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.
All tagged Christine Rocas
Agnes Locsin’s Arachnida is among Ballet Manila’s most performed pas de deux.
With the company headed for the United States anew for a performance tour and some of its dancers participating in an international competition, Ballet Manila Goes International on May 14 and 15 in 2005 served as a fitting send-off and on-stage preparation.
In 2015, Ballet Manila celebrated its 20th anniversary with a repertoire that summarized five things that the company has stood for since its inception.
On its tenth year in 2005, Ballet Manila staged anew the warhorse Swan Lake that August.
In the original Marius Petipa choreography, the scene known as The Dream showed Don Quixote in his shining armor fighting monsters, including a giant spider.
An ally to Ballet Manila since it debuted in 1995, the Friends for Cultural Concerns of the Philippines (FCCP) chose to feature the company in a cocktail musical called Artists & Friends on April 29, 2004 that celebrated the group’s 25th anniversary.
To celebrate Mother’s Day, we share portraits of mothers as seen on our stage through the years.
For most ballerinas, dancing one lead role in a full-length production is a major career milestone. But to dance two lead roles in one production is truly an achievement of a lifetime.
You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive.
La Bayadere (The Water Bearer or The Temple Dancer) was brought to the stage by Ballet Manila in all its intrigue-filled glory in September 2004 at Aliw Theater.
In this clip, Christine is joined by Ballet Manila principal dancers Gerardo Francisco Jr. and Mark Sumaylo, as well as former BM artists Rudy De Dios and Tiffany Chiang-Janolo.
This was the company’s third such tour in the US, having also gone there in 1996 and 1997.
The company danced The Nutcracker with a “Small Masha” and a “Big Masha,” the same way the Russian Ballet Academy in St. Petersburg does it, interpreting the Vassily Vainonen version.
Alfren Salgado is a Ballet Manila baby. This was where he learned his first tentative ballet steps at age 15 and where he has matured to become the dependable soloist that he is today.
