This Month in BM History: April 2000
Program cover lists the nine member-groups of Philstage, including Ballet Manila. From the Ballet Manila Archives collection
Ballet Manila was among the groups featured in the performing arts festival called Buhay! in 1998 at Shangri-La Plaza Mall. Reaching a wider range of audiences at the mall, the event boasted 100 presentations – ballet, musicals, poetry readings, dramas and lecture-demonstrations – from the nine member-groups of Philstage.
Tony Fabella’s neoclassical Dancing to Verdi was part of the Subic repertoire.
Aside from Ballet Manila, they included Actor’s Actors Inc., Gantimpala Theater Foundation, Musical Theater Philippines (Musicat), Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM), Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), Repertory Philippines, Tanghalang Pilipino and Triumphant People’s Evangelistic Theater Society (Trumpets).
The successful staging of that arts festival would lead to a similar undertaking two years later, but in a venue a little farther from Manila – in Olongapo and Subic Bay to inaugurate the then newly built Subic Bay Arts Center or SuBAC. As presented by the Subic Bay Management Authority under Felicito Payumo as chairman and administrator, the Subic version of Buhay! unfolded over a span of eight weeks, from April 16 to June 4, with over 40 performances. A second festival was scheduled in October and November.
Payumo described SuBAC as “a sanctuary for artists where they can freely express themselves through their chosen medium and would serve as an instrument for cultural revitalization of the communities around the Subic Bay Freeport Zone and the entire Central Luzon.”
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. The highlight, however, was the free-admission grand opening show – a music revue directed by the late director Freddie Santos, then Philstage secretary and festival chair. The evening was capped by a performance of Ballet Manila.
Ric Culalic’s Arnis, an exhilarating martial arts-based choreography, was among the numbers Ballet Manila danced in the Subic arts festival.
For its repertoire, Ballet Manila selected a mix of classical numbers and contemporary Filipino choreographies: Satanilla, Diane et Acteon, Swan Lake Adagio, Arnis, Pantomina, Ouch!, Harlequinade Pas de Deux and Dancing to Verdi.
Writing about the festival in 2000, theater actress Luna Griño-Inocian hailed the efforts to bring live shows to a greater number of people, and beyond Metro Manila at that. “Conceived to expose Olongapo residents to the arts as well as provide entertainment for its ever-growing number of tourists, foreign and local, SuBAC also continues the move to keep live performance alive and kicking!”