Soundbites: ‘Ballet Manila did the unthinkable and danced a punishing total of six shows in a row in four days!’
Principal dancers Mark Sumaylo and Abigail Oliveiro as Prince Siegfried and Odile in one of the Swan Lake shows in Dumaguete. Photo by The Weekly Sillimanian
Ballet Manila was a newsmaker from the very beginning. Over the years, as it grew and reached milestones, it has been the subject of countless stories in media. As the company marks its 31st anniversary this year, we mine the Archives for published tidbits describing moments from its rich and continuously evolving history, as spoken by its own leaders and dancers or as said by those writing about them.
One of Ballet Manila’s key assets – its strong corps de ballet – shows its fine form in Swan Lake in Dumaguete. Photo by Ryly Pontino/ Silliman University Culture and Arts Council
“The ballerina, at the height of her dance, becomes the swan—and you forget that it is human limbs that tremble and leap and flutter. You see the feather, the wing, the pain of flight.
“Lisa Macuja Elizalde and Ballet Manila know this, embody this. And in Dumaguete, that knowledge is received not passively, but with deep and trembling gratitude. Here, I would like to believe that we are not jaded by art. Here, when a ballerina flutters to her death in a fog of heartbreak, someone in the back row weeps silently—and means it. [This is very true! In the performance that I saw, the audience I was with were rapturous when our swan leapt to its romantic demise!] Maybe that’s why Dumaguete is still the kind of city where a ballet like Swan Lake matters. Because we haven’t lost our capacity to believe in beauty. Or to mourn it….
“There’s a kind of redemption in being allowed to feel deeply. It doesn’t happen enough.
“Maybe that’s what Swan Lake offers: not just its well-worn story of Prince Siegfried and the cursed Odette and her dark double Odile and the malevolent Von Rothbart, but the whole aching ritual of it. The careful discipline of classical ballet, with its merciless demands on the human body [Ballet Manila, for Dumaguete, did the unthinkable and danced a punishing total of six shows in a row in four days!], and its impossible grace. Every movement honed through pain. Every step a sacrifice. And yet, it is through that rigor a transcendence arrives.
“Lisa Macuja Elizalde, who once danced these roles herself, has now given her dancers the gift of that same transcendence that we, in Dumaguete, got to witness, which is nothing short of a blessing. A miracle, even.”
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—Ian Rosales Casocot
Swans Descending in Dumaguete
August 2, 2025
Ballet Manila, led by artistic director Lisa Macuja Elizalde (fifth from left, front), at curtain call after a Swan Lake performance in Silliman University’s Luce Auditorium. Photo by Ryly Pontino/ Silliman University Culture and Arts Council
