, Uni- ted States, Canada, Australia, China, and USSR. Among her awards are the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan from the City of Manila and the Presiden- tial Medal of Merit from the Republic of the Philip- pines, 1971; the PNC Hall of Fame award for national and international relations, 1974; the Dance in Educa- tion award from the Dance Education Association of the Philippines; and Gawad CCP Para sa Sining, 1990. • L.A. Gabao