A nod to the classic: Building the world of Ballet Manila’s Florante at Laura through sets and costumes
The challenge for Mio Infante was to design a space for the story to evolve, an environment where the story’s many different scenes can happen. Illustration courtesy of Mio Infante
By Jv Ramos
To successfully achieve the cinematic feel for their upcoming production Florante at Laura, Ballet Manila has welcomed to their artistic team two previous collaborators: set designer Mio Infante who created the imposing staircase that anchored Martin Lawrance’s Rebel in 2016, and the costume design team Make it Happen Workshop – led by Otto and Therese Hernandez – which was behind the indigenous-themed wardrobe in Gerardo Francisco Jr.’s Ibong Adarna in 2017.
Joshua Enciso as Florante leads his people to battle in this scene using the set design conceptualized by Mio Infante. Photo by Erickson dela Cruz
No strangers to the requirements of a ballet production, Mio and Therese – guesting in Ballet Manila artistic director Lisa Macuja Elizalde’s art-advocacy program Art 2 Art on DZRH and DZRH News Television – both point out that working for ballet is different from their usual design jobs. “In ballet productions, the focus is on the dancers and their silhouettes, so you need to provide a space for that,” begins the set designer. “And since this is an epic ballet, I had to design a space for the story to evolve. It needed to be an environment where the story’s many different scenes can happen.”
Mio continues, “Florante at Laura has many forest and battle scenes. There are also many interiors, such as the scenes with the harems, and caves and mountains. The set therefore needed to accommodate these many scenes and even be transformed by lights and costumes. It basically has to be a space that’s malleable for everything.”
Why the space needs to be transformed by lights and costumes has to do with the way the Filipino epic poem is told: Florante at Laura starts in the middle of things and there are flashbacks that enrich the story of the characters. Not to mention, the flow of events jumps from one kingdom to the next, and even from one period of time to another, which means the set needs to be easily transformable.
The costumes have an unconventional look but allow the dancers to move freely. In this scene are (from left) principal dancer Mark Sumaylo as Sultan Ali-Adab, company artist Noah Esplana as Aladin and soloist Stephanie Santiago as Flerida. Photo by Erickson dela Cruz
As for the costumes, Therese explains that there has to be a balance of achieving a not so conventional look for Florante at Laura, while still prioritizing the comfort of the dancers. “Working with Geri in Ibong Adarna was such a humbling and learning experience. We wanted to go beyond using leotards for the costumes, while still considering the movement of the dancers. The same rule applies to Florante at Laura. While we want audiences to see ballet in a different light (through costume design), the dancers should still be able to move freely across the stage.
“The main challenge of designing costumes for this ballet is you have to make sure that the different characters stand out when doing battle scenes, and their costumes should help the audience distinguish one character from the other, while incorporating their primary traits. To achieve these, we utilized color-blocking,” she explains. As for the flashback scenes, Therese notes that John Batalla’s brilliant light design helps with transforming both the set and costumes to signify the past and present.
“How we came up with the concept of the costume design is through researching on the time when Florante at Laura took place. Because while we wanted to give the ballet a modern look, we also wanted to give a nod to the classic,” shares Therese, who reveals that this production – due to all the battle scenes – involves more than 100 costume pieces.
For costume designers Make It Happen Workshop, the challenge was to give the ballet a modern look while giving a nod to the classic as exemplified by the costumes of principal dancers Joshua Enciso and Abigail Oliveiro as Florante and Laura. Photo by J. Gerard Seguia/ The Manila Times
“And along with understanding and researching about the time of the piece, we also had to make sure that all the design (choices) matched the choreography of Gerardo Francisco and Martin Lawrance. Florante at Laura’s choreography is very athletic so you need to build a set that would support the dancers’ movement,” Mio chimes in. “We’re very fortunate to have a projector at the new Aliw Theater actually because that will be used to expand the setting, to project different moods and support the change in scenery. In ballet productions, you have to make sure that everything appears as one.”
“From the choreography we’ve seen, I can already tell that the audiences will be wowed and overwhelmed by this ballet. With (National Artist) Ryan Cayabyab’s music, it will be a feast for the senses,” stresses Mio.
The costume designer concludes, “Through this production, we hope to open people’s minds too. There’s so much you can do with ballet. With costumes, it’s not limited to the usual leotards. Everyday materials can be transformed to costumes for an epic story, and I’m excited for the audiences to see that!”
Ballet Manila artistic director Lisa Macuja Elizalde (left) interviews Therese Hernandez and Mio Infante about the costume design and set design, respectively, of Florante at Laura for her art-advocacy program Art 2 Art. Photo by Giselle P. Kasilag
