Ballet Academy of Cebu re-tells ‘Beauty and the Beast’

CEBU, Philippines — During the recent Mother’s Day weekend, mallgoers at SM Seaside City Cebu happened by a “tale as old as time” that was presented differently. At the City Wing Atrium was the Ballet Academy of Cebu-organized presentation of “Beauty and the Beast”, which re-told Disney’s version of Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve’s classic fairytale.

In lieu of a play with dialogue and musical numbers was the ballet interpretation of the iconic story. The dance steps accompanied by classical scores did the storytelling instead.

“Story is king, and to a certain extent, the music is queen, and then the movements are like children,” ballerina Meghan Samonte told The FREEMAN after the show. “The best way to describe it is that each step is like a word, and each step strung together forms sentences, and each of the sentences together forms a story.”

“Every expression, your face, your arms, your movements, the feeling in your body, whether someone is standing straight or slouching, you will know if they are sad or happy. The movements express the range of emotions because some feelings are indescribable with words.”

Samonte, artistic director of Ballet Academy of Cebu, played Belle throughout the one-and-a-half-hour presentation, opposite Ballet Philippines’ Mark Anthony Balucay as the Beast.

Many of the other professional dancers in the production flew in from Manila to help Samonte boost the ballet scene in Cebu.

“They came here to help make this ballet show happen and they have to go back to Manila tomorrow for work. Even that in itself is a miracle. Even better, we are here at SM Seaside and grateful to them for helping a professional ballet company,” said Samonte.

One of the main reasons why she wanted to tell the story of “Beauty and the Beast” through ballet was to bring familiarity to the dance form through a material that audiences already knew by heart.

“My idea was to make ballet relatable for Cebuanos because it’s not very common,” she explained. “We are trying to make it palatable to the Cebuano people so they can bring their kids to watch while understanding ballet.”

Most of the music in the show wasn’t even from the Disney movie soundtrack, but from familiar classical music pieces that are commonplace for many traditional ballet shows. This is one of Samonte’s ways of introducing classical music to the Cebu audience.

“Classical music is something that isn’t exposed yet to Cebuanos. It’s like if you had never been exposed to Barbie, you wouldn’t be interested in her. But then somebody brought Barbie and it became a big thing,” she said.

“The classical musical is not yet a thing here because we don’t have a regular orchestra season, and we don’t have a Cebuano philharmonic orchestra.”

Samonte hails from a family of ballerinas. Her mother, Maria Christina Javier Samonte, founded the Ballet Academy of Cebu. She started training under her mom when she was four years old.

“My mother started this school because she wanted to have a place for me to take ballet classes, and it was her passion. My father, who already passed away, always told my mom to never give it up. When I moved back from the US [five years ago], I decided to put my whole heart into Ballet Academy of Cebu,” she shared.

Before moving back to Cebu for good, Samonte trained with renowned ballet dancers such as Alexander Vetrov, Maria Kudyakova, and Lisa Macuja-Elizalde.

Samonte is happy that there is a niche appreciation for ballet in Cebu, though she believes it will take a long time for it to go mainstream.

“I am so grateful that other people want to do ballet. Instead of keeping it in-house, we performed at SM to have general exposure. Ballet is starting to catch on, but it’s a one-step-at-a-time thing,” she further said.

“But I want people to know about ballet that it’s not just some girls running around in tutus or pretending to be fairies. It’s a sport and an art form, and it’s not just for the elite. It’s for everyone. It’s for anyone who has the heart and a dream to become a ballet dancer.”

Samonte hopes more will become interested in signing up for classes, regardless of their current capability as dancers.

“We don’t do this for the money. It’s all for the heart because when children have fairytales to believe in, it teaches them to dream big, to think bigger, and to do the impossible,” she said.

Interested Ballet Academy of Cebu enrollees can message the school’s official Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/balletacademy.cebu/). They are also on the lookout for new dancers that can join their “Aladdin” presentation later this year.

“If you have the heartbeat and you want to dance ballet, regardless of age and body type, everyone can join. It’s not true you have to be a certain weight, be at the right age, or you have to be flexible. It’s only the human mind that limits you.” — (FREEMAN)