Philippine dance

DESIGN

and party dresses. As part of to the salubong, the dance is performed beneath a tower called galilea from which a child "angel" descends to lift the veil of sor- row from the head of the Virgin Mary as she meets her risen son, Jesus. The communal celebration of the Holy Child or Santo Nino is just as elaborate. The residents of lbajay, Aklan, decorate their houses with seafood. They darken themselves like the Ati or Aeta and don extravagant costumes. In Kalibo, this costumed street-dancing and musicmaking is a full-fledged carnival called ati-atihan. In Cebu, on the feast of the Santo Nifto in January, civic, government and religious organizations celebrate the sinulog to honor the Santo Nifto (also called Pit Senyor) with dancing and votive candles before the basilica. In honor of the Holy Cross or Mahal na Poon Santa Cruz in Batangas, subli dancers perform under a large shed and before a tall crucifix. Women wear balintawak and carry their hats like halos on their heads and in their hands; the men click bamboo castanets. For some Spanish and Mexican social dances, especially the pandanggo and kuratsa, participants wear the Tagalog balintawak or Visayan patadyong. Dancers of the jota, polka, and habanera wear the maria clara costume, with its paftuelo or shawl, fan, long necklace with tambourine-styled locket, and open shoes or slippers called zapatillas. The men usually wear the barong tagalog or the Chinese-influenced col- larless camisa de chino and colored pants in the less Europeanized or occupational dances. From Spanish times to the present, the komedya, a play in verse with choreographed fighting and mar- ches, has been performed on improvised stages in

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ASPECTS

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Dance education is the transmission of the tradi- tion, techniques, and styles of dance. Tradition means the total practice of the art in the context of its history and culture. Technique is the skill with which the vocabulary of dance is expressed. Tradition and tech- nique involve accompaniment, costuming, time, place, and purpose or occasion. Style is refined technique and applied tradition. Tradition, technique, and style may be taught formally at a dance academy, or infor- mally through simple instruction and coaching. A dancer may adapt ideas and techniques encountered in diverse ways. Ritual dances are learned as part of communal life in the Philippines. While shamans may lead and direct them, they are shared and easily learned by the com- munity. People may simply join a gathering, such as the pandangguhan in Obando, Bulacan, the turumba in Pakil, Laguna, the ati-atihan in Kalibo, Aklan, or the sinulog in Cebu or Bohol. Some ritual dances, such as

DANCE EDUCATION. Young girls leam the correct arm poses from choreographer, teacher, and National Artist Leonor Orosa-Goquingco. (Marlo A Hernando Collection)

EDUCATION

the Subanon buklog, draw the whole community into building the dance setting and into performing. The panata (pledge) is taught formally, as is the subli. In many areas, the priest leader (mambunong, mumbaki, mandadawak in northern Philippines or babaylan in the south) may have an assistant who learns the complete ritual processes. Folk dances are learned by the community. Mimetic and occupation dances are transmutations of what peo- ple see and do, so that the motives behind and the forms of the dances are part of everyday life. Social dances- from game and song dances to courtship and wedding dances-are so familiar to the community that everyone is expected to execute them at social functions. When Philippine and foreign folk dances became an important part of the educational system after Francisca Reyes-Aquino's research became nationally known in the 1930s, they were taught in schools and performed in field demonstrations, staged programs, and town fiestas. Physical education teachers joined annual summer training programs or workshops. Young men and women joined folk dance troupes, some of which turned professional and toured nationally and internationally. When ballet schools were established in Manila, Kay Williams and Luva Adameit were among the first teachers. From Adameit's Cosmopolitan Ballet and

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Dancing School came the first Filipino dancers, such as Leonor Orosa-Goquingco, Remedios de Oteyza, and Rosalia Merino-Santos, who later became professional teachers and choreographers. Ballet dancers train from 8 to 10 years in estab- lished institutions. A child starts at 7 or 10 years old, and graduates at 16 or 18. The training begins similarly for both boys and girls, but gradually becomes sepa- rate according to technical and aesthetic differences. Both sexes take a partnering (pas de deux or double work) class to learn the turns or lifts. Repertoire classes introduce them to the classics. In modern dance, different technical and aesthetic demands prevail. Because modern dance emerged in the 20th century under individual initiatives, there are various techniques and styles, like the Graham, Humphrey-Weidman, Limon, or Cunningham tech- niques. Other styles, such as those of Isadora Duncan and Mary Wigman, did not become as popular. The new styles were influenced by anthropologi- cal, psychological, and aesthetic studies, and advances in modern science and art. For example, they empha- size varied physical dynamics, rootedness in going to the ground or floor, and improvisational and composi- tional approaches in structuring a dance class. At the same time, each style or technique serves the theme or method of its founder or choreographer. However, schools, especially universities, offer these various techniques simultaneously, and the different traditions often exchange and interchange techniques and styles. Ballet and modern dance, for example, borrow from each other, although modern dance rebelled against the strictures of the older dance form. Standardized folk dances and historical or social dances now have systematized modes of preparing the dancer. Some schools teach the more conservative art of mime or the more contemporary tap and jazz dancing. Established schools offer music, movement notation, introduction to the visual and design arts, applied makeup, and theoretical courses in dance history and aesthetics. They may also give regular academic courses to round off the education of dance students. In universities, students can pursue a diploma or bachelor's and even doctorate degrees. In the Philippines, most formal dance training happens in studio-schools privately owned by the teachers, such as Luva Adameit' s Cosmopolitan Ballet and Dancing Schoot Anita Kane's School of Classic Dance, Remedios de Oteyza' s Ballet and Dance Cen- ter, and Shirley Halili-Cruz and Zenaida Halili's School of Dance. The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) has a regular studio-type schoot but it also provides

