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.
Discover the many roles of Rissa May Camaclang, soloist of Ballet Manila.
A dancer, if she is great, can give to the people something that they can carry with them forever. They can never forget it, and it has changed them, though they may never know it.
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.
In the ballet’s story, he travels with his trusty squire, Sancho Panza, and along the way meets the innkeeper Lorenzo’s daughter, Kitri, whom he mistakes for his ideal woman, Dulcinea.
In this clip is principal dancer Abigail Oliveiro as the feisty Mercedes in Ballet Manila’s 2017 production of Don Quixote.
Lisa Macuja-Elizalde and Osias Barroso first performed as Kitri and Basilio in Krasnoyarsk, Russia in 1992.
In this clip, we revisit this moment of triumph when Ballet Manila opened its 25th season on its 28th year with Martin Lawrance’s Romeo & Juliet.
To touch, to move, to inspire. This is the true gift of dance.
In this clip from 2019, the corps de ballet of Ballet Manila – women warriors in their own right – perform as the Amazonas of Gerardo Francisco Jr.’s Ibong Adarna.
Since returning, Rissa May has been adjusting quite well to the daily Vaganova classes she was once used to.
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.
Discover the many roles of Jessa Balote, soloist of Ballet Manila.
You have dancing shoes,
With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead
So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.
As the company celebrates its 28th anniversary and begins its 25th performance season, we look back to its beginnings through these keepsakes painstakingly put together in a scrapbook that first year by Ballet Manila pioneer and now co-artistic associate Eileen Lopez.
The first time Ballet Manila principal dancers Joshua Enciso and Jessica Pearl Dames portrayed the tragic young lovers from Shakespeare’s masterpiece was back in 2019.
Embracing the tale’s flexibility, Martin Lawrance decided to set the beloved Shakespearean tale in modern-day Metro Manila, wherein the star-crossed lovers come from different social classes.
Ballet Manila company artist Angelika Tagupa is a Physics major who is determined to dance professionally, even as she’s busy working on her thesis.
