By Jv Ramos

We’re all familiar with the way one of the most-loved fairy tales goes. After spending memorable hours together at the ball, the Prince realizes that Cinderella – the lady he has never seen before – is the one he’d like to spend the rest of his life with. So when she runs off just before midnight, he goes on an exhaustive quest to find her using the glass slipper she leaves behind in haste.

In real life, there aren’t pumpkins that turn into carriages, glass slippers that one can dance all night with, or maybe even love at first sight. However, there are moments that make one want to spend just a little more time with another person and to think a future together could be a possibility.  

For newly married Ballet Manila principal dancer Abigail “Abi" Oliveiro, who will be reprising the role of Cinderella starting Christmas Day in Aliw Theater, that pivotal moment happened in 2015, when she and co-principal dancer and now husband Mark Sumaylo were chatting late one night at a hotel café. They were just fairly new Ballet Manila talents at that time.

Singapore-born and Australian-raised Abi, who had been dancing ballet since she was three, was invited to join the company by Ballet Manila co-artistic director Osias Barroso after competing in the 2013 Asian Grand Prix in Hong Kong. On the other hand, Mark, who began his training relatively late in his hometown of Cagayan de Oro, had also just been uprooted from home, having moved to Manila to pursue a career as a ballet dancer.

“That special moment was in Hotel Jen,” starts Abi, who is still so smitten about that encounter. “We talked and talked one night about things like morals and family values, and it just went on and on for hours. That’s when I realized how aligned we were. That’s when I thought that I could see myself spending a lifetime with him.”

This realization came as a surprise to Abi because when she joined Ballet Manila, she really didn’t have any long-term plans. The ballerina even noted that when she first arrived, she thought all the boys in the company seemed to look the same. No one stood out and so finding a lifelong partner among them was far from her mind.

Things were very different for Mark though. He admits to having a Cinderella ball-like moment when Abi had her first after-show dinner with the company.  “When I saw her, it was like a slow-motion moment where I couldn't help myself but just look at her and all I could think was she looked so beautiful multiple times inside my head,” the danseur shares. “I finally found the right time to introduce myself and pretended I was not interested in her at all but deep inside me, it was fireworks. I was so happy.”

“We had the same friends and so we always hung out as a group, but I think he always snuck very strange looks at me. Like he wanted to say something but when I asked, he never did,” says Abi, looking back at the days they first got acquainted or back when it was just Mark who liked her.

“I don’t play with boys like you” was, in fact, what this Cinderella used to say when Mark dropped hints that he liked her. But after spending more time with him at work and beyond the studio and stage, she realized that he was more than just a handsome face and a funny and charming guy. “We have the same passion for ballet… And, I admire how generous he is with himself when it comes to other people. He will always make time and room for others. I also love that he loves and respects his family.”

“She has a very beautiful personality,” comments her prince charming when asked what made Abi so attractive to him. “She is very friendly and she works honestly, which is something I really like about her. She is family-oriented, very patient (she knows how to handle my temper very well) and very driven. She sets her goals and she makes sure she will work wisely in reaching her goals, no matter how big or small.”

As their relationship strengthened since they became a couple in 2015, Abi and Mark’s ballet journeys also flourished, often with them taking on roles of iconic pairs such as Odette/ Odile and Prince Siegfried in Swan Lake, Giselle and Albrecht in Giselle, Medora and Conrad in Le Corsaire, Carmen and Don Jose in Eric V. Cruz’s Carmen, and of course, Cinderella and Prince in Lisa Macuja-Elizalde’s Cinderella.  

“Honestly, to me, it is a privilege dancing with your partner and being in the same company,” puts forward Mark, who has been partnering Abi for almost 10 years.  “Both of us share the same passion in dance and we love what we do. The long hours of rehearsals and performances we have shared are long enough for the both of us to develop a strong trust and rapport. Together, we put in the effort to make the difficult steps work… I am so lucky to be partnered with her, because not all partners can dance together as often as we have or even at all in a company.” 

