Agnes Locsin’s ‘La Revolucion Filipina’ opens BP’s 45th season

Ballet Philippines (BP) rolls out the red carpet on July 25 to kick off the one-year celebration of its 45th anniversary, beginning with the re-staging of Agnes Locsin’s modern dance masterpiece “La Revolucion Filipina.”

An homage to the hero and political philosopher Apolinario Mabini, it had its world premiere in 1997 as part of BP’s 28th season. In La Rev, as the neo-ethnic ballet is fondly called, Locsin “taught” the paraplegic revolutionary icon to dance and to soar.

According to BP president Margie Moran Floirendo, La Rev’s 2014 staging at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) Main Theater is its fourth. The 1997 world premiere was followed by La Rev's US premiere on Oct. 23, 1998 at the Eisenhower Theater of the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. Its third staging—at the CCP in 2008—won Gawad Buhay awards for Outstanding Dance Production and Outstanding Choreography for Locsin, who was the 2012 Gawad CCP awardee for dance.

In an interview, BP artistic director Paul Alexander Morales called La Rev “one of the landmark local dance productions” and “a different ballet experience.”

“La Rev is a national dance treasure for me. It gives the audience a different ballet experience as the production incorporates theatrical techniques to bring this new experience,” he said.

“La Rev shows Mabini as a disabled but dignified person, the insightful figure with a great intellect,” added Morales, a former student of Locsin.

Mabini's 150th

The July 25-27 performances will be only days after Mabini's 150th birth anniversary. Born on July 23, 1864 (some historians say July 22) in Talaga village in Tanauan, Batangas, Mabini is known as the “sublime paralytic.”

He is acclaimed by historians as “the architect” of the Philippine Revolution against Spain because he crafted principles of a democratic popular government which gave the people’s struggles a coherent ideological orientation.

He occupied various posts in the Emilio Aguinaldo presidency such as prime minister, the Philippines’ first secretary of foreign affairs, and Aguinaldo's “closest” adviser, without financially profiting from these powerful posts. He died a poor man.

'I fell in love with Mabini'

In a media briefing, Locsin said she considers La Rev her “Ph.D. thesis work” and a “culmination and combination” of her two earlier ballet creations, “Elias” and “Encantada.”

“I fell in love with him [Mabini] in the same manner that I fell in love with Rizal while doing Elias,” said Locsin, recognized as the pioneer of neo-ethnic dance in the Philippines. “Mabini’s love and passion for his country were above everything. I really admired Mabini’s intellectual prowess. I told myself I can make him dance.”

Before “teaching” Mabini to flex his feet and to bend balletically, the Davao City-based Locsin had also “trained” Elias, the mysterious boatman and friend of Crisostomo Ibarra in Jose Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” and the love interest of Salome. The folk dance “Elias” premiered in March 1995 at the CCP as part of the BP’s 26th season.

“While working on La Rev, I had to read to the max on Mabini’s life and works. I read Cesar Majul, Teodoro Kalaw, Ambeth Ocampo, and the others who have written about Mabini. I even implored his spirit to come to me and inspire me,” Locsin said seriously, prompting a small group of reporters to burst into roaring laughter, which filled the majestically cavernous CCP Main Lobby.

Locsin admitted it had been a tough, formidable, but rewarding journey to create the choreography depicting the paraplegic Mabini. She bestowed him with signature footwork to show his disability and specific hand movements to denote his incisive intellectual and political writings.

Creative collaboration

For La Rev 2014, Locsin is joined again by Ryan Cayabyab as music composer, Dennis Marasigan as librettist, Mio Infante as set designer, Katsch Catoy as lighting designer, and Victor Ursabia as costume designer.

“La Rev is filled with fascinating historical data and we tried to interpret them through dance movements. As expected, there were those who were angered by our interpretation of certain historical figures and historical moments,” Marasigan said.

“Agnes finds Aguinaldo a tragic figure. We need to look back at our history and learn from it. We need to ask ourselves probing questions,” he added.

Marasigan added that to cut production costs during the 1997 staging of La Rev, he suggested to Locsin that they use Cayabyab's existing musical scores, particularly the composer’s music for the film “Aguila,” which spans about 100 years.

Cayabyab initially agreed to the idea of La Rev's mining his previous musical scores—until he went to the CCP to watch the La Rev rehearsals.

Awed by Locsin’s choreography, Cayabyab said his existing musical compositions were not adequate for La Rev's requirements.

After 14 days of non-stop writing, the gifted composer delivered to Locsin and the team an entirely new musical score befitting the soon-to-be masterpiece.

Cayabyab agreed to offer the new La Rev music for free, but BP gave him P10,000 as a token of appreciation.

There will be no “major changes” to the La Rev set design, said Infante.

“The look of La Rev is already fixed. Maybe there will be adjustments only in the size of the set. Just maybe,” said Infante, who recalled the furious exchange of fax messages showing revisions on the sketches of the 1997 set design.

“The year was 1997. Internet and the new technology were not so easily accessible at the time,” Infante told reporters. At the time he was designing the 1997 La Rev set, he was doing graduate studies at the Wimbledon College of Art in London.

The cast

Among the cast are La Rev '97 vets Annette Cruz Mariano, Judell de Guzman Sicam, and Alden Lugnasin.

Lugnasin was La Rev’s original Mabini, while actor-singer Nonie Buencamino was the pioneer Aguinaldo.

Germany-based Sonny Locsin returns to Manila to alternate the role of Mabini with BP principal dancer Jean Marc Cordero.

In the 1997 La Rev, Locsin was an alternate for Mabini while Cordero first essayed the Mabini role in 2008.

Emilio Aguinaldo is played by BP principal dancer Richardson Yadao and Nicolo Ricardo Magno of the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company. — BM, GMA News

La Revolucion Filipina will be performed at the Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo (CCP Main Theater) on July 25 and 26 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., and on July 27 at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m.

For inquiries, visit www.ballet.ph, email info@ballet.ph, or call 551-1003. For tickets, call the CCP Box Office at 832-3704 or Ticketworld at 891-9999.