Philippine dance
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230 Rosemarie Sonora's show, Aawitan Kita (I Will Sing for You), and from 1967 to 1982, Nora Aunor's Superstar. Among his specials were the tributes to Pugo, Ading Fernando, and Bayani Casimiro, and onstage the Star and Urian Awards. He also choreographed musicals like Carousel, 1973, for St Paul College, and West Side Story, 1968, for Santa Isabel College. Quinn continues to direct for TV in Tanghalan ng Kampeon and Awitawanan. • B.E.S. Villaruz R RAMON 0BUSAN FoLKLORIC GROUP (ROFG) Founded in 1971 by Ramon Obusan, the group aims to preserve and develop traditional Philip- pine music and dance. Its identity lies in its careful rendering of folk art and culture onstage. Its repertoire is based on the extensive research of Obusan, a former member of the Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company and a cultural anthropologist. Among the group's notable presentations are Kayaw, Ritwal (Ritual), Noon Po Sa Amin (The Way It Was), and the Rare and Unpublished Dances series. These are comprehensive and faithful presentations of Philip- pine traditions in rites, music, dances, and mythic and historical panoramas. Often, ethnic groups perform with them in festivals and expositions abroad. They have covered over 20 countries in Asia, the Americas and Europe since 1974, receiving good reviews at the Hong Kong Festival of Asian Arts and standing ova- tions at the Canadian Exposition in Vancouver in 1986. The ROFG has been one of the resident dance companies of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) since 1987. It assists some 50 groups and institu- tions in choreography, direction, and production de- sign, done by Obusan himself. It also participates in the CCP Outreach Program. • B.E.S. Villaruz REYES, ALICE GARCIA (Alice Reyes-Van Doom) b. Manila 14 Oct 1942. Dancer, teacher, choreo- grapher. Her father, Ricardo Reyes, was "Mr Folkdanc- er'' and a pianist; her mother, Adoracion Garcia, a noted voice teacher who headed the Philippine Women's University (PWU) music department. Alice Reyes is sister to dancer-choreographers Denisa Reyes and Edna Vida, and musicians Betty and Cecile. She was married to Richard Upton, and now to Ted Van - .._ ~ I I
Doom. She graduated from Maryknoll College with a bachelor's degree in history and foreign affairs in 1964, and received the student leadership and most outstand- ing student awards. She took graduate courses at the Ateneo while teaching history in Maryknoll. For further studies in the United States, she won a scholarship from the Music Promotion Foundation of the Philippines in 1966. In New York, she also received the Hanya Holm scholarship, the Sarah Lawrence scholarship, and a grant from the JDR ill Fund, between 1966 and 1969. She completed her master's degree in fine arts, major in dance, at Sarah Lawrence College, and taught as assis- tant in the introductory dance program by giving lecture- demonstrations in the college, Barnard College, and high schools in the Bronx and Mt Vernon. Early exposure to the arts brought Reyes to the Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company. Barely 14, she danced with Ricardo Reyes in a renowned father-and- daughter partnership. In the early 1960s she danced with Steve Parker's Philippine Festival in Las Vegas, USA. She also became a dancer, choreographer, and director for TV and other musical productions. Among these was a dance drama for the International Eucha- ristic Congress in Bombay, India, in 1964, 400 Years in 40 Minutes, an enactment of Philippine history from pre-Spanish times to the present. For this production she founded and directed the Centenary Dancers with James Reuter SJ. More commissions came in, resulting in such works as the Santo Nino dance drama for the Fourth Centennial of the Christianization of the Philip- pines in Cebu, the Te Deum dance drama for the 50th anniversary of St Theresa's College, and The Island for St Scholastica's College, the last two in 1965. Her major compositions in the United States are Getting There, to Carvell's Pianissimo Ostinato; Unti- tled, to Delio Joio, 1968; and Amada, 1969, her dance thesis. After graduation, despite offers for her to teach