Daring dance duets
Love, passion, romance – these are themes that have powered many works of art, from poems to plays, from songs to films. The same is true for dance, although the task is made trickier as emotions are conveyed not through words but through movements, gestures and facial expressions.
Since its beginnings in 1995, Ballet Manila has collaborated with artists who have explored facets of love through their choreography. Here are three daring dance duets that have graced the Ballet Manila stage, each one posing particular demands on the couple performing it. What these works prove is this: Love can be complicated, but dance even more so.
The Last Poem by Augustus “Bam” Damian III
Daring factor: Dancing as a dying character
Lisa Macuja-Elizalde and Rudy De Dios in Bam Damian’s The Last Poem: A dance that needs the most sensitive of portrayals. Photo by Ocs Alvarez
Debuting in Lab Ko ‘To, Ballet Manila’s Valentine production in 2012, The Last Poem is a dance drama where an ailing woman waits for her lover to read her a poem before she dies. Lisa Macuja-Elizalde, who premiered it opposite Rudy De Dios, shared in her director’s notes how it brought her to tears several times during rehearsals. “It is a fairly simple adagio, but needs the most sensitive of portrayals. How does one engage in something so athletic as dance and project being sick and dying at the same time?”
Critic Rosalinda Orosa later described that The Last Poem “defied logic!” She wrote in her review: “A ballerina, very nearly in her death throes, summons enough energy to dance. There is of course artistic license reminiscent of Puccini’s La Boheme wherein the frail, consumptive Mimi sings arias with enthralling fortissimos. In the pas de deux with Rudy de Dios, Lisa further set logic aside, evoking the very picture of poignancy and tenderness, she danced seamlessly, her turns breathtaking, her arabesques sculptured to perfection, the lifts spectacular.”
Arachnida by Agnes Locsin
Daring factor: Dancing like mating spiders
Joan Emery Sia and Robert Peralta in Agnes Locsin’s Arachnida: Two bodies morphing into one. Photo by Giselle P. Kasilag
Arachnida is one of those dances you can’t quite forget once you see it, so much so that it has become a Ballet Manila staple fittingly featured as part of the company’s Iconic show in 2018. As the title may already hint, Arachnida derives inspiration from creepy, crawly, eight-legged creatures. But choreographer Agnes Locsin boldly took it to another level as she interpreted mating spiders in her choreography.
Photographer Stan de la Cruz, documenting Joan Emery Sia and Romeo Peralta in Arachnida during the DanceMNL festival in 2016, declared it as uncanny and a must-see: “The amazing duo of Sia and Peralta bring to mind the strength to weight ratio of the critters going through the throes of sex, and enhanced by the pink lighting much like some skin flicks of yesteryears.”
After watching Arachnida in Ballet Manila’s American Stars Gala in 2018, Philippine Star’s Pristine De Leon wrote: “Limbs thrust out into the black beyond, the human body reconfiguring itself into serpentine shapes. With one figure atop another, legs stretch and coil, delivering the force of two bodies slowly morphing into one. Arachnida, as it were, reimagines the act of two spiders copulating. Onstage, it’s rare to find romance as freaky and as thrilling.”
Blind Love by PJ Rebullida
Daring factor: Dancing with a blindfold
Jessica Pearl Dames and Sean Pelegrin in PJ Rebullida’s Blind Love: The partners must breathe as one to make the dance work. Photo by Erickson Dela Cruz
Blind Love was first seen in Tuloy ang Sayawan, a fundraiser for ballet scholars staged by Ballet Manila and Academy One in 2019. Choreographer PJ Rebullida shared in a Facebook post then: “I was so inspired to choreograph Jessica Pearl Dames and Sean Pelegrin that this was made from scratch within two days to music by Jef Flores.”
The choreographer told his dancers who are actually real-life partners, the story of the piece is of consuming love. It’s a love so intense that it blinds a person, making them unseeing even in the face of being hurt by the other.
For Pearl, the experience of dancing with a blindfold was simply unforgettable. “It was hard especially since you cannot really see clearly. I remember dancing this on stage and it was dark, with just the spotlight. Trust talaga sa partner. (You just have to trust your partner.) Every time she and Sean rehearsed, she recalled that PJ coached them to breathe as one and to be attuned to each other so that the dance would work.
In the end, her character takes off the blindfold and finally sees her partner for who he is and all the bad things he has done to her. “But I choose to stay and not walk away because I love this person so much. That is Blind Love,” Pearl said. While it may have been difficult, she added: “I loved the feeling of just dancing it all out, not caring about falling or slipping, the feeling of just trusting your partner. I loved that feeling.”
