men and women - ballet philippines

*note: this is not an official review, these are impressions I want to return to when I come to the chapter in my MA thesis on Ballet Philippines. a real review would be more coherent and less stream-of-consciousness. thanks for reading.

Programme:
Stringed, Strung and Estranged by Enrico Labayen
to music by Shostakovich (eep, I think)

You could tell this was Rico's piece from the foot-hooking-itself-around-your-other-leg move. I'm watching this and feeling that BP has nothing to worry about, they were so strong, so stunning. But then, that's the point I guess I wanted to make when I left PBT, that we were a classical ballet company, not a modern company. Rico's piece proves my point in that everybody who danced this looked gorgeous. I knew that not everybody in PBT could measure up to the performance yesterday. There were only how many of us comfortable with Vivaldi? Not a lot.

I was thinking how easy it looked for them, when we were killing ourselves rehearsing Vivaldi - we were stressed and tired and worried that we looked like dorks. Well, I worried, I suppose I can't speak for other people, though some of us were crying every after rehearsal and some of us were very perturbed about the dance and some of us just plain disappeared whenever a Rico rehearsal was announced. I have no idea what the end product looked like, but I assume you could tell it was a lot of work. To the BP dancers, it was like they ate Rico choreographies for breakfast.

I have to stop myself then, because, of course if I compare PBT to BP in terms of Rico's choreography, then BP would look like the better company and PBT would look kulelat. But I remember seeing BP do a neo classical work (William Morgan's Ang Pilya) and I found their ballet technique very wanting. That's one of the things my thesis is about - you cannot compare the two and we need both companies to co-exist. Well, perhaps that should be said about BP and BM, because Ballet Manila is essentially the more classical company. I think I'll figure it out more when I'm doing deeper field work.

After Whom by Bam Damian
to music by this hungarian group I think. Will update again soon, I didn't bring the programme with me today.

My favorite piece of the evening. The girls were wearing white stretchy underwear barely covered with a sheer, white men's shirt. The boys were wearing white flowing skirts. The topic of the dance was a fight for domination, though the programme notes say that Bam was attempting to show off the energy of his dancers. Actually, as with the rest of the show, the struggle for gender domination is always a subject in Ballet Philippines dances - it's a staple in the repertoire. So even the idea of cross dressing, well, it's not anything all that new, I guess. I don't know, I just feel like they're hyping it up so that we feel that they're going to show us things we've never seen before. Am I really hoping they push the envelope further? I don't really know what I'm hoping for, but at the very least I can say I'm not all that impressed.

Still, this is my favorite piece, mainly because of the movement. If Bam says the piece is to display their energy, then he's successful there. It was very powerful and we're on the edge of our seats from watching. My favorite part was when the company was scattered throughout the stage and the girls were jumping and making sharp aggressive movements amid the swirling boys. That was quite beautiful, the meditative boys swirling around with their skirts flying around them - they looked exactly like whirling dervishes. Juxtaposed against the wild girls. Aah, it was breathtaking. It ended rather abruptly though, I hope Bam gets to fix it one day.

"L" by Bam Damian
to "L'Apres Midi D'un Faun" by Claude Debussy

A pas de deux after the original ballet by Vaslav Nijinsky. The guy is obviously fantasizing as he hardly touches the girl at all when she enters and after a lifetime of not touching, she touches him - see what I mean about fantasy? And they even take their pants (him) /skirt (her) off onstage and are about to consummate their meeting when the girl just walks away. So the guy picks up her skirt and wipes himself with it, giving a shudder when he brushes it against his crotch. This was interesting because it alludes to Nijinsky, who ends his ballet masturbating to a nymph's scarf.

Funny thing though, some of the younger dancers in the audience didn't get it. Nobody knows who Vaslav Nijinksy is? What is happening to the world today? Or am I a vanishing breed?

"Anecdotes of Hate" by Bam Damian
again, I don't know the music by

This is a particularly strong piece about JFK, Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. My problem with this is it's kind of too far away from Philippine consciousness to really make an impact. If I didn't know what the dance was about, I'd think the form was very good and powerful, with innovative tools in his choreography such as inventive use of props and blocking. But I don't even know who the hell Rosa Parks is.

"Unbound" by Alden Lugnasin
to music from the soundtrack of The Matrix

I was always a fan of Alden's work, but I'm not too fond of this one. I guess because it was too long. And too weird. There are some really good moments but after a while, well, I guess you can only do so much with parasols onstage after all. And the boys' half-pants distracted the heck out of me.

Overall, very strong dancers, very promising artistic minds running the company. I'm thinking maybe having all-modern nights with all-new works for an entire season may just tap the creative resources a bit too much, but I'll make that conclusion after I watch the rest of what's in store.