Learning choreography

(First of 2 parts)

Dance in the Philippines: Where did it come from and where is it headed for? As a member of the NCCA dance committee, I was tasked by chairman Larry Gabao to author modules for creative workshops, "Creative Movement for Beginners." The committee has been forging ahead with projects to activate enthusiasm in dance. We’ve been sending teachers all over the country to teach choreography.

Modules. Ah, madali lang ito. Kayang-kaya. After all, I’ve been in the business for three decades and had begun trifling with studies during CCP summer workshops at the age of 16. Teka, I even started choreographing at the age of 9. The next course would be to grab the opportunity to share what I’ve learned with as many novices as possible.

So, I got my notes and began work. Let’s see. Start with the basics. Bookish but necessary. Axial forms, stimuli, images, levels, locomotion, floor patterns, music. Then, scrutinize the craft of forming ideas, forming dances, working with bodies, compositional structures, planned structures, theme and interpretation.

The pilot workshops I handled gave me a different perspective. I realized I was learning more about choreography as I was teaching it. I was learning from my students in the same way they were learning from me.

Who am I teaching? Many are PE teachers who never had a single lesson in dance. They are forced by their principals to create for street competitions. To ease off pressure, I tell them we are all equal, there’s no judgment, only sharing and evaluation. Few have an idea of how to go about deconstructing folk dance and constructing a ballet, evolving them, much less rotating their bodies within an axis. But once they’re taught, there’s enthusiasm and enlightenment. Sheer pleasure is mine when teaching in the provinces.

Judging street festivals all over the country, I observe that our tribal movements are so beautiful they can make you weep. Watching old women of the T’boli tribe dance in Mindanao brought tears to my eyes. It was embarrassing to be a teary-eyed judge in the middle of the street with the threat of a bomb explosion. All I could think was here was the real Pinoy. How I wished my children could watch them instead of Incubus and Linkin Park on MTV.

But once the dances veer away from tradition and dabble with modernity, Filipino culture is reflected in a considerably superficial way. We are skilled in copying the West but the treasure that abounds deep within remains virtually untapped. Gimmickry seems to be the important thing. I’ve seen fireworks on stage, little boys falling off the top of bamboos, and necks of live chicken sliced.

Aside from the Kadayawan, Sinulog and Ati-Atihan festivals, few new organizers bother to think of how they can be different from the rest. There’s a tendency to copy from the original and not much effort to make the music more unique nor to make movements mirror the native spirit.

Much like our history has the confusing Spanish, Yankee, Malay, Chinese and Japanese influence, so does our art. In Manila, some dance artists are unmistakably unorthodox while others are traditional, classical, jazzy or folkloric.

Some prefer the sweeping modern dances of the Alice Reyes school, others favor Agnes Locsin’s ethnicity, Douglas Nierras’ potency, Myra Beltran’s fervor, Denisa Reyes’ eccentricity, Tony Fabella’s timeless classicism. Of course, there is also the hip hop and street dance slant. No school is outmoded, tacky or brilliant. All belong to art.

In my trips, I’ve seen the entire range of preferences. If, in Manila, we’re already doing multi-media spectacles, the provinces are still doing their unassuming programs. They are still groping in the ’70s and ’80s of our metropolitan archives, modern dance in its sinless curves. Much like the way we began.

Let them do their romances, wars and celebrations in dance. They are finding their vocabulary and we must let them. Although the futurists ho-hum at the supposedly poor taste and mediocrity of it all, they have to allow passage on this road. It’s the same road we all pass to find our lexicon.

I have a Malaysian friend with whom I attended an American dance festival as an international student. It went on for a month or so and everyday we were obliged to attend modern dance classes under various known American instructors and choreographers. Eager to learn from the masters I religiously took down my notes and observations. Boy was I going to share this with my Filipino colleagues.

My friend whispered to me, "Look at them, teaching us what we taught them."

"Huh?" I asked, perplexed.

He replied, "You know these Americans are so good. They went to Asia, studied our ancient classical movements, yoga, meditation. Where do you think flexed feet and turned-in legs came from? Where do you think contractions came from?" Oo nga ano. "Then they parceled and packaged it and called it American modern dance."

So, it goes around and around. The Middle Eastern dances took a more passionate cadence in the Spanish flamenco, the Spanish flamenco became more genteel in the Filipino polka. Indian dance configurations took a different form in Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, yoga danced with Martha Graham, African convulsions were isolated by Michael Jackson, and so forth and so on. Worldwide.

And dance in the Philippines? It’s like jumping from one era to the next between land demarcations. Basics in the province, innovation in the city. Use your body there, use your mind here. Find your soul there, say your message here. Construct there, deconstruct here.

How does one teach choreography? By teaching something that seems very far removed. You teach honesty.

(To be continued)