“It’s a very comfortable partnership. I would like to go for more with Mark,” adds the principal ballerina. “We have a different kind of communication. I can read his mind when we dance and he knows me! Things just go naturally between us.”

With this year’s Cinderella being the third time they’ll take on the leading roles, we cannot help but wonder if Abi and Mark are still excited as the first time they danced in it. Here, Abi replies that she never really gets tired of roles, especially if these involve dancing with Mark. “This is because I never get tired of him,” she underlines. “Whenever I see Mark, I relive that moment in Cinderella wherein she and the prince see each other at the ballroom for the first time, fall in love, and you cannot deny the chemistry. I’m not big on love at first sight, but how Cinderella felt upon seeing her prince is how I feel whenever I see Mark.”

Apparently, those feelings are very much reciprocated. As Mark says in a video clip shown during their wedding reception: “My heart melts every time she smiles.”

Thus, it won’t be a stretch to channel those vibes when they take the stage again in Cinderella. But never one to take any role for granted, the ballerina shares her goal with their Christmas-season performances. “If in my first Cinderella, I felt excited, and in the second, I felt that I needed to be stronger in the classical technique, now, I’m focusing on how I can make it more sparkly,” she explains. “Ma’am Lisa’s version is very fantasy, very Disney, and I’d like to explore more of that. I think I’m in a place now that I’m more capable in terms of technique and have more room to be more Cinderella and make the performance more magical!”

Of course, with Mark as the Prince in Cinderella, it’s much easier to play that girl who falls in love. “Not to sound biased but it is definitely my favorite thing to dance with Mark… It’s awesome playing a role where we get to be in love because he still makes my stomach flutter when he looks at me ‘that way’ or the way he used to look at me when we first met. Just thinking about it makes me giggle. [Also] we always want to make [our performances] better, [we think of] how we can go the extra mile and push the limit a bit further as individuals and partners.”

Any special memories about being in Cinderella then? Abi recalls the time when everyone teased Mark to propose to her onstage during their second portrayal of the lead roles. She found this to be rather funny, because Mark always asked for her hand. “There were several proposals, and in my early twenties, I just kept saying I wasn’t ready yet,” she giggles. “But you know what? When I hit 26, I was the one who kept asking if he would marry me. One time, I even said, ‘If there’s one thing that you can do for me, it’s that you marry me before I turn 30.’” 

The engagement finally took place in November 2021 on the same stage where they had their previous Cinderella performances. Abi, who was busy with the filming of a performance for BM, knew all along that Mark was out hanging with a friend, so when he suddenly appeared on the Aliw Theater stage with a ring and a bouquet of chocolates, she was taken aback. “The engagement was an out of body experience! I heard Mark say, ‘You’re my everything’ and I completely blanked out. I began to realize again what was happening when I heard my father’s voice over the phone, asking, ‘So, is it happening?’”

Although Abi notes she never really envisioned a “dream wedding,” their nuptials last October was just everything that they needed it to be. Thankfully, with the easing of pandemic restrictions on travel, many of their relatives and guests were able to fly in for the big day – Mark’s from Cagayan de Oro, and Abi’s from Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

“Our families and friends were there and there was a lot of fun dancing! In our wedding, our families saw what we have been working hard on and how much we have grown and that just meant everything to me. The event (which of course included my BM family) showed that we’ve been okay – well, no, more than okay – all this time. I’m with my people and they’re here to support us!”

It was a wedding that involved reunions as well as something that welcomed better things.

“I really hope that our dancing continues to evolve on the track that it is now,” expresses Abi when asked how their recent milestone affects their work. “I hope that our relationship now amplifies our work – that we keep growing together. When you really know each other and dance, it’s difficult for things to go wrong because I can read his mind and he can read mine. There’s hardly a need to ask questions, but when I do ask, he’s there to answer. We know when to push and pull back, and we want to keep growing with every performance. By doing this, I hope we’re able to make magic in our own way.”