and perform abroad, Reyes chose to return home and share her knowledge in modem dance. In 1969, she founded the Alice Reyes Modem Dance Company and presented a full concert at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) on 19 and 21 Feb 1970. Its success led her to organize the first CCP summer dance workshop with Eddie Elejar in 1970. This became the nucleus of Ballet Philippines, now a major dance company in the Philippines and Asia. She served as president of the CCP Dance Found- ation and Ballet Philippines' artistic director from 1970 to 1991, dance consultant for the CCP, a trustee for the Philippine High School for the Arts at the National Arts Center, teacher at the CCP dance workshop, and professorial lecturer at the University of New Hamp- shire, USA. She was a member of the Commission on REYES
Arts and Culture of Manila, secretary of the Council of Living Traditions, and chair of the Fourth ASEAN Festival of Performing Arts. Reyes' major works from 1969 to 1991 include At a Maranaw Gathering to music by Colgrass; Company to Bach; Bungkos Suite to traditional music; The Emper- or's New Clothes to Milhaud; Chichester Psalms to Bernstein; Compared to What to MacDaniels; Sym- phonic Abstractions to Eliseo Pajaro; Dugso to Ramon Santos; Bayanihan Remembered to Lucrecia Kasilag; Mga Babae (Women) to Inang Laya; Negro Spirituals (with two by Helen Tamiris); Getting There to Foss; Seven-and-a-Half to Hendrix and Zeppelin; Punch to Nyro; Tapestry to Kasilag; Carmina Burana to Orff; Lonely Hearts Club Band to John Lennon and Paul McCartney; A Midsummer Night's Dream to Mendelssohn; !tim Asu (Onyx Wolf) to Alfredo Buenaventura; Anting-Anting (Amulet) to Bayani Mendoza de Leon; and Carmen to Bizet. Her full-evening ballets include The Nutcracker, Romeo and Juliet to Prokofiev; Cinderella to Tchaikovsky; Giselle (a restaging); Jesus Christ Super- star to Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice; Tommy to Townshend; Rajah Sulayman to Alfredo Buenaventura; Tales of the Manuvu to Nonong Pedero and Bienvenido Lumbera; and Rama, Hari (King Rama) to Ryan Cayabyab and Lumbera. Reyes' collaboration with musicians, visual artists, librettists, and theater designers expanded the efforts of Filipino artists to produce innovative and excellent creations for the Philippine stage. She has also led Ballet Philippines in many international tours and helped win recognition for the company by its blend of classical and modern dance techniques and the use of Filipino and Asian themes and music. As a young artist, Reyes won the Best Choreog- rapher award in the female division of the National Songfest of the Philippines for three consecutive years, and the overall grand prize in 1964 with Maryknoll College. She won the same award for two consecutive years with the Ateneo High School, in collaboration with her mother. She received the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan from the City of Manila and the PWU Alumni Award-PWU Golden Jubilee Award in 1972, and the Karangalang Hiyas ng Bulacan in 1976. The French government awarded her the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et Letres in 1980, and Taiwan, the Gold Medal of Culture. In 1981, she received The Outstanding Women of the Nation's Service or TOWNS Award, and grants from the Philippine Enter- tainment Managers' Association, Asia Foundation, and the British Council. In 1989 Reyes received the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining. • E. Vida 231
ARTISTS REYES, BENJAMIN CERDON aka Benny Villanueva b. Manila 7 March 1930. Dance, choreo- grapher, teacher. He is the son of Rufino Reyes and Isabel Cerdon, and half-brother of Lydia Arguilla, founder of Philippine Art Gallery, and Remedios Villanueva Piiton, dancer and teacher. He and his wife, ballerina Josefa Arnaldo, are the parents of Andre Reyes, principal dancer of the San Francisco Ballet. At age 13, he started lessons with his sister Remedios Pinon, a dancer of Trudl Dubsky-Zipper. He studied with Anita Kane but his main teacher was Ricardo Cassell. Catching the attention of enthusiasts, he was sent to New York as a scholar of the Asociacion Musical de Filipinas, the Music Lovers Society, and Cassell. In 1953, he was