Dalagang Bukid and other Premieres
Enrico Labayen, multi-award winning choreographer from the US and one of the most exciting and innovative dance artist in the world together with Philippine Ballet Theatre, the Philippines' foremost ballet company will present an evening of premieres and award winning works of Enrico Labayen in "Dalagang Bukid and Other Premieres".
The evening opens with the new revitalized look of PBT's dance artists in the world premiere of Labayen's "Vivaldi Sketches", performed to the music of Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi's selection from his most famous score "Quattro Stagiozzione" (The Four Seasons). A neo-classical work explores the dancer's new found vitality, speed, eclecticism and a royal commitment to the classical form.
This is immediately followed by Enrico Labayen's "Cloth", a work commissioned by the Hans-Otto Theatre in Potsdam, Germany for the International Dance with Objects Festival and recipient of the Isadora Duncan Award -USA for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography with Mark Morris, William Forsyth, Alonzo King, and Bill T. Jones as its past recipients. "Cloth" is a work inspired by a passage of Song of Songs, a book of the Hebrew Bible known for its sensuality and evocative imagery. Hailed by Dance Magazine as " hypnotic and mesmerizing…a refreshing vision of contemporary dance and Arab daily in Jordan described the work as " sheer genius…Labayen creates indelible image in dance that one cannot forget easily."
"Cloth"opens with two men on two chairs far apart with a white cloth stretched
in front of them, a red background behind tem. The alienation of the figures
slowly grows into a battle as they roll the cloth around their arms and
approach one another with defiance. The music that accompanies this dance
includes poetry where the voice of a woman talks about love and jealousy,
the theme is jealousy and death and love revives from death.
Exotic sentences lie "awake north wind, and calm thyself, I sleep but my heart waketh", adds to the mood of anxiety. An Arab "Mawwal" enters intermittently into the music crying, then the cloth is stretched out, ripples in it almost refer to a dialogue, especially where men create and walk through the same ripples simultaneously. After becoming one, the cloth is stretched out mercilessly and the two figures go back to their seats and stretched the cloth over them as if it were a shroud.
The third premiere explodes with "Puirt a Beaul" ( Mouth Music); the second work that won Labayen the Isadora Duncan Award for Outstanding Achievement in Choreography (US) and was described by critics as "Labayen meets Riverdance and won.". Puit A beaul is a study in Celtic movement's uprightness and speed given a new twist by Labayen's use of contemporary dance styles and techniques. Politically, the origin of the dance itself is a radical one, it is use for communication betweens clans to communicate the arrival and attack of religious rival in the Celtic revolution in Ireland- the rhythmic toe tapping signals foreboding doom and oppression. The SF Guardian and Marin Independent both hailed the work as "an all around unrelentingly feel good ballet and a foot stomping goodtime… the audience was so overwhelmed that it was given a long standing ovation half way through the ballet."
The evening closes with Labayen's premiere of "Dalagang Bukid", the most popular of all Filipino zarzuelas of the nineteenth century given a contemporary 21st Century approach by Labayen through minimalist approach but keeping the vibrancy of the era, before the industrialization of the Philippines.
Dalagang Bukid uses the original score of the zarzuela down to its imperfection of the sound recording that adoringly captures the 78rpm record sound. Conceived in black and white and sepia tones and utilizing a cinematic approach to the choreography, Labayen re-creates but not re-tells the story in flashbacks and juxtaposition. Recalled in the present Philippines, the work becomes an important figure in today's contemporary times. Ternos and sayas, barongs and other traditional garbs is suspended and floats through the air in which the characters emerges in this archetypal story of transformation. Pygmalion like, Cinderella like, My Fair Lady like- it is the story not only of the Filipinos but of all human kind.
