The Igorot dances a paralytic

Biag Gaongen is currently my favorite male dancer in Ballet Philippines. He traces his ancestry to an Igorot tribe from Sagada in the Mountain Province, located in the Cordillera mountain range, which is also where Baguio City is nestled. During the 2008 Gawad Buhay! awarding ceremony back in February, Biag performed an excerpt of his role as Apolinario Mabini in the full-length dance "La Revolucion Filipina." Like Andres Bonifacio yesterday, Mabini was also a revolutionary against Spain's colonial rule and he wrote the Philippines' first constitution. He contracted an illness early in 1896, the same year the Philippine Revolution started, which resulted in the paralysis of his legs. All of Ballet Philippines' dancers are trained in classical ballet but every year they have at least one performance where the movements and choreography are closer to Filipino ethnic and tribal dances than ballet, hence the bare feet. I have to admit that I like those performances better than the classical ballet pieces—they are so much more primal and, therefore, emotionally powerful.

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We're off for the weekend (it's our 13th wedding anniversary on Monday!) so I'll see you all again in time for the City Daily Photo June Theme Day. The July poll is still ongoing and the results so far are very tight. I hope all the CDP bloggers will go to the forum to vote—your two choices can still make a big difference! Happy weekend, everyone!