granted a full scholarship at the School of American Ballet where he studied with Muriel Stuart, Anatole Oboukoff, Pierre Vladimiroff, Yurek Lazowski, and Felia Dubrovska. He also took lessons at the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo with Maria Svoboda, Anatole Vilzak, Leon Danielian, and Frederic Franklin. Reyes returned to Manila in 1955 and danced in the Philippine Ballet Festival with Alexandra Danilova, Michael Maule, Mocelyn Larkin, and Roman Jasinski. He also danced and choreographed for Cassell's Stu- dio Dance Group and the Manila Ballet Company. After Reyes and Arnaldo married, they opened their own ballet school and formed a group which per- formed onstage and TV and toured the Philippines. In 1961, after performing in the Philippine Festival in Las Vegas, USA, Reyes settled down with his family in San Francisco on the US West Coast. He taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Ballet and Theater Arts, 1962-1970, becoming the balletmaster and dancer of Ballets Celeste, the school's performing company. In 1966, he joined the San Francisco Opera Ballet; after one season, he joined the San Francisco Ballet where he danced principal parts until1970. He danced in the ballets of Lew Christensen and Carlos Carvajal, a Filipino-American from the Philippine sarswela family, and choreographed Mindanao for San Francisco Bal- let's Summer '67 program. All this time, he worked on and finished his bachelor's degree, 1969, and master's degree, 1971, at San Francisco State University where he began teaching in 1970. He also taught at San Jose State University, 1987-1988, and at the San Francisco Ballet Conservatory's summer workshops. In 1972 Reyes moved to Santa Clara, California, USA, opened a school, and formed the Santa Clara Ballet Company of which he is presently the artistic director, principal dancer, and choreographer. For his work here, he was awarded a bicentennial citation in Santa Clara in 1976. 232 Among Reyes' choreographies are Muslim Suite, Peter and the Wolf, Les Patineurs, and Jazz Americana all between 1962 and 1965; Zoidiakos, to R. Strauss, 1974; Divertimento, to D. Shostakovitch, 1974; Scuola di Balletto, to Czerny, 1975; Alamat (Legend), 1976; the full Nutcracker, 1978; Homage to Pavlova, 1981; and Carnival of the Animals, 1990. He has also re- staged the classical grands pas de deux, Giselle (he was Albrecht in the first Philippine production in 1950), The Sleeping Beauty, Pas de Quatre, after Anton Dolin, and Les Sylphides. • R.V. Pinon REYES, DENISA GARCIA (Denisa Reyes- Ryland) b. Manila 11 Mar 1952. Dancer, choreo- grapher, teacher. She is the daughter of Ricardo Reyes and Adoracion Garcia, and the sister of dancer- choreographers Alice Reyes and Edna Vida, and musi- cians Betty and Cecile. She is married to Merle Ryland, an American. She completed her general education at Maryknoll College and the Philippine Women's Uni- versity, and has a master's degree in fine arts, major in dance, from the State University of New York, 1978. She received her early training from Greta Monserrat and Joji Felix-Velarde, and later from Alice Reyes, Norman Walker, Pauline Koner, Antonio Fabella, Eddie Elejar, Miro Zolan, and Alfred Rodrigues. She joined Ballet Philippines in 1970. Creat- ing dances during the early Cultural Center of the Philip- pines (CCP) summer dance workshops, she presented The Last Flower in 1974, followed by Arem in 1975. Reyes received a scholarship to the Jacob's Pillow Festival and workshop in Massachusetts, USA, in 1975, and after that a full scholarship to finish her bachelor's and master's degrees in 1978. That year, she was one of eight choreographers chosen to participate, with her work, Ifugaos, in the 20th anniversary of the Clark Cen- ter Dance Festival in New York City. To subsidize her choreography, Reyes joined the Asakawalker Dance Company, and later 5 Plus 2 company in New York City. Then, she also danced with the Jose Limon company, Saeko Ichinoe, and Philip Drosser. In 1981, she organized a concert, 3-D Vision, in New York, featuring her works and those of two other choreographers. In 1982 her works were featured again at the Glenn Palmer dance concert in New York. That year found Reyes dancing and