Sayaw at Serye

MANILA, Philippines - Ballet and teleserye. Two modes of entertainment that are worlds apart collide today and tomorrow at 8 p.m. in Philippine Ballet Theatre’s Sayaw at Serye at the Main Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

The new ballet is a collaboration with ABS-CBN, with the libretto by Concepcion Camacho based on the popular theme songs of the network’s teleseryes, rearranged by the ABS-CBN orchestra, headed by Gerard Salonga, and sung by the finalists of The Voice of the Philippines. Artistic director Ronilo Jaynario’s choreography translates these elements of mass culture to appeal to many different audiences.

The PBT hopes to develop and educate a new, wider audience with this production, and hopefully keep them coming back for more. Ballet has always been seen as an elitist art form, although when members of the PBT perform in malls and school gyms in national tours, they often find a very receptive audience. So how do you convince them to come to the CCP, instead of spending their Saturday night clubbing or malling?

“Many people love the ballet, but the challenge is how do we make it more interesting so that we have even more people falling in love with the ballet,” says Camacho, who is also PBT’s president.

Sayaw at Serye features Margarette, an elderly lady, reminiscing her youth, when she was an aspiring ballerina falling in love for the first time, and then making the inevitable choice between love and her career. This is told through a series of pas de deux set to beautiful orchestra arrangements of beloved pop songs, such as Basil Valdez’s Ngayon at Kailanman, Gary Valenciano’s Sana Maulit Muli and Martin Nievera’s Ikaw.

In the past, PBT presented Tony Fabella’s Limang Dipa and Kundiman: Noon at Ngayon and Gener Caringal’s Isang Bagong Bituin.

(For more information, call PBT office at 632-8848. Tickets are also available at the CCP Box Office at 832-3704 and at Ticketworld at 891-9999.)