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annual summer dance workshops that extend the dan- cer's range beyond technique. The Philippine High School for the Arts provides full secondary education as well as specialization, in- cluding dance. Some universities offer dance prog- rams, granting diploma, bachelor's and master's de- grees. The University of the Philippines offers prog- rams in the College of Music, and formerly, in the College of Human Kinetics. The Philippine Women's University also offers a tertiary dance major program. The Philippine Normal College and other teacher- training schools teach dance through their physical education degree programs, which may emphasize performing or teaching. • B.E.S. Villaruz

LESSON ON POINTE. Young Allee Reyes gets her lesson on pointe from choreographer and teacher Rosalia Merlno-Santos. (Rosalia Mertno-Santos Collection)

FOLK DANCE STEPS, GESTURES, AND FORMATIONS

Folk dances are comprised of steps, gestures, and formations which in different variations and combina- tions constitute particular dances. The steps are move- ments of the legs and feet which may be original or adapted from other regions or countries. The gestures are the movements of the arms, hands, and torso. The formations refer to how the dancers are deployed in space as they execute steps and gestures. Folk dance steps originated from a combination of human locomotor skills: the walk, slide, run, leap, hop, skip, and jump. In the Philippines, the steps are influ- enced by indigenous movements as well as dances from neighboring countries and North America and Europe. The steps of the various local regions are distinct in struc- ture, technique, improvisational sequences, and style. In the Cordilleras, the dominant dance steps are the following: the close-step where the incoming foot closes or taps on a half-toe; sliding or placing the ball of the foot on the floor; creeping with a lifting of the big toe from the floor, followed by the alternate bending and opposite tortiller steps with slightly bent and re- laxed knees; big heavy running steps that land with the heel leading; pivot turns with an enunciated lift of the toes; hops propelled by a bent knee to effect long, low travel parallel to the floor; floor-skimming gallops; rocking in fourth position; cutting steps; chasing steps; stamping with rebounding qualities; resilient, pulsat- ing bending and stretching of the knees. Transition steps, including those that change direc- tion, occur regularly with a swinging quality culminating in a feeling of suspension. The majority of steps are danced with bent knees, the whole foot kept in contact with the floor. When a foot is lifted, it maintains a plan- tarflexion, as in the Cordillera dancers. The steps of other indigenous groups center around the walk, run, foot-brush, close-step, mincing, cut-step, shuffling, chasing, and syncopated change steps. The feet are in full contact with the floor, with a smaller range of movements and lighter tread. Lighter dynamics may be effected by including body and arm movements that harmonize with and facilitate the ex- ecution of the steps. A number of these movements may imitate the forces of nature, or pantomime indige- nous religious, occupational, or recreational activities. Manipulation of hand properties, like fresh or dry leaves, candles or heirloom plates, scarves, spears, shields, wooden or bamboo poles, even different parts

DANCESTEPS

of the costume, are timed with the steps and rhythmic patterns, lending visual color and auditory comple- ment to the steps. A secondary rhythm occurs with the differenti- ated use of the parts of the foot against the floor in dances that use multitoned bells on the legs and ank- lets, providing musical accompaniment. Otherwise, music is provided by gongs and drums. The number of steps usually corresponds to the different rhythmic patterns in a 2/4 time signature. The dances of the Sulu archipelago are marked by the following steps or step combinations: mincing per- formed on the balls of the feet; step-points, taps, and stamping danced on a slightly bent supporting knee; creeping, parallel, and opposite tortiller accompanied by sustained bending and straightening of the knees; pivots and turns evenly executed; walks wherein the feet glide and caress the floor or trace half-outward circles; placing one foot on top of the other while performing an arm sequence; alternate leaps and deep knee-bends in a cross-legged position and subsequent kicks in the combat dances; presses in the stationary position while torso and head are in a perfectly straight vertical or diagonal line; and a strong feeling of opposi- tional relationship among head, shoulder, hip, and knees. Generally, faster-paced footwork keeps time with the multirhythmic and varied music, contrasting sharply with the languorous, undulating, and serpent- like isolations of the shoulders, outwardly rotated arms, flexed wrists, and hyperextended fingers. A minimal range of movement from a centered torso highlights the opposing line shaped by the turned-out legs, bent knees, and flexed feet. The highly impro- visational, dexterous footwork, and aerial rippling arms, give the impression of exquisite lightness. Maguindanao and Maranao male dances feature dose-steps, mincing, chasing, walking, step-points, stamp- ing, pivots, varicounted turns, cross-steps, cross-turns (sometimes executed in a deep knee-bend), runs, gallops, hops, and leaps. Male dancers execute their steps with a display of strong "masculine" qualities expressive of the dominant role of the male in Maranao society. Female dances use the torso and head in a softer line, with a less defined top-to-bottom straightness of the body. They also use the opposition between the head, shoulder, hip, and knee. The body faces in the direction of the initiating step, with a shading of a shoulder twist. The head tilts evenly, with an almost swinging quality in consonance with the natural swing of the right arm held at the side of the body. The arm sway may unfold into a graceful wrist-tum in a gra- cious and comely flourish. All these movements account for the softer line of the female dancer.