touring with The King and I with Yul Brynner; she also went solo for her second major concert. In 1983, Reyes taught and choreographed for the CCP summer dance workshops, premiering her Muybridge!Frames (then entitled Photography, a Gen- tleman's Honor). Returning to New York, she produced her own concert, Neo-Filipino, at the Larry Richardson Dance Gallery in 1984. It featured One-Ton Pinay and premiered Made in the Philippines and For the Gods. After dancing briefly with the Hannah Kalui Dance Company, she choreographed the full-length Firebird for Ballet Philippines in 1985 using Isao Tomita's electronic version of Stravinsky. Her succeeding works for Ballet Philippines include Te Deum, 1985; Love Lies Bleeding, 1986, to music by Philip Glass and Brian Eno; Hula (Prophecy), 1987, to Lucrecia Kasilag; See It Finish! Cock vs. Cock, and Balimbingan (Opportunism), 1987; Siete Dolores (Seven Sorrows), to Fabian Obispo, 1988; Sa Ugoy ng Duyan (As the Hammock Sways), to Lucio San Pedro, 1991; and Rite of Spring, to Stravinsky, 1993. For the Philippine Educational Theater Association or PET A, she helped conceptualize, direct, and choreograph the full-evening dance drama Diablos (Demons), based on a Bagobo legend, in 1989. • E. Vida REYES, RICARDO ADUNA b. Calumpit, Bulacan 13 July 1914 d. Manila 27 Dec 1989. Dancer, pianist. He was the son of Vicente Reyes and Consuela Ad una. He married singer and voice teacher Adoracion Garcia in 1941, with whom he had six children, three of whom- Alice, Denisa, and Edna-are dancers, choreo- graphers, and dance directors, and two--Betty and Cecile-are musicians. He graduated from the Uni- versity of the Philippines (UP), major in piano. He danced for Francisca Reyes-Aquino's UP Folk Song and Dance Club. He also danced in the modern dance productions of Trudl Dubsky-Zipper and Manila Ballet Moderne, and in the folk dance adaptations of Paul Szilard after WWII. He joined the Bayanihan Phi- lippine Dance Company in 1958. Dubbed "Mr Folkdancer," he partnered his eldest daughter Alice in several Bayanihan tours around the world. He also headed the cultural mission to Vietnam and Cambodia sponsored by Operations Brotherhood. Reyes received the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalina- ngan award for dance in 1980, and the Gintong Ama Award for Arts and Culture, as Outstanding Father of the Year, in 1989. • E. Vida REYES-AQUINO, FRANCISCA aka Francisca Reyes-Tolentino or Kikay b. Bocaue, Bulacan 7 Mar 1899 d. Manila 21 Dec 1983. National Artist in Dance. Her parents are Felipe Reyes and Juliana Santos of Tondo, Manila. She married her fellow researcher Ramon Tolentino, with whom she had a daughter, Celia. She was widowed in 1939. Her second marriage was to Serafin Aquino, also aPE superintendent. She was a product of Tondo Elementary School, 1916, and REYES-AQUINO Manila High School, 1920. She went to the University of the Philippines (UP) for her high school teacher's certificate in 1923, and bacherlor of science in educa- tion in 1924. In 1926, she earned a master of arts degree from UP with the thesis "Philippine Folk Dances and Games," a collection arranged specifically for the use of teachers and playground instructors. This study was the beginning of researches spanning the next 45 years. With the support of UP Pres Jorge Bocobo, she braved mountain trails and treacherous waters all over the Philippines to reach the people and their dances. In 1929-1931, she worked for a certificate at the Sargent College of Physical Education of Boston Uni- versity, USA. Returning to the Philippines, she be- came physical education (PE) director for women at UP, 1933-1939, and organized the UP Folk Song and Dance Society and the UP Dance Troupe. Reyes-Aquino became PE supervisor of the Bureau of Education in 1939, and organized its folk dance society in 1940. In 1945 she organized the Filipi- niana Folk Dance Troupe to perform for American troops in the Philippines. She was appointed PE su- perintendent of the Department of Education in 1947. Her researches are preserved in books that are used extensively in the Philippines and abroad: Philippine Folk Dances and Games, 1927; Philippine National Dances, 1946; Gymnastics for Girls, 1947; Fundamental Dance