Ballet Manila has been named as a recipient of the Innovation Grants Project 2020, a special undertaking implemented by the Board of Trustees of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

The company is one of seven arts and cultural organizations to get a grant to be used to create and produce new works in various art disciplines and distribute new content on the arts using online technology, or blended or hybrid technologies.

The other grant recipients are: Casa San Miguel; FilDocs Inc.; Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Colleges; Marbel Inc.; Sipat Lawin Inc.; The Performance Laboratory; and Tuldok Animation Studios.

Ballet Manila proposed the Silver Linings: Ballet Manila@25 (Hope and Dance in Extraordinary Times) to celebrate its 25th ballet season that has been marked by a global pandemic, lockdowns, and complete stoppage of live performances. The project showcases re-imagined presentations of classical pieces as well as new commissioned work specially developed for film as primary medium.

As part of its Silver Linings virtual season, Ballet Manila released last year the dance films Walang Hanggang Paalam, Ballet’s Greatest Hits, and Martin Lawrance’s Home.

The project also includes Ballet Minis, a series of short dance films meant to reinforce Ballet Manila’s main strength of performing the classics using the Russian Vaganova discipline. The series highlights the best of the company’s classical, neoclassical, and contemporary works with each dance film running between five to seven minutes.

The filming of Ballet Minis is ongoing.

The company also plans a Silver Linings Ballet Gala, specially conceptualized for the new normal.  Embracing the fact that the stage is altered and the medium is different, the gala will showcase live performances from Ballet Manila studios and dancers’ homes and pre-recorded performances, which will be streamed live via Ballet Manila’s Facebook page and YouTube channels.

Casa San Miguel's proposal revolves around the concept of "Spring" in different iterations through music, dance, visual arts and film. The series of eight 10 to 15-minute episodes is about renewal of hope, a celebration of creativity and how the arts have served artists and communities as a medium for reflection and healing.

Fildocs, Inc. is producing the DaangDokyuDokBook, which contains the full program of over 45 documentary titles and film details featured in its DaangDokyu film festival, along with essays on the study and appreciation of contemporary Philippine documentary. It also plans to have a virtual-access library offering private viewing of documentary films in the DaangDokyu program and collection and a DaangDokyu website.

Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Colleges, Marbel Inc. proposes OpenStudio+OpenSeason [The Dancers are Absent but the dance is Not], comprised of non-traditional collaborations integrating the performing arts, visual arts, dance, and film. It will feature five short dance films, selected from the Juror’s Choice winners of Teatro Ambahanon’s Director’s Prize Competition; as well as installation art to be installed at The Nest Art[ist]s Incubation (Teatro Ambahanon’s art space). There is also the Salamindanaw film project seeking to create an omnibus film delving on memory, space and body.  

Sipat Lawin Inc.’s Komunidad X Collective Business takes on E-mahiNASYON: Community Performance Innovation for Social Change Festival, a three-year performance innovation development platform which started in 2020 at the surge of the global pandemic and will culminate in 2022, the year of the national elections. The performances and documentation of the performance processes will be shared on kXchange.org, the leading virtual center for contemporary performance in the Philippines, also an initiative of Sipat Lawin Inc’s Komunidad X.

In collaboration with Teatrokon: West Visayas Theatre Network and CCP Kaisa sa Sining Regional Arts Center Partners in Negros Occidental, the Performance Laboratory, Inc. launches Ang Mga Alates, a series of four short plays tackling current and relevant societal issues and incorporating stories of realities brought by the pandemic – as part of the weekly staged readings of plays written by emerging Negrense playwrights featured in The Blackbox Presents. The staged readings will be developed into full productions for the Kuris Theatre Festival in February 2021, and will be part of an online web series to be premiered next year.

Tuldok Animation Studios Inc. creates an Edutainment Package for Cultural Advocacy: Reimagining Cultural Advocacy through Integrated and Synergized Edutainment (RISE), which will include two five-minute animated folktales and one Pinoy komiks folktale with mobile app for an augmented reality (AR) component. The organization hopes to raise awareness on the rich Filipino folk heritage through modern re-telling using new technology.

The Innovation Grants Project was CCP’s calibrated response to the pandemic situation affecting the creative industry and art communities.  Through this, the CCP aims to realize non-traditional collaborations within art genres or between arts and other fields or professions, and deliver community-wide, multi-platform events and festivities using novel ways of distribution and dissemination.