Masterworks and meeting Alice Reyes

I saw Ballet Philippines' Masterworks last Saturday and loved that it came together nicely - a BP show I finally was able to fully enjoy after the restaging of La Revolucion Filipina last year. I'm planning to write about it for Runthru, not quite a critique but a documentation of the event and its significance - a homecoming of the company to what it once was, who the company really is.

If I were to critique it, well, I didn't like some of the works that were performed; mainly if you say "Master" works, it should be the best of that particular artistic director (each AD was represented by a work they either choreographed or, as in the case of Cecile Sicangco and Noordin Jumalon, commissioned. I agreed with a lot of the pieces performed, but Romeo and Juliet? Alice Reyes had several more important works that I would love to see today. As I had written about her extensively in my MA thesis, Alice Reyes was the one to almost single-handedly establish dance as an artform in the Philippines, to institutionalize it and to keep it at the level we enjoy today. She promoted creating your own work, using your own style, using Filipino themes. And the piece to represent her is a love pas de deux from a Shakespearean ballet?

So obviously, I'm going to say that the highlight of the evening was actually meeting Alice Reyes in the flesh. I was totally floored. While writing about her in my MA thesis, I only was able to get a portrait of her through written material, as well as interviews with her sisters, Denisa and Edna, and with Steve, who adores her. She has been one of my inspirations in wanting to get a higher degree in dance studies, because she struck it out on her own in Colorado and was one of the first to do so. So, when Denisa said, "This is my sister, Alice," like she wasn't one of the most important personages of all time, I was just caught off guard, staring at her like a teenaged fangirl. I hardly get starstruck these days, and that caught me off guard as well.

At the end of the show, the new BP artistic director called her, Denisa and Edna up to the stage to acknowledge all the important work they've done for the company. While people stood up to applaud her, Alice Reyes simply took the mic and said, "Please come to the next shows. And bring your friends." No poseuring, no basking in the limelight. Just a simple request to keep dance alive.

I am still floored. Did I say I hardly get starstruck these days?


Alice Reyes with Manuel Molina III in her Amada