Principal dancer: Shaira Comeros
Shaira Comeros does not remember a time when she was not surrounded by ballet. Born to parents who were costume makers for the Julie Borromeo Performing Arts Foundation, she began her training as a scholar of the school at the age of seven. Apart from ballet, she also learned tap, flamenco, jazz, ballroom, and hiphop.
The school, being a sister company of Philippine Ballet Theater, also gave her the opportunity to dance with the resident company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). She took part in the company’s production of The Nutcracker.
When her parents moved to Ballet Manila, they gave her the option to switch schools as well. While intimidated in the beginning, she decided to make the move and became a trainee in 2016. She was tapped to join the second company, BM2, in the same year. She became a company artist in 2018 and a soloist in 2020. In 2022, she was promoted to principal dancer.
Shaira was a finalist in the CCP Ballet Competition and was named Most Promising Female in the Asian Grand Prix in 2016.She was once again a finalist in the Asian Grand Prix, a recipient of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts’ Ani ng Dangal for Dance, and a Silver Prize winner with other members of Ballet Manila in the International Dance Festival in Vietnam in 2017. In 2018, she took the bronze along with Brian Sevilla for their pas de deux at the Australian Teachers of Dance (ATOD) International Dance Competition in Bangkok.
Shaira performed the title role in Lisa Macuja-Elizalde’s Snow White. She was also the Diamond Fairy in the prima ballerina’s Sleeping Beauty. She danced the Sugarplum Fairy in The Nutcracker Pas De Deux, the Pas De Quatre in La Bayadere’s Pas D’Action, and was in Dance of the Cygnets in Swan Lake.
She has performed with the corps in Ballet Manila’s classical productions including Giselle, Les Sylphides, and Le Corsaire. She has also figured prominently in the company’s contemporary choreographies including National Artist for Dance Agnes Locsin’s Arachnida, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa’s Bloom, Gerardo Francisco Jr.’s Ibong Adarna and Muro-Ami, and Martin Lawrance’s The Winding Road.
She has also toured the country extensively with Ballet Manila’s Ballet & Ballads productions. Outside the Philippines, she has performed in Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan, and Israel.
Discover the many roles of Shaira Comeros, principal dancer of Ballet Manila.
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Soloist Shaira Comeros chooses to stitch a brighter future
Ballerina Shaira Comeros: Shining through the imperfections
