THE 31st season production of the Philippine Ballet Theatre (PBT) continues its performances at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Main Theater with upcoming productions of Merry Widow in September and The Nutcracker in November 2017.
Last summer PBT opened its doors to new dancers who aspire to be part of the esteemed ballet company. Earlier, it staged La Bayadère on July 15 and 16 with new dancers and performers, including two Don Bosco-Alabang Tuloy Foundation beneficiaries: 15-year-old John Edmar Sumera of Calauan, Laguna and Benedict Sabularse, 17, from Alabang, Muntinlupa City.
Sumera is a son of a single mom, a seamstress-turned-pedicab driver. His mother sent him to Tuloy Foundation because she could not support him anymore. Sabularse, on the other hand, was sent to the foundation by his grandmother, who wanted to keep him out of trouble.
The two have just been dancing for three years at the foundation’s ballet program, which started, almost at the time they started and at the Academy 1, a ballet school also in Alabang, for further training.
This month the teenagers are set to go abroad to study. Sabularse will be enjoying a one-year free schooling at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Danse de Marseille in France, while Sumera will be a scholar at The Hamburg Ballet School in Germany for two years.
The boys had other offers from schools abroad after competing in the Prix de Laussane. Sumera also received scholarship offers from the Royal Swedish Ballet School, Royal Winnipeg Ballet School, New Zealand School of Dance, North Carolina School of the Arts and Central School of Ballet in London. Sabularse received another opportunity from the North Carolina School of the Arts.
Sumera and Sabularse said they got curious about their “big brothers”, or kuya, in Tuloy who got into ballet, albeit with some hesitation, because of their mistaken notion that ballet is for other genders.
But when they watched the performances and got scholarships at Academy 1, they developed a passion for the dance. Academy 1 provided them the lessons for free and gave them dancing clothes, as well as shoes.
Founded in 1987, PBT has established itself as the preeminent classical ballet company in the Philippines. It was borne out of an alliance of leading dance groups in the 1980s but immediately won recognition as a resident ballet company of the CCP.
The premier ballet company of the country has expanded its vision and is pursuing the goal of bringing the upscale art of dance to general appreciation among local audiences. PBT has traveled in national and international tours presenting the best of its Filipino and Western repertoire, highlighting its commitment to artistic excellence in the classical, neoclassical and pop-classical traditions.
By opening its doors to aspiring dancers, the old concept of ballet as a rich European bourgeoisie culture fit only for those with wealth and power is slowly being changed.
Like the Don Bosco students, La Bayadère’s lead performer Jared Tan, a homegrown PBT artist, was also given the chance to become a soloist of Atlanta Ballet. He flew to Manila for this particular performance.
Interest in ballet is consistently high, especially with parents who want their young children to be occupied with something creative during summer breaks. Kids are usually trained in ballet as early as 4 or 5 years old until their productive years of 25 for girls and even 35 for men.
According to PBT Artistic Director Ronilo Jaynario, some youngsters are lucky to get sponsors for further training in ballet schools abroad and, if they excel in their performance, they get to be hired (contracted) as company dancers. When they get married, girls normally drop out of ballet and become full-time mothers or just teach ballet.
Jaynario said it takes a lifetime of training and proper discipline to become a ballerina or seasoned artist.
“With girls, they start at 5 or 7 years and are [with] the company at 20, so they have only 10 productive years as dancer. PBT employs the ladies at 17 years old up to 22.”
He continued, “For the boys, the growth is not as fast because in schools, they do not want to get into a ballet as career because they [have a different notion that] it is for gays [as football and basketball are for real men].”
“Whoever comes to us, that is who we handle. In a span of two or three years, we are lucky to have one male student coming to us.”
Those who get hired abroad as company dancers are very rare and few, Jaynario said, citing as examples Tan and his sister Abigail.
PBT educates scholars who are given free classes, as well as shoes and clothes for dancing. The students are tapped as dancers in performances for their additional training until they are ready for company membership and then given a contract where everything is given free, plus they have salaries of from P10,000 to P20,000 a month. The theater now has four scholars and plenty of apprentices.
In the Philippines classical ballet performances are kept alive under the production of PBT and Jaynario, an ex-PBT dancer himself and ballet master Anatoly Panasyukov, a former principal dancer of the Moscow Ballet Theatre of Classical Dance who has joined PBT in 1995.
Panasyukov, who has been with the PBT for the longest time, wishes the preservation and promotion of ballet among the Filipinos.
“Ballet is an art which everyone can enjoy either as a dancer, performer or as part of an audience. Anybody—as long as he or she has the discipline and passion for ballet—can be a dancer, regardless whether rich or poor. It should be promoted in the media, in schools and among the younger generation,” he said.
For inquiries, contact the PBT office at (02) 632-8848; 09493252545 and 09951580538 or e-mail secretariat@pbt.ph. Know more about the two boys through a video posted by Philippine Airlines at https://web.facebook.com/flyPAL/videos/10154962354895867/.