Lisa Macuja-Elizalde: A dancer champions artists' welfare

“We’re desperate,” she says, then adds with a laugh, “You can print that!”

Lisa Macuja-Elizalde is discussing the Artists’ Welfare Project Inc. (AWPI), of which she is a trustee and treasurer, and head of the all-important fund raising committee. She has plunged head-on into her work with AWPI, masterminding the artists’ bazaar held yesterday as the year’s final fund-raising activity.

AWPI is an organization that assists artists with basic matters like medical and health care, housing, financial management including insurance and pensions, legal advice, among myriad other concerns of life. More often than not, artists are so focused on and wrapped up in their work and their world that humdrum everyday concerns like paying the rent, buying medicine, reading the fine print in contracts, saving up for retirement, etc. are not attended to.

As fundraising committee chair, Lisa has a daunting task. The first step is for the organization to have at least P2 million in order to qualify as a foundation, and then to apply for tax-exempt status, particularly for donors. The goal is a lot more than that – an endowment fund of P50 million, from which interest earnings can pay for benefits to members. In these times of economic meltdowns and global recession, that may seem like an impossibility; but Lisa – and the rest of AWPI – are not just going to give up and do nothing.

“As Edna (Vida-Froilan, also an AWPI trustee) says, ‘I have a dream!’ We have to dream,” insists Lisa.

Lisa, an artist in body, mind and soul – she is the moving spirit and throbbing heart (and sturdy legs too!) behind Ballet Manila, and is the only Filipino to have been a member of the acclaimed Kirov ballet company of Russia – knows only too well the realities and problems confronting members of the arts world. She can recite a seemingly endless list of artists – dancers particularly – who have outlived their days on stage or screen or studio and who find themselves with no place to live, unable to seek medical help for illness, sometimes even without means to put food on the table – if they even have a table.

Lisa and AWPI found each other through her radio show Art to Art, aired every Sunday at 3:30 pm over family-owned dzRH. The program guests an artist a week for a stimulating chat, and once a month features one of our National Artists. She had actor Ronnie Lazaro as guest one Sunday, and towards the end of their half-hour chat he mentioned AWPI, and why the organization came to be.

“I was very moved by his stories,” Lisa says, “since I can relate to the plight of artists, especially dancers. Everyone just goes from performance to performance, they have no time to invest in a second career – hey, not all dancers dance till they’re 44!” The latter quip refers to herself, still actively dancing past her 40s. (Lisa will be dancing in Ballet Manila’s Lola Basyang opening this week; see accompanying story on the following page. Ed.)

Lisa promised to help the organization, first by enrolling all of her Ballet Manila dancers in AWPI. She made good on her promise, and the next thing she knew, “I got a text from Tata Nanding (actor Fernando Josef, president of AWPI) asking if I would agree to be nominated for the board.”    

She protested, saying she had no time to attend meetings, but again promised she would help. She was elected to the board, and not only has she been attending meetings, she is one of its most active members. Her first good deed for the AWPI was donating one performance of Ballet Manila’s Nutcracker in December 2007, from which AWPI raised over P150,000 in ticket sales.

This year’s fundraiser is an artists’ bazaar or tiangge – held yesterday – that featured one-of-a-kind products made by artists and NGO and people’s organizations that most of the AWPI board members are involved with. Lisa took charge of the vintage (a.k.a. ukay-ukay) tables, and a raffle that had as prizes an iPhone and Prada handbags – at P50 a ticket. Her two children Missy, 10, and Mac, 8, were most effective selling raffle tickets. Days before the bazaar, Lisa already had over P7,000 in advanced sales!

Next year’s fundraiser is a red-letter event in more ways than one. Set for June 2009 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, it will be a dance concert celebrating Lisa’s 25th season as a ballerina as well as her 12th wedding anniversary, to industrialist and painter Fred Elizalde. Lisa says it will have “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue” – though the program is not final yet, it will surely be something to look forward to.

Lisa’s life and career have been gilded, and she knows the muses have been more than kind to her, giving her not just talent but privilege as well. She studied at the school of the Kirov in St. Petersburg, training with the most esteemed ballet masters, then joined the fabled company. She has danced all the major roles a ballerina could dream of in the classical repertoire – Swan Lake, Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, Don Quixote, Les Sylphides…

She’s had her own company, Ballet Manila, and dance school for a dozen years. In addition to dancing and running the company, she has been choreographing too, first for the school and now, for the first time in Lola Basyang, for the professional company.

“I choreographed one of the three stories, Ang Kapatid ng Tatlong Maria,” she shares. “It’s my first for the company, and my first na pagka-modern.”

Ballet Manila has its own theater, the Aliw Theater, thanks to Lisa’s husband Fred, who has been patron/supporter/godfather to the company from the start.

Keenly aware that not all dancers are as privileged, Lisa has started scholarships and support funds for dancers. Her male scholarship program within Ballet Manila has helped many male dancers make a career out of dance, with some even able to be their family’s breadwinners and send siblings to school.

Earlier this year she started Project Ballet Futures with the PhilippineChristian Foundation, a program that gives 40 scholars aged 8 to 12 an hour-long ballet lesson six days a week, as well as a nutritious meal. The scholars are underprivileged children nominated by the PCF, as well as students from two public schools in Pasay City, where Lisa lives and where the Ballet Manila school is located.

“The goal is to make them into professional classical ballet dancers,” she explains, “and to enable them to make ballet a career.”

Of the many roles that she plays, Lisa says without hesitation that the role she loves best is dancer. “It’s the easiest,” she says. “You just go on stage, you’re responsible for yourself…” Taking note of our raised eyebrows, she continues, “But that’s as long as long as I’m in shape. If not, it’s easier siguro to attend board meetings.”

She laughs – Lisa laughs easily and heartily – at this, belying how difficult a profession dance is, how grueling the training is, how demanding on one’s body, how aches and pain are part of the job, how discipline will not allow even an occasional bout of laziness. Her daily routine as a dancer includes company class from 1 to 3 pm, rehearsals from 3 to 6 pm, then, “if I still have energy,” she teaches for an hour or two. “Then I go home to my husband and my children!” she exults.

Her 25th anniversary concert next year is not her farewell; she says she will keep on dancing “as long as I can, as long as hindi ako pagtatawanan ng tao, as long as I don’t make a fool of myself on stage.” But even longer than that, even beyond her dancing days, Lisa will continue fighting for the artists.

For more information on the Artists’ Welfare Project Inc., call 832-1125 loc. 1606/1607.