Performing artists love the immediate response shown by audiences through applause and cheers. But they appreciate it just as much when they get feedback even after the curtains have gone down. This is certainly true for Ballet Manila dancers, management and staff who have received their fair share of heartwarming comments from a grateful public over the years. In this series, the Ballet Manila Archives will feature from its collection the reactions – handwritten, typed, published in newspapers or even posted on social media – of viewers towards the company after watching its shows. 

Dance has been a big part of Czarina Villegas’ life since age four when her grandmother suggested that she be enrolled in a ballet school in their hometown of Iloilo. Since her mom was also a ballet fan, she always tagged along to watch every show that came to town especially when it featured her favorite group, Ballet Manila.

As Czarina would say in a previous interview, “Sobrang fan ako ng BM. Basta wala po akong absent!” (I was a big fan of BM. I was never absent from any of their shows)!

As a teenager, she saw BM’s Ballet & Ballads. Since she thoroughly enjoyed it, the grateful high school freshman went to the extent of writing the company a thank-you note. 

Little did Czarina know that five years after sending that greeting card, she would become a Ballet Manila dancer herself. It was indeed a full-circle moment as she performed as a member of the corps de ballet in La Bayadere with prima ballerina Lisa Macuja-Elizalde in the lead role of Nikiya. 

Czarina stayed with BM for 12 years, from 2006 to 2018, later also becoming one of its school’s teachers. It was a fruitful stay for the ballerina who not only got to dance in its productions but, as a teacher, even went to India for a few months to conduct classes for BM’s partner school. After retiring from the company, she went back to Iloilo and got married in 2020. 

Today, Czarina continues to be involved in ballet as she teaches classes in a local dance school. The last Ballet Manila production that she saw was in 2018, an installment of Ballet & Ballads which – just like in her younger years – she loved. Should BM return to her neck of the woods one day when the pandemic is over, you can be sure she will be part of the audience once more.

In 2016, when shown the message her teenage self had written, Czarina was surprised that the token had been kept in BM’s files all those years. To this day, when contacted for this story, she still expresses amazement that it is part of the Ballet Manila Archives collection.

Below is a transcription of Czarina’s thank-you note to Ballet Manila, written on a Hallmark greeting card:

Oct. 8, 2001

Dear Ballet Manila,

Thank you for sharing once again with the people of Iloilo City a night of exquisite dancing. May God reward you for your generosity.

BRAVO!

We look forward to more Ballet & Ballads in the coming years. 

This surely is a fun-filled night.

God Bless!

Love,

Czarina Villegas

1st yr. Iloilo Nat’l H.S.

– Special Program for the Arts –