MEDIUM RARE

As every culture vulture knows, Cultural Center of the Philippines won’t be alive with the sound of music, drama, and applause for the next two years. The 52-year-old lady needs a bit of cosmetic surgery to keep in step with performers’ demand for a home worthy of their talents while audiences sit out the structure’s transition from shut-down to alive-again, better than before.
With its lights dimmed, CCP silent and morosely occupying space, where do performers perform, what shows to show?
If what happened last Thursday, April 20, was any indication, there’s no reason to fret and worry. For, alleluia, a new home for the performing arts has appeared, almost by magic, on a fresh slice of the City of Makati known as Circuit Makati. The name of the building is Samsung Performing Arts Theater, and it’s gorgeous. “Great!” was Jaime Laya’s take, Mr. Laya being the chairman of CCP (as in Currently Closed, Pause). If “great” sounds like abracadabra! we may presume that impresarios and producers of concerts, operas, and music festivals may (and should) start planning their shows for staging in Samsung’s crown jewel without fear or foreboding within the next couple of years.
Great or gorgeous, it was beginner’s luck that brought me to the venue for the first time, the night Ayala Land, the Zobel family, and Ayala Foundation chose to present the Rising Stars of American Ballet Theater with the special participation of Cecile Licad in a double treat: Dancers ages 16 to 21 dancing, flying, twisting their torsos and torturing their legs to pianist Cecile’s passionate interpretations of Chopin and Scarlatti, before segueing to the incredibly difficult-to-play jazz chords and arpeggios of the blind composer Art Tatum. Among ABT’s rising stars is Manila-born Vince Pelegrin, featured in three of the evening’s eight numbers.
In the end, when the audience applauded dancers and pianist wholeheartedly, I had the sneaky feeling that their joy was also sprung from the glory of the acoustics, overhead lights, and overall design of the theater — grand but intimate, cozy yet luxurious. It’s natural for performers to be “turned on” by an appreciative audience, but they respond just as sensitively to the beauty of the space that illuminates their participation.