#KeepDancing

A scene from ‘Diyosa’

During a year when no one would have blamed the company for hanging up their pointe shoes and waiting for better times, Ballet Philippines, it’s president Kathleen Liechtenstein, and the Board of Trustees, bravely launched BP OnStream to take the place of the live performances that would have made up their 51st season, and actually flourished.

The digital platform is one of the few of its kind globally—52 masterclasses with 1,617 attendees, and 365 company classes with 6,487 attendees, while showcasing 31 original video productions, and conducting K12 Kalusugan exercise breaks, and the Batang BP educational and entertaining materials. Designed and conceived to bring ballet and the arts right into their audience’s homes, it was all about adapting and integrating Ballet Philippines to a period of lockdowns, closed stages, and banned live shows.

In most any other equation, that would have sounded a death knell for a performing arts company. But with the current dynamic leadership of the BP board, it became a challenge faced and well met. And it couldn’t have been achieved without the core dancers of the company, the executive staff, and the public that embraced BP’s supreme efforts in the face of performance adversity.

During the virtual launch of BP’s upcoming 52nd season, after the welcome remarks of BP President Liechtenstein, we were treated to a fond look back via excerpts from “Dystopian Body” and “Diyosa.” The two productions closed the 51st season, a salute to modern dance and the environment in the case of “Dystopian,” and a homage to Philippine folklore and living in harmony with nature in “Diyosa.”

Special guest during the virtual event was DOT Secretary Berna Romulo-Puyat and, along with us, she applauded the determination of BP to stay relevant, and keep culture and the arts alive during these most unusual of times. Art can unite, and if it’s being produced with such fervor, it’s contagious (hopefully, outpacing the virus).

BP’s artistic director Misha Martynyuk then spoke about this 52nd season, with new online meetings, master classes, lectures in the pipeline, highlighted by master classes using the Stanislavsky method, and classes on plastic expressiveness as well as lectures from the Academy of Vaganova. If the situation merits it, there are plans for BP to participate at the International Theater Festival of the Arts, to be held on the Black Sea coast from December 2021 to February 2022.

Guest artist and choreographer Joseph Phillips shared how the pandemic allowed the company to focus on classes, and how it had lead to improvements in technique. It’s allowed for the inclusion of more challenging choreography in the near future, pieces that are usually reserved for larger, more renowned companies.

BP Board trustee Mercedes Zobel, Congresswoman Cristal Bagatsing, and BP Vice Chairman Maan Hontiveros also spoke, enjoining us to #KeepDancing. They are excited about how this 52nd season will thematically be about paying tribute to Mother Earth and Philippine culture through dance.

If the 51st season showed us that BP could flourish in the time of corona, that experience can only lead to bigger and better things as they embark on this 52nd year. Congratulations, Ballet Philippines!