(First of a series)

For people so used to expressing themselves through dance and movement in a spacious studio, the enhanced community quarantine can be a soul-crushing experience. Being in a confined space day after day and unable to do their daily class and rehearsals can indeed be challenging. But fortunately, Ballet Manila’s dancers are finding ways to improvise on their fitness regimen while also filling their time with creative alternatives. This series reveals what some of these artists have been up to in lockdown mode. 

By Susan A. De Guzman

Towards the end of the first week of enhanced community quarantine, Ballet Manila 2 artist Eduardson Evangelio remembers he had trouble sleeping one night. Since he was still wide awake, he decided to browse the Internet. That’s when he came across an Instagram post of an artist whose work he admires. 

“He made an artwork dedicated to our frontliners. Bigla po ako na-inspire. So ‘yun na lang po ginawa ko since hindi pa po talaga ko inaantok. (I was suddenly inspired. So that’s what I decided to do since I wasn’t really sleepy),” Eduardson relates. 

Using his white Prisma colored pencils, he drew a health professional wearing a mask on a small sheet of black cartolina, It is an image that has become all too familiar, with doctors, nurses and other medical workers pushed to the limelight as frontliners leading the battle against the dreaded COVID-19. 

He finished the sketch in 15 to 20 minutes and posted his artwork on his Facebook page as his own personal tribute to frontliners, along with a prayer for their safety as they are ones most exposed to danger from the corona virus.

Eduardson has enjoyed drawing since enrolling in a special arts program in Mariano Marcos Memorial High School. Since then, he has been sketching whenever he finds the time outside of ballet and academic studies. Now, he is on the second term of his second year as a scholar at the De La Salle University-College of St. Benilde where he is taking up Bachelor of Performing Arts in Dance. 

There’s no slacking off for Eduardson these days as his university has continued the schoolyear with online classes. Students like him are expected to turn in all requirements and projects even as they’re now based at home. 

Recently, aside from the homage to frontliners, he found time to finish a drawing for his friend Jamella on her birthday. He drew Jamella beside her favorite singer, Taylor Swift, using Prismacolor premiere colored pencils and Faber-Castell colored pencils on vellum board. 

Between his studies and occasional artmaking, Eduardson still squeezes in dance into his schedule. “I try to take short ballet classes outside, in front of our house, kasi wala pong space sa loob (…there’s no space inside).”