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ASPECTS

Particular to Maranao dances is the kini-kini female walk. Although performed with the evenness of the ordinary walk, the right foot glides forward in full contact with the floor while maintaining a 45- degree turnout. The step is accompanied by a slight bending of both knees and a gentle twist of the body to the right. The right arm simultaneously swings back- ward to finish hip high, the palm flexing to bring the fingertips upward. The right knee then straightens unobtrUsively with the transfer of weight; the left foot advances in the same way as the right and as the torso and head evenly face left or front. The wrist of the right hand scoops slightly to bring the palm up, shaping a back loop of a figure eight. The arms swing upward, passing close to the upper thigh to finish in front of the hip. The wrist gracefully circles clockwise, finishing with the wrist flexed diagonally upward and continuing the shape of the front loop of the figure eight. The Ma1anao also use one or more fans held in each hand. Manipulation of the fans produces a varie- ty of aerial designs and arresting visual images be- tween body and fan. The dance vocabulary of Christianized regions is laden with Western-influenced steps. Westernization was effected by the following: the introduction of the 3/4 time signature, which added a whole dimension of new dance steps; the coming of Mediterranean and other European melodies, which spurred further creativity; the lilt of additional stringed instruments; novel attire and ornaments; and the demands of a new code of social demeanor. New steps and adaptations evolved in the process of assimilation: the agam, bacui, brincos con puntil-

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las, brincos con vueltas, brincos con vueltas sin pun- tillas, brincos sin vueltas y puntillas, chotis, contra- ganza, engafi.o, ese-ese, espunti, haplik, itik-itik, koretti, kuradang, lagundi, mudansa, pahid, papuri, paseo, paso espafi.ol, pitik, piang-piang, pivot turn with a point, pivot turn with a sarok and point, re- dova, sagamatica, and sangig. The steps of a dance reveal the inventiveness of a dance-maker or of a people. ln folk dance, these are all originated by a people from a specific place and at a specific occasion. They may have also been adapted from another region or another country, and in time, modified by the people who took these steps in. In time, they become the vocabulary of a dance or a dance style.

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Christians usually use the circle formation as part of the development of their dances. Double circles, hooks, horizontal figures of eight, and serpentine formations commonly occur in Cordillera dances. The double circle is formed with women in the inner circle, emphasizing the protective obligations of the men. Other formations are used as traditional maneuvers to arrive at subsequent formations. Sometimes dancers keep these momentarily to dance and shape a variant formation. Examples of such dances are the palook and the dinnuyya, festival dances of the Kalinga and Ifugao, re- spectively. Spirals are shaped through intermittent danc- ing in !unsay, a dance-song of Cagayan de Sulu. In the dances of the Christian areas, the weaving sequences in the paseo (promenade), the culebra (snake), and a figure of sakuting (a Chinese-influenced dance in llocandia) exemplify the serpentine floor pat- tern. Crescents or half-circles are seen in the jota cagayana of Enrile, Cagayan. Looped or intertwining circles are formed in the cadena (chain, grand right and left) which traditionally ends Philippine quadrille dances. Single-line formations occur in dugso, a ceremo- nial dance from the Montes of Bukidnon, and andardi, a festival dance of the Tagbanua of Palawan. The length- wise formation is used to differentiate one group from another, as in the Batanes palo-palo, whose combative dancers, armed with oblong pieces of wood, portray encounters between Muslims and Christians. The quadrille, such as the rigodon and the lanceros, is a big square formation shaped by the cabeceras or very important participants occupying the width, and the cos- tados or other participants occupying the length of the square. Many Philippine dances are performed in sets with either four persons or couples occupying the cor- ners of a small square. Should the set be formed by four persons, the second couple may have the female stand- ing on the male's left. Examples of such dances are the estudiantina, once a favorite of young students who brought it back from Spain, and the saraw, which Pigafetta reported was performed in obeisance to the sun. Possible movements within the set are: travelling from one comer to another, meeting one's partner at the center, exchanging places with one's partner, dancing right to right or left to left with one's partner or opposite, moving toward and away from the front or rear person. In the diamond-shaped floor pattern, partners who face each other dance through the four points of a diamond, as in the lively Visayan areuana and kuratsa samarefto. In the cross floor pattern, the dancers travel forward and backward, sideways right or left or the reverse to form a cross. Los bailes de ayer features the chotis danced in a cross formation. The zeta in the rigodon reveals the dancers shaping the lower hori-