All in This Month In BM History
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.
Just like the popular Filipino shaved-ice dessert it was named after, Ballet Manila’s Halo-Halo Supreme in August 2008 proved to be a delectable treat.
Touted as the “most popular ballet roadshow ever,” Ballet & Ballads headed for Northern Luzon in July 1998 for a show at the Don Alipio Fernandez Astrodome in Dagupan City, Pangasinan.
East Meets West was a major event for the 113th observance of Philippine Independence, with the Philippine Embassy in London and The International Society of London as presentors of the show’s UK leg.
Carmen, the tale of tragedy and passion interpreted in dance by Ballet Manila artistic director Eric V. Cruz, went centerstage at the appropriately intimate Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino (CCP Little Theater) in May 1, 1996.
The festival – dubbed Shwak! Buhay na ang SuBAC – kicked off on April 16 with a motorcade followed by ribbon-cutting rites, the blessing and a theater tour of SuBAC, and cocktails.
For the double bill that was Carmina Burana & La Traviata – new choreographies based on familiar music and material – the premiere would be at the Samsung Hall of SM Aura, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City
In 2012, a trio of such choreographies premiered as part of the production dubbed Lab Ko ‘To.
Ballet Manila brought one of its treasured classics to Pampanga in January 2010.