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.

On October 6, 2001, Ballet Manila staged a benefit performance at the International School Manila dubbed Ballet Manila goes International, with proceeds contributing to the school’s new fine and performing arts theater in its Bonifacio Global City campus. Two days later, Steve Owen of the ISM’s High School Social Studies Department sent artistic director Lisa Macuja-Elizalde – herself an ISM parent – a letter thanking her and the company not just for a show that he enjoyed but also “for your generosity in sharing your talents for the good of our school.” The full letter reads:

8 Oct 2001

Dear Ms. Macuja-Elizalde,

            Let me please offer you and the Ballet Manila my very grateful thanks for the generous gift you gave to our school last Saturday night. To let you know who I am, my name is Steve Owen and I work in the High School Social Studies Department here at ISM, where I have been since 1999 along with my wife Alycia, who teaches Grade 5, and my children Heather and Jeremy who attend the Middle School. I know I speak for so many people in our school community when I say that we greatly appreciate all of your talents and the willingness of yourself and the other dancers to offer time and energy for the benefit of ISM. Everyone I spoke to afterward, including my own children, expressed nothing but enjoyment with the performance, as you hopefully perceived when you heard the many cheers from the audience from your vantage point onstage. People were animated, smiling, laughing, gesturing to each other with excitement with the performance and the fun they had watching it. Everything about it was just lovely, such a happy mixture of grace and strength, beauty and power, sensuality and precision. I’m not personally very well acquainted with the traditions of ballet, but I have to say that I’m more intrigued than ever now that I had the privilege of watching Ballet Manila perform. My wife and I will surely be seeing more of your company very soon at your regular venue.

            One brief story I would like to share before I end this short note concerns two little girls who were sitting behind my wife and me during the show. They were so cute and enthusiastic, all throughout saying things like, “Oh, so pretty,” or “That’s so cool,” or “Look at that!” As you know, kids are prone to saying exactly what they think, whether or not an adult would consider it polite, and these little ones were of an age when the things they were saying had no guile or artificiality whatsoever. It lent an additional element to my own enjoyment of the evening to hear the little people for whom schools exist at all experiencing such complete happiness with the gift you and your comrades offered to us. Being so young, they may not have comprehended the nature of a benefit performance, but there’s no doubt they will remember it for the rest of their lives, as will so many of us who were there. I hope you and the other dancers will enjoy knowing about that little story.

            Thanks again, po, to you and the entire company, for your generosity in sharing your talents for the good of our school. It will be appreciated for years to come.

Sincerely,

(Signed) Steve Owen

International School Manila