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The Mother of Philippine Contemporary Dance
By introducing the first modern dance concert at the CCP Main Theater in February 1970 featuring an all contemporary dance repertoire and by promoting it successfully to a wide audience, she initiated the popularization of modern dance in the country. She followed this up by programs that developed modern dancers, teachers, choreographers and audiences. By organizing outreach tours to many provinces, lecture-demonstrations in schools, television promotions, a subscription season and children’s matinee series, she slowly helped build an audience base for Ballet Philippines and modern dance in the country.
Among her major works: Amada (1969), At a Maranaw Gathering (1970) Itim-Asu (1971), Tales of the Manuvu (1977), Rama Hari (1980), Bayanihan Remembered (1987).
Mother of Philippine Theater Dance
Dean of Filipino Performing Arts Critics
Trailblazer
In 1939, Leonor Orosa-Goquingco was the only dancer sent on the first cultural mission to Japan, at the age of 19. She produced Circling the Globe (1939) and Dance Panorama in the same year. She created The Elements in 1940, the first ballet choreographed by a Filipino to commissioned music. She also created Sports during the same year, featuring cheerleaders, a tennis match and a basketball game. The first Philippine folkloric ballet, Trend: Return to the Native, was choreographed by Goquingco in 1941. After the Second World War, she organized the Philippine Ballet and brought the famous Filipino novel, Noli Me Tángere, to life. The Noli Dance Suite consisted of several dances. Maria Clara and the Leper, Salome and Elias, Sisa, Asalto for Maria Clara and The Gossips are some of the dances found in the Noli Dance Suit
The name Alice Reyes has become a significant part of Philippine dance parlance. As a dancer, choreographer, teacher and director, she has made a lasting impact on the development and promotion of contemporary dance in the Philippines.
The biggest contribution of Alice Reyes to Philippine dance is the development of a distinctly Filipino modern dance idiom. Utilizing inherently Filipino materials and subject matters expressed through a combination of movements and styles from Philippine indigenous dance, modern dance and classical ballet she has successfully created a contemporary dance language that is uniquely Filipino.
Orosa-Goquingco was inclined not only to classical ballet but also to Indian and Spanish, as well as modern, dance. She is noted for her courage in breaking traditions in dance despite public indifference.
Her creations for over 50 years was highly original, first-of-a-kind choreographies, mostly to her own storylines. These include “TREND: Return to Native,” “In a Javanese Garden,” “Sports,” “VINTA!,” “In a Concentration Camp,” “The Magic Garden,” “The Clowns,” “Firebird,” “Noli Dance Suite,” “The Flagellant,” “The Creation…” Seen as her most ambitious work is the dance epic “Filipinescas: Philippine Life, Legend and Lore.”
Additionally, under her own name and pen name (Cristina Luna), she has been published by the Philippine Cultural Foundation and Philippine periodicals, by Arts of Asia (Hong Kong), Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo (Rome, Italy), and Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. She is the author of a history of Philippine dance, Dances of the Emerald Isles 1980, and of the popular one-act play, Her Son, Jose Rizal.
National Artist, both leave a mark, in the Philippine Ballet and Folk Dance.
A truly remarkable dancer, choreographer, director and writer of our time.