Ballet Manila goes big time with contemporary Pinoy ballets

It has been quite a while since we last saw an Agnes Locsin ballet. After her innovatively eye-opening La revolucion filipina, created for Ballet Philippines in celebration of the 1998 independence centennial, she went back home to Davao City for a much needed sabbatical. She’s been quite busy all this time teaching dance there, as well as mounting annual dance productions that have kept the city’s art scene busy. She returns to Manila every so often to choreograph a number of theater productions and create her unique neo-ethnic dance pieces when a challenge beckons.

Ballet Manila’s recent production OPM at OPB (Original Pilipino Music at Original Pilipino Ballet) must have presented such a challenge because it featured three new Locsin dance pieces – the solos Ritwal and Agila, created for BM for the New York and Tokyo international ballet competitions this year, and Urbanatives, this early, a Locsin minor classic.

Agnes Locsin is the last person I would associate with Lisa Macuja-Elizalde’s Vaganova-trained Ballet Manila. BM is known for its tour de force performances of classic ballets, as well as some neo-classical ones, while Locsin is known for her neo-ethnic dances, angular and sometimes stark, often moving at speeds that prove to be challenging for most dancers.

However, this was not the first time Locsin and BM came together. She already created for the company Sayaw sa Pamlang, a dance I have yet to see.

Locsin’s Urbanatives, the longer of her dance pieces featured that night, was just one of the highlights of BM’s OPM at OPB. Also featured were the late Eric V. Cruz’s neo-classical Visions in Blue, and Tony Fabella’s Dalagang Pilipina, which featured 16 ballerinas sashaying in gowns by Auggie Cordero, and Dancing to Verdi, a grand divertissement to Verdi’s most popular tunes.

Urbanatives is a choreographic collage, episodic in treatment, of life in the city. Images of workers rushing to work in the morning, women praying in church and men playing hooky are contrasted against the travails of a housewife looking after the needs of her husband and keeping house.

There is something spare about this ballet. Movements are kept to a minimum in most instances, the same gesture repeated over again. Sometimes, you would think the dancers weren’t dancing, since they move as if they were simply walking down the street. It is because of this familiarity that Locsin’s scenario rings true.

The choreographer also audaciously decided to keep Lisa Macuja-Elizalde, as the housewife, from dancing. For three quarters of this dance piece, she doesn’t dance at all. You see her facing an imaginary mirror combing her hair, beating eggs for breakfast, dressing her husband. You can’t miss her on stage, because her presence has little relation to the turmoil of the city that is happening just beside her, of course danced by the rest of the company.

It is only near the end of the piece that she finally erupts into a solo – and truly, what a solo of joy, of freedom, of being unfettered by the cares of the day. And Macuja-Elizalde moves from acting to dancing without any difficulty.

Of course, this is an Agnes Locsin solo, and that would mean rolling on the floor in the most difficult of positions, a body twisted into a pretzel and held for moments. The moves may be awkward, the poses unnatural, but Macuja-Elizalde adds a sense of poise and grace to her dance, showing that in this singular moment in this housewife’s day, she is able to find herself, even if only for a moment.

At the end of the ballet, the housewife joins the city folk in their ceaseless walk in life… but this moment is short and purely in her mind. She leaves her place from the group and returns to her home, alone, radiant and with a smile on her face. This housewife’s life may sometimes be like hell but she has found her place in it, and it keeps her whole.

The Locsin solos Ritwal and Agila are simple introductions to the choreographer’s art.

In Ritwal, a girl seems to unfold like a flower, from bud to bloom. The body twists, turns and contorts without end long before we even see the dancer’s body in full. And then, the dance ends, just a short minute or so.

Mylene Aggabao managed Ritwal pretty well, although her body lacked the angularity I have always expected from dancers doing a Locsin solo.

This was not the case in Agila. A male soloist is asked not just to contort his body without end, but, at one point, even raise his leg in the air and hold it for a couple of seconds. As the eagle poises into flight, every beat of the bird’s wing is coupled with the distinct isolation of lats. This is not just a solo, but also a display of a dancer’s brawn. Just as the lights dim, the eagle is in flight, and the dancer seems to float in the air… er, on the floor, his arms and legs beating in different directions.

Alvin Santos was a surprise, his lean body all muscle and strength. Too survive Locsin’s Agila is proof of a dancer’s excellent training, and that he showed fully.

Apart from the big numbers, there were three other dance pieces featured during this ballet. Gerardo Francisco’s solo Hunting was a faint echo of Loscin’s pieces; it lacked the intensity and excitement of the other solos.

Then, there were the two pas de deux that were so different from each other. Bournonville’s Kermesse in Bruges pas de deux is a classic duet, performed prettily by Marian Faustino and Ricardo Mallari. Faustino had her solos down pat, and while Mallari had the energy and strength for his leaps, he seemed to lack self-confidence executing them. You could see it in the way he mentally counted his moves and estimated his landings.

David Campos Cantero’s Masque of the Red Death pas de deux was unlike any pas de deux I’ve ever seen. Not only is it set to the music of Metallica as performed by the cello quartet Apocaliptica, it also requires the ballerina to gyrate on stage. Yes, Elline Damian proved that she can outdo anyone in a body language contest. And did I forget to say that she was gyrating en pointe? Aided by partner Eduardo Espejo, she added not just class and pizzazz to this short piece but also lots of sensual heat.

One unforgettable moment in this too short pas de deux is when Damian leaps into the air and is caught by Espejo in his arms in a split. Really awesome! When will Ballet Manila mount Campos Cantero’s Masque of the Red Death? I hope they do it really soon.

Eric Cruz’s Visions in Blue evokes the flight of birds in the sky. Set to Vivaldi’s "Winter Concerto" from The Four Seasons, it prepared the audience for the variety of dancing they would expect.

Tony Fabella’s Dancing to Verdi made another appearance on BM’s program. Together, Lisa Macuja-Elizalde and Osias Barroso led the company’s dancers in impressive ensemble dancing.

However, of the evening’s longer ballets, it was Fabella’s Dalagang Pilipina that truly brought dazzle and beauty. Imagine 16 ballerinas in gowns by Auggie Cordero? A fashion show, and not a ballet? Not really.

It opens with Lisa Macuja-Elizalde sashaying to an intimate version of Dalagang Pilipina. As the melody is repeated over again, it gains richer texture with changes in orchestration, much like in Ravel’s Bolero. And with the change in texture come more dancers on stage, all arrayed in sumptuous gowns fit for a ball. By the piece’s finale, all 16 dancers are busy executing a Balanchine finale, as Macuja-Elizalde makes another entrance, this time in a new gown in black and fine, elegantly decorated with ostrich feathers.

You might think the whole dance is a glamorized fashion show, and it is to some sense. But Fabella doesn’t camp it up until the end when all the girls do a balletic version of voguing. It’s lots of fun, yes and just perfect to end the program’s first half.

Maybe Ballet Manila can be convinced to restage Locsin’s full-length masterpiece Encantada. It hasn’t been seen in a decade and its theme of environmental conservation and protection, as well as colonization, is still very much relevant today. Maybe, maybe not. But more Agnes Locsin, please.