The Ballet Manila Archives is the repository of documents, print, photographic, audio and video materials and memorabilia relating to the history of Ballet Manila and the life and career of its founder, prima ballerina Lisa Macuja-Elizalde. This site is powered by Ms. Elizalde and Project Art, Inc.
All in This Month In BM History
An ally to Ballet Manila since it debuted in 1995, the Friends for Cultural Concerns of the Philippines (FCCP) chose to feature the company in a cocktail musical called Artists & Friends on April 29, 2004 that celebrated the group’s 25th anniversary.
From ballet blanc (white ballet) to The Beatles – this was the powerhouse combination of Ballet Manila’s 23rd season-ender in March 2019 entitled Deux.
This Don Quixote run was special for another reason. It celebrated the 16th anniversary of the dance partnership of principal artists Lisa Macuja-Elizalde and Osias Barroso who, by 2004, had already performed some 120 full-length ballets in 40 cities around the world.
The venue may have changed and the dates postponed, but still, the curtains rose on Lisa Macuja-Elizalde’s Sleeping Beauty.
For its Christmas offering in 2009, Ballet Manila unwrapped a production that combined a colorful spectacle and a timely message.
Ballet Manila was among the featured guests at the 7th performance season of the Bankard Concert Series, running from November 4 to December 2 in 1999.
A year after their first foray to the United States, the 15-member Ballet Manila was back for another tour with stops this time in Washington DC, St. Louis, Memphis, New Orleans, Detroit and Cleveland.
Ballet Manila’s Swan Lake in September 2003 was one year in the making. It was an ambitious undertaking as it was presenting the ballet classic with an all-Filipino cast for the very first time.
Taking a cue from a local pop song, Ballet Manila whipped up a production that celebrated the remarkable quality of Filipino music to open its 19th performance season in 2014. Just like the well-known tune, the company just had to proclaim it in its title – Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika.
Ballet Manila was the only company in the Philippines to have been able to bring Le Corsaire in its full-length form to the Filipino audience.
In 2000, Ballet Manila staged a production it could really sink its teeth into.
The Ballet Manila School, now known as the Lisa Macuja School of Ballet, marked a decade of offering summer workshops in 2007
On April 19, Ballet Manila’s delegation of four joined their colleagues in the Rising Stars Gala at the historic Hermitage Theater.
In March 1995, barely a month after its formal launching concert, Ballet Manila embarked on a performance tour of Mindanao – specifically in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat and South Cotabato.
Ballet Manila’s season-opener in February 2000 was doubly special as it was not only Valentine month but also the company’s fifth anniversary.
In 1998, it would find another unusual venue in Star City, an amusement park more used to hosting pop music or dance fare.
Ballet Manila Dances was apparently the first classical ballet performance held in Zamboanga in more than 25 years.
With Osias Barroso’s Pinocchio choreography for BM already popular since the original premiered in 2002, the company decided to extend and upgrade the production.
With many interpretations by various companies since its premiere in France in 1789, Ballet Manila came up with its own with no less than People’s Artist of Russia Sergey Vikulov as choreographer.
Staging the full-length Don Quixote in 1999 – just two years after its founding – was a major achievement for Ballet Manila given its still modest size then.
