The Ballet Manila Archives is the repository of documents, print, photographic, audio and video materials and memorabilia relating to the history of Ballet Manila and the life and career of its founder, prima ballerina Lisa Macuja-Elizalde. This site is powered by Ms. Elizalde and Project Art, Inc.
Ballet Manila has showcased a rich palette of hues in its productions over the years. Now, the company’s true colors are revealed! Gathering photographs from the Ballet Manila Archives, we present the vibrant and the somber, the heavenly to the earthy, in a series of virtual exhibitions – one shade at a time.
Her fervent wish to have a child has been granted, so of course Queen Leah (Rissa May Camaclang) is in a festive mood – and in her pink frock at that! The joyful scene comes from Lisa Macuja Elizalde’s Sleeping Beauty (2026), Ballet Manila’s premiere offering for its Prima performance season featuring all-classical ballets. Photo by Missy Macuja Elizalde
Medora (Katherine Barkman) and Gulnara (Nicole Barroso) make a perfect pair in their complementing pink tutus as they perform in the “living garden” scene in Le Corsaire (2018). The corps de ballet is similarly clad in pink, and all together, they create an illusion of dancing flowers as imagined by the Pasha. Photo by Ian Santos
After distracting Mother Simone, Lise (Lisa Macuja Elizalde) goes on a tryst with Colas (Rudy De Dios) in The Naughty Daughter (2008). Her carefree ways are reflected in her outfit which bears frilly details of fuchsia ribbon and pink lace. The tutu comes across as a subtle shade of pink, with the darker material overlaid with a white lacy skirt. Photo by Ocs Alvarez
Summoned to the palace by the princess Gamzatti, the temple bearer Nikiya (Mylene Aggabao) is shocked to find out that the royal will be married to the warrior Solor, shown in the portrait, who had sworn eternal love to her. Nikiya’s rage is tempered by the pale pink sheath she is wearing over her white dress. The intense scene is from the ballet classic La Bayadere (2004). Photo by Ocs Alvarez
There’s romance and celebration in the air as everyone gathers in the palace after the wicked fairy Carabosse is vanquished in Lisa Macuja Elizalde’s Sleeping Beauty (2026). The ladies in their pink dresses and the gentlemen in their white ensembles all bear flowers in different forms as they prepare for the wedding of Princess Aurora to Prince Desiré. Photo by Erica Marquez-Jacinto
The Fairy Doll (Tiffany Chiang-Janolo) is the picture of beauty and charm as she flits across the stage in her pink tutu. No wonder, a pair of clowns – one happy, one sad – is fighting for her attention and affection in the Fairy Doll Variation, a featured piece in Ballet & Ballads with the West End Mamas (2013). Photo by Ocs Alvarez
The pink tutu of Honoree (Joan Emery Sia) strikes a delicate contrast to the gray backdrop of flowers in Lisa Macuja Elizalde’s La Traviata as restaged in Rise! (2022). The soft shade echoes the sensitive nature of the scene where the young lady implores her father, Giorgio Germont, to intervene on her behalf and persuade her brother Alfredo from consorting with the courtesan Violetta, thus safeguarding her own impending marriage into nobility. Photo by Giselle P. Kasilag
