Bayanihan
The National Dance Company of the Phillipines
Cal Performances, Zellerbach Hall
Berkeley, CA
September 24, 2010
by Rita Felciano
Copyright 2010 © Rita Felciano
The latest appearance by Bayanihan, the Philippines' long-established major folkloric company, left me torn exactly the way it did four years ago: delighted at the visual spectacle and charmed by some of the dancers. It also beautifully suggested sheer richness of indigenous dance genres, leaving the impression that just about every little town or region had its own festival or way of celebrating its uniqueness. Yet the paucity of choreographic imagination or arranging of these dances left a lot to be desired. It should be pointed out that the audience primarily consisted of Filipinos and Filipino Americans who seemed to thoroughly enjoy the show.
Bayanihan, of course, is not the only big internationally traveling company of its genre. Virsky Ukrainian National Folk Dance Ensemble and the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico de Amalia Hernandez come to mind; they too were founded by ethnographers who gathered, and in many ways saved, indigenous material which they then developed into an audience pleasing, easily digestible theatrical entertainment. They too are now run by a second-generation artistic director who needs the keep the material fresh without the roots that have nourished it. Their shows prove that it can be done. But the best example is probably the Hungarian National Dance Company. Their presentations are as grounded in the past as anyone's, and yet they succeed in choreographing and presenting their dances in a respectful, fresh and theatrically convincing manner.
Four sections made up Bayanihan's program: "All Time Favorites", which included abbreviated versions of the popular 'Tinikling' and 'Vinta Singkil' from Mindanao; "E-Bayanihan" with work dances from around the country such as 'Labandera' (overly cute washer women), 'Bangkero' (an awkwardly constructed boatmen's dance, with nevertheless a strong choreographic perspective) and the humorous 'Zapatero' (shoemakers enjoying the fruit of their labor). "Mestizaje y Criolleria" acknowledged the country's four hundred year Spanish influence, and finally, "The Phillippinescape", was a colorful tribute to national unity.
With twenty-four individual episodes, the show felt overloaded with snack-size snippets of dance which almost always left you wanting better choreography and less reliance on sumptuous costuming. Dances too often simply stopped in a down-stage photo opportunity, and I fully expected audience members to pull out their cameras. The premise, probably based on original material, may have been promising but its translation onto the stage was thin. The energetically performed, but rather pedestrian 'Maglalatik', for instance, was derived from a war dance in which the male dancers beat coconut shells attached to their bodies. The 'Bangko' culminated in a pyramid of chairs and bodies; there must be more that could be done with this idea.
Maybe the clumsiest choreography was 'Amorsolo' which opened "Pilippinescape". Fernando Amorsolo, apparently is a much beloved Filipino painter who was being honored by this extravagant dance in which members of a community--followed by a spotlight--melted into a reproduction of some of the artist's paintings. It was a clumsy attempt to pay tribute to an artist who, probably, deserved better. In another episode, women whose costumes seemed to sprout tails at the back, engaged in a call and response pattern with the electronic bird. It was the nadir of a program in which the music, mostly performed live by eight musicians, including an unfortunate bass player who popped a string, was generally quite good. Singer-warbler Mary Anne Luis, however, seemed to have only one way to interpret her numbers: super-cute.
Still, even an outsider could appreciate the gentle flow of 'Pandaggio Oasiwas', a lantern dance with the lamps born on the head and inside kerchiefs; the 'Valse Marikina' with the white-clad men, hands on their back, partnering elegantly coiffed women in an expression of one-to-one and communal relationships, or the rhythmic complexities of music and dance in 'Sayapan/Rhythms of Gandingan.' Bayanihan seems to have so much good raw material; they need to re-think on how to use some of it.