Steps and Music, 1948; Foreign Folk Dances, 1949; Dance Steps for All Occasions, 1950; Playground Demon- stration, 1951; Philippine Folk Dances in six volumes, 1953-1975; P.hythmic Activities, 1952; and Philippine Folk Dances and Songs, as co-author, 1966. Reyes-Aquino's work earned her many awards. The first to honor her achievement was Boston Uni- versity, which conferred on her an honorary doctorate for her pioneering research. Then came the Republic of the Philippines Award of Merit in 1954; honorary doctorate from Far Eastern University in 1959; the UNESCO Cultural Award in 1959; the Rizal Pro-Patria Award in 1961; the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1962, Patnubay ng Kalinangan Award in 1969; and a certifi- cate of recognition from the American Young Men's Christian Association or YMCA, 1980, Smithsonian In- stitute and the Asia Society, 1981. She was proclaimed National Artist in 1973. Mrs Aquino once expressed concern that while Philippine folk dance does not face extinction any- more, it is being threatened with distortion. She had no objection to innovations in the presentations but felt that folk dances should be "left as they are-of the folk." • P.M. Arandez 233 ARTISTS
REYES-URTULA, LUCRECIA FAUSTINO aka Mommy Urtula b. Iloilo 29 Jun 1929. National Artist in Dance. Born to a music-loving couple, Col Leon S. Reyes, who encouraged her interest in folk dance and traditions, and Antonia Faustino, daughter of pianist Aniceto Faustino, Reyes-Urtula was exposed at an early age to the various tribal groups in the Philippines because of the constant change in her father's tours of duty. In Baguio she took ballet lessons with a Russian emigre; later she apprenticed with National Artist Francisca Reyes- Aquino. She graduated with a bachelor of science in physical education from the Philippine Women's Uni- versity (PWU), 1950, where she immediately started to teach. She pursued further studies at the Martha Graham School in New York, USA, the Hanayagi School in Japan, 1955, San Francisco State College, 1953, and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines where she got a doctorate in theater management, 1985. As a student and teacher at PWU, she was in- volved in the Filipiniana Folk Arts Group. In 1955, the group attended the International Festival of Dance and Music in Dacca, Pakistan. That trip spurred the group to enrich its research and performances, and following after Reyes-Aquino, made contact with remote tribes. In 1957, the group became the Bayanihan Folk Arts Center and its performing arm, the Bayanihan Philip- pine Dance Company, with Reyes-Urtula as choreo- grapher and dance director. After winning the top award at the Brussels World Exposition in 1958, the group began a series of world tours to the rest of Europe, the United States, the Middle East, and Asia- Pacific. In these tours, Reyes-Urtula was involved not only with stage but with film and TV. She choreo- graphed for the Icecapades at the Madison Square Gar- den in New York City and received praises from the critics. Her work and the Bayanihan-inspired Amelia Hernandez to form the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico and Alvin Ailey his American Dance Theater. Reyes-Urtula has represented the Philippines in numerous international festivals and conferences, de- livering pap'ers and conducting workshops. She was for years artistic director for dance of the Folk Arts Theater (FAT); she conceived and worked out, with the Philippine Folk Dance Society, the FAT Philippine Folk Festival and national folk dance workshops. A former consultant on cultural affairs in Malacaii.ang, she is now special projects officer for folk dance at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) performing arts department. She helped found and conduct the Indak Pambata training program of Bayanihan and the Kasay- sayan ng Lahi summer workshop at Nayong Pilipino. She authored The First Philippine Folk Festival- A Retrospective published by FAT, 1981. Among her 234
