This Month in BM History: April 1996
International Dance Day is a wide-ranging celebration of Dance exemplified by the show staged in 1996 at UP Theater. Souvenir program from the Ballet Manila Archives collection
April is a much-awaited month in the dance community worldwide. It is, after all, when International Dance Day falls – on April 29, the birthday of French dancer and ballet dancer Jean-Georges Noverre who is considered the creator of ballet d’action, a precursor of the narrative ballets of the 19th century. The celebration started in 1982.
Ballet Manila was one of ten participating groups in the International Dance Day concert in 1996, as announced in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Clipping from the Ballet Manila Archives collection
In the Philippines, in 1993, the fourth week of April was also designated by President Fidel V. Ramos as National Dance Week, with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) as the lead agency tasked to carry out the observance with the support of the education department and other cultural agencies.
In 1996, to mark both the international and national events, the Dance Committee of the NCCA spearheaded the International Dance Day concert held on April 27 at the UP Theater, assisted by the UP President’s Committee on Culture and the Arts.
Ballet Manila, led by principal dancers Lisa Macuja and Osias Barroso, was one of ten groups featured in the show. Together with BM dancers Elline Damian, Sandra Lynn Huang, Aileen Gallinera, Eileen Lopez, Jeffrey Espejo and Christopher Mohnani, they breathed life to Pas d’action from Act 2 of La Bayadere, with choreography by Marius Petipa and Vakhtang Chabukiani and music by Ludwig Minkus.
The classical divertissement is performed during the wedding of Gamzatti, an Indian princess, and Solor, a hunter and the Rajah’s chief warrior. Solor is unable to refuse the Rajah’s daughter in marriage although he is in love with temple dancer Nikiya.
Ballet Manila was joined by Ballet Philippines, Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company, Bellestar, Chameleon Dance Company, Indonesian Community in Manila Dance Group, Philippine Ballet Theater, Powerdance, Ramon Obusan Folkloric Dance Company and UP Dance Company.
