Aegina Festin

2012-51175
A Reaction: A Christmas Carol

The show started with the singing of the national anthem of the Philippines,
which was followed by a short introduction of what the story A Christmas Carol is
about, including some notes in vocabulary used along the entire play and the context
of time whence Charles Dickens wrote it. Jean Marc Cordero, was the one who
acted as Ebenezer Scrooge, an amateur ballet dancer compared to his colleagues
who played the same role, Nonoy Froilan and Butch Esperanza, on December 8
(14:00) last year. The production employed a music collage, employing a wide range
of themes, made up of twenty-three pieces (It would be better though if I mention
only a few rather than mentioning all the songs) like Pocket Calculator and
Possessed both by Balanescu Quartet, and We Wish You a Merry Christmas by
the Philadelphia Orchestra and Chorus.
The entre, or the opening number in a suite of dances known as the Grand
Pas and is typically a short number which serves as an introduction for the suite,
was done with harmony of the two extremities, the dark and the light. It showcased
the dancing bright red lights accompanied by a fast rhythmic instrumental music,
with the blackness backdropping the entire scene. This was followed by another
entre, which basically introduced the characters of the story, focusing on the
entrance of Ebenezer Scrooge, with a smooth flow to the first real scene of the
storymissing out the usual tradition of classical ballet where the adagio (this is
where the female dancer is partnered by the lead male dancer, or one or more
suitors, or both) follows next to the entre.
The dancers were not synchronized as they should have been in a perfect
performance, unlike those traditional ballerinas of the West, at least, who sway and
glide in harmony with each other. The movements alone were not able to narrate the
story as it still needed words. The good side was that they were smiling in grace
from the start until the end of their performance (Of course they would also frown
depending on the scene). Otherwise it would be very dull as they did not dance with
the musicthe stage had its own subtitles installed and hanged from the central
arch of the proscenium, showing the dialogues of each character, which s/he should
have interpreted through dance. Theatrical ballet must be a pure interpretative
dance, without any incorporated verbal communication, in which its value can be
measured by many factors including how effective it is in conveying the story and
expressing feelings to its audience. It offers no accuracy though, so precision can be
a good gauge.
In terms of harmony, as how Taoism puts it: light and dark, masculinity and
femininity, and birth and death are interrelated; one can exist not without the other
and they are not static, the balance ebbs and flows between them... This is the
same with dance. The principal dancer is in harmony with the danseurs, which
nevertheless was executed quite well by Ballet Philippines, but this was seen not
among the danseurs themselves. If there was no harmony within the light, how could
it be in harmony with the dark? Said in much simpler words, opposite attracts. There
is chaos in light which is antipodal to the pacific dark, so everything fits perfectly in
Taoism. To reiterate, the principal dancer and the danseurs are in harmony.