most notable choreographies, backed by extensive re- search, are Singkil and Indarapatra from the Maranao, Pagdiwata from the Tagbanua, Tagabili from the Tbo- li, and Sound of Wings from the numerous bird dances of the Philippines, and the complete Bayanihan reper- tory. She has woven into her works contemporary themes like the Spanish tradition in Un Camet du Bal, 1987, European classical music in Arpeggio, the Asian traditions in the collaborative Sound of Tambours-An ASEAN Tapestry, 1990, and the paintings of Carlos Francisco, 1991. Awards recognizing her work include those from PWU and Davao, for Outstanding Choreography, 1960; Republic Cultural Heritage Award and International Women's Year Award, 1963; Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan from the City of Manila, 1973; the title of Bai Kiokmay from the Mandaya and Manobo tribes, 1976; and Tandang Sora Award for the arts, 1982. She was proclaimed National Artist in 1988. • B.E.S. Villaruz RIGOR-FERRER, ADINA b. Dolores, Abra 14 Jun 1919. Dancer, teacher. Her parents were Agapito Rigor and Perpetua Babauro, and she married Simeon Ferrer. At the University of the Philippines (UP), she trained in modern ballet with Trudl Dubsky-Zipper and earned her bachelor's degree in physical education (PE). She further trained in modern dance under Jean Marsh at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, USA, where she took a master's degree in health/PE. In 1956, she earned her doctorate in PE at the University of Iowa, the first Filipino to obtain such. She took both postgraduate degrees on scholarships from the United States government. While studying at the UP, she was a regular mem- ber of Francisca Reyes-Aquino's Folk Song and Dance Group and Dubsky-Zipper's Manila Ballet Moderne. After graduation, she taught at the Torres High School in Manila and later at the UP College of Education. Then she became PE supervisor at the Department of Education. While working on her doctorate, she was a graduate assistant in Iowa, and later became an in- structor at Beaver College. Upon returning to Manila, she resumed her duties as supervisor. In 1956, she became the unit head of PEat the Far Eastern Universi- ty (FEU), where she now heads the PE department. She has also handled graduate courses at the FEU, University of the East, UP, and the National College of Physical Education. She has chaired many curricular programs on physical education, from the elementary to the tertiary levels. Rigor-Ferrer has authored Physical Education Activities for Secondary Schools and Rhythmic Gymnastics with Carmen Adevoso, and has prepared a Glossary on Modern Dance Skills. The recipient of awards and citations, she has been many times president of the Philippine Associa- tion of Physical Education and Sports for Girls and Women. She is also president of the Francisca Reyes- Aquino Memorial Foundation. • P.M. Arandez RIMPOS, EsTER VINERTA b. Manila 13 Aug 1947. Dancer, teacher, choreographer. She is the daughter of Adelaida Montelibano Vinerta and Benito Rimpos, both of Negros Occidental. Rimpos started dance at age five and trained with Ricardo Cassell, Puck Hoog Meyer, Greta Monserrat, and Anita Kane. She became principal dancer of the latter's ballet com- pany, later called Pamana Ballet. In 1970, she joined the CCP Dance Company (now Ballet Philippines), where she was a principal dancer for 15 years. She holds a degree in broadcast communications from the University of the Philippines (UP). Rimpos danced the lead roles in most of the ballet classics, such as Aurora's Wedding, The Sleeping Beau- ty, Swan Lake, Giselle, Don Quixote, The Nutcracker, and Le Corsaire, as well as in many modern ballets like Amada, Kapinangan, Valse Fantaisie, Concertina, Sea- son of Flight, Songs of the Wayfarer, Phaedra, Images, Rajah Sulayman, Rama, Hari (King Rama), Orpheus Descending, and Yerma, where she danced and sang. She also choreographed for some productions, notably Duo, to music by Fabian Obispo, for the 1977 Philip- pine Music Festival. She taught ballet at the Philippine High School for the Arts, the UP College of Music, and the CCP Dance School where she served as director. In 1976, Rimpos was cited as Dancer of the Year, and in 1985, she received the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan award from the City of Manila. • P.G. del Rosario Download 1.09 Mb. Share with your friends:
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