Olé! Don Quixote fun facts: #5 – The famous fish dive
As Ballet Manila prepares to bring back Don Quixote in May – the second offering in its 25th performance season – we share assorted trivia about the beloved classic, tidbits from the company’s past performances and artistic director Lisa Macuja-Elizalde’s long history with it, along with select photographs from the Ballet Manila Archives. The series is a celebration of this happy ballet, a showcase for the bravura Spanish-inspired style featuring show-stopping technical feats by the ballerina and her danseur in the lead roles of Kitri and Basilio.
Look ma, no hands! Lisa Macuja does the fish dive in her full-length debut as Kitri opposite Farouk Ruzimatov in Kirov Ballet’s Don Quixote (1986). Photo from the Ballet Manila Archives collection
The famous fish dive. Don Quixote has many exhilarating highlights. One ballet move that is most associated with it is the fish dive. Here, Basilio catches Kitri in a dive, so that she is in an almost vertical position facing the floor with her pointe shoes up in the air. The ballerina then swings her arms gracefully in the limited space that she has while in that inverted position, till the final flourish when the danseur holds her “hands free” while she herself makes a similar gesture – both are all smiles, as if what they have just done is the easiest thing in the world to do. The couple’s efforts are promptly rewarded with resounding applause.
Lisa Macuja and Osias Barroso execute a Don Quixote fish dive for one of their numerous guestings in Russia in the early 1990s. Photo from the Ballet Manila Archives collection
Top photo: Jasmine Pia Dames and Gerardo Francsico Jr. smile as they hold the last pose for their fish dive in the ballerina’s first full-length performance of Don Quixote (2017). Photo by Ocs Alvarez
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