Ballet Manila had reason to celebrate in 2023, as it was the year the company was finally able to stage a full season again – live and in the theater – after a three-year drought caused by the pandemic and the loss of its performance venue and home, Aliw Theater, to a fire in 2019.

Early in the year, artistic director Lisa Macuja-Elizalde said that Ballet Manila had thankfully gotten over the hump although it was a vastly changed company with fewer dancers. Still, with less people in its fold, a 25th performance season was successfully mounted following a new schedule that opened in February and ended in August, back in the newly refurbished Aliw Theater.

A new production, guest choreographer Martin Lawrance’s version of Romeo & Juliet set in urban Manila, had its world premiere in February. This was followed in May by a restaging of Don Quixote, the classic that Ballet Manila was able to stage with a lean cast supplemented by dancers from the Lisa Macuja School of Ballet. Then in August, Gerardo Francisco Jr.’s take on the literary epic Ibong Adarna made a comeback.

In October, designated in the new Ballet Manila calendar as the month for a special show, Macuja-Elizalde decided to present a tribute to friend, partner and colleague Osias Barroso Jr. who had been ill for some time. Dance for Shaz was the biggest event of its kind, bringing together more than twenty groups who offered performances in honor of “Teacher Shaz.”

Ballet Manila ended the year with its Holiday Cheer Series featuring Lisa Macuja-Elizalde’s Cinderella.

The company also continued with its weekend performances in Star City which was capped by the return of Tala for the Christmas season. Between those Manila-based shows, the company was also invited to perform in the provinces and out of the country, with engagements in Baguio City, Roxas City and Kalibo, and in Taiwan and Indonesia.

In October, Ballet Manila went on its first full company tour with The Silver Gala in Baguio City, in a joint project with Ballet Baguio. Macuja-Elizalde herself was invited to judge and teach as part of international dance events and competitions in Jakarta, Bangkok and Singapore, and to choreograph the first-ever The Nutcracker staging in Taiwan in collaboration with Zhongli Youth Ballet.  

The highlights of the year was tempered by the demise of Osias Barroso on December 16. Curiously, the night that the danseur, choreographer and teacher passed away was also one of Ballet Manila’s busiest.

The company’s principal artists – Gerardo Francisco Jr., Romeo Peralta Jr., Mark Sumaylo, Jasmine Pia Dames, Abigail Oliveiro, Shaira Comeros and Joshua Enciso – were preparing for a principals’ showcase in Kalibo, following another show in Roxas City days before. In Baguio, principal dancer Jessica Pearl Dames and soloist Sean Pelegrin were guesting in The Majestic Nutcracker production of Ballet Baguio. And in Hong Kong, it turned out to be a big night for Ballet Manila scholar Juan Angelo De Leon – whom Teacher Shaz had mentored – when the teen danseur was named winner of the Youth Asian Grand Prix while another scholar, John Stanley Alamer, bagged the silver.

It all seemed to be a fitting farewell to the Ballerina’s Prince that the company he co-founded had weathered the toughest challenges of the past few years and was back in full swing bringing ballet to the people, wherever they may be.