Ballet’s children

By Camille Anne M. Arcilla

When danseur Justin Orande was 10, he backed out from his first ballet lesson because of the awkward atmosphere, as there were more girls than boys in the class.

In June 2015, a 15-year-old Mr. Orande returned to Ballet Philippines (BP) to try again. Even without much of a background in ballet, he qualified as a company scholar. And he needed all the financial assistance he would get.

He said he saw the scholarship as an opportunity to help out his family, and with his current status as a scholar, he is only two levels away from becoming a full-fledged company member.

“I was already dancing before I did ballet because my father, a dance instructor, taught me. I think I inherited his skills,” Mr. Orande said.

The only boy in a brood of four, he also happened to be the only one interested in ballet. His sisters, Mr. Orande said, are more into academics.

He said he has become used to people’s notion that ballet dancing is not a men’s thing.

“[They don’t] know that with male dancers, there are bigger movements. Dapat mala-prinsipe at matikas (They have to be prince-like and elegant),” he said.

MORE DANSEURS
THAN DANSEUSES 
The Philippines actually has a lot of male dancers said BP artistic director Paul Alexander Morales. In the BP company, he said, there are more danseurs than danseuses.

“There are gay dancers, of course, but there are more straight ones. It’s very physical — they have to be fit and athletic. There’s a lot of jumping and lifting people,” he said. “Ballet is hard. It’s like black belt [in martial arts].”

Ballet Manila (BM) co-artistic director and ballet master Osias G. Barroso, Jr. said Philippine ballet schools really encourage young men to try out ballet. “It’s more common for ballet schools to offer scholarships for men because parents won’t enroll their sons in ballet,” he said. “Parents usually sign up their sons in basketball and taekwondo classes.”

Mr. Barroso said that there is a difference in ballet dancing for men and women. If women are more flexible, the men’s physique is stronger, and they are expected to do more jumping and turning. “They can be flexible because they can do splits, but the priorities are to jump high, do turns, and partner the girls,” he said. “As a teacher, I don’t care about your sexuality, as long as you can dance.”

Ballet is partly inborn, Mr. Barroso said. Whether you are a girl or a boy, there is no age limit in trying it out and applying for the scholarship, as long as you are talented.

“There are bodies really meant for this. It’s still a gift and the physique matters. We might have talented boys or girls, but [if] the body proportions are not good, and the aesthetics as well… so there’s a percentage for it that matters,” he explained.

SCHOLARSHIPS
To reach out to those who cannot afford to enroll in ballet classes, BM’s artistic director and school directress Lisa Macuja-Elizalde established “Project Ballet Futures (PBF)” in 2008, a dance scholarship program that provides free ballet education for both male and female public elementary and high school students.

There are currently 25 scholars from the Philippine Christian Foundation in Tondo, and public elementary and high schools in Pasay, Makati, and Manila, who undergo training with the School of Ballet Manila, BM’s educational arm.

When the company started, Ballet Philippines’ Mr. Barroso said information about scholarships was only given through word of mouth. Eventually they made big announcements for auditions for PBF. The screenings are done every January.

The scholarship package, he said, includes free ballet classes, ballet equipment, food allowance, and, for some, transportation allowance and housing benefits, depending on how talented the scholar is.

“For some, ballet is a sort of luxury because it goes beyond your daily needs. Some of these scholars are breadwinners of their families — some even have established their own families — and some of them cannot even afford to pay for their college,” the ballet master said.

He added: “After high school, they dedicated their time to hone their arts and become members of the company. In that way, they were able to get a job that pays them after, that pays their art.”

One notable BM scholar is Jessa Balote, who was called by some media outfits as the “basurera ballerina” (garbage collector ballerina) when they wrote about her after she participated in several international competitions (winning 5^th place in the Asian Grand Prix in Hong Kong in 2013) and performed in the Openwork Ceremony in London in 2015. She was also named Discovery of the Year at the Aliw Awards in 2013.

Ms. Balote now is a full time member of the Ballet Manila company. Her older brother, Jason, meanwhile is also a scholar.

“What I notice is scholars from poor families are very strong and patient. Even if you scold them, they would try harder next time because they say what’s even harder for them is to go hungry because of poverty,” Mr. Barroso said. “Even if you see their body shaking, legs wobbling from practicing, they wouldn’t mind, which makes it easier for us to work with and train them.”

At BM, he said, a student is given three years to be evaluated before they get promoted because with time their talents progress and their bodies change. As for the scholars, he said it is easier to keep hold of them because they have signed a contract of what is expected of them.

“If they don’t follow, they lose their scholarships,” he said.

POTENTIAL AND OPPORTUNITY
At Ballet Philippines, Mr. Morales said that if a child has the potential to become a good dancer, often that would be enough for them to be given the opportunity.

“We have scholarships all throughout the year. They [have been] given since the very beginning of BP which started 46 years ago,” he said. “Scholars could be as young as 11 years old.”

The Ballet Philippines Dance School (BPDS) awards grants to selected children and advanced dance students from Metro Manila and other regions in the country. The students eventually become candidates for apprenticeship and membership in the company.

There are three available scholarships for BPDS: the BPDS scholarship (for dancers ages nine to 13), the male scholarship program (for male dancers up to age 20, with any dance background), and intermediate and advanced levels (ages 14 and up with five to eight years of dance training). Scholarship auditions are usually held from May to June.

The scholarship includes subsidized tuition amounting to P80,000, ballet equipment, allowance, and performance incentives.

“All throughout the year, there are about 50 to 100 scholars within the season. We limit the number because of the space and we don’t have that kind of big investment. But we take in as many as we can,” Mr. Morales said.

Some of the scholars, he said, go on to become members of the company and some even perform abroad or build their own ballet schools.

“We produce a lot of dancers because it’s only in the Philippines where there are three professional ballet companies existing: Ballet Philippines, Ballet Manila, and Philippine Ballet Theater. It’s very rare and it’s a great job opportunity,” he said.

The three dance companies held the biennial “dance.MNL: The Philippine Dance Festival” from June 14 to 26 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Aliw Theater, and Star Theater, all in Pasay City. The festival featured performances by world-renowned alumni, members, and scholars from the three companies, in a mix of classical, contemporary, and modern dances.

FROM STUDENT TO TEACHER
Maila Habagat, a BP company scholar, is now teaching baby ballet classes at the CCP for toddlers four to six years old every Saturday.

“My mom was a teacher, where I think I got my other passion from. But she fell ill back then, which caused our family’s financial struggles,” she said. “I had to stop in college because of that, and it was ballet which helped me get through with the finances [I needed in] finishing my studies.”

Ms. Habagat finished her bachelor’s degree in Education, majoring in MAPEH (Music, Arts, Physical Education, and Health), in Davao City in 2014 and immediately got her professional teaching license. She chose to pursue teaching ballet instead.

“I want a way to give back. In the future, I also want to have my own ballet school,” she said.

Mr. Barroso meanwhile said that while ballet may not be a dying art, it is being challenged because of the huge lifestyle changes today, especially among children.

“What I notice now is that it’s more difficult to teach kids nowadays. There’s a huge difference when I was teaching children back in the day, during the time when there are no cell phones,” he said. “The expression’s lost, I think it is dead. They can’t feel the music and the heart [of the performance] anymore.”

Nevertheless, he said that as long as there are people like him and Ms. Macuja-Elizalde alive and trying to impart the art, they will continue with what they can do.

“You are not just teaching them how to dance, you are teaching them life — like grooming, respect, and punctuality — because everything you learn from here will be reflective of the dancers’ lives,” he said.