This boy, this dancer, seems to be celebrating something, jumping for joy.
Well, it’s the beginning of May, the traditional month for a celebration of Spring flowers, so this picture can stand for that, if you like. And the picture was even taken in May- two years ago.
The boy was a part of a dance festival here in Dumaguete, that attracted dance companies from all over the Philippines, and some from foreign countries- Japan, Malaysia, even England! As you can see from the ragged backdrop behind him, it wasn’t terribly well funded, nor has it been repeated, but it was a major event for the City at the time.
A dance festival is particularly appropriate for Dumaguete, or for anywhere in the Philippines, for that matter. Filipinos are not known for their brute strength. But they are natural dancers, gymnasts and boxers- in fact they excel at any physical activity that requires agility and grace.
Anywhere you go in Dumaguete, on any public occasion, or sometimes for no reason at all, you see people dancing. Every parade has street dancers, every pageant has dance numbers. Even the poorest remote barangay has it’s own dance company. You can see them practicing every weekend on their dusty basketball courts as you drive by.
Usually it’s just “hip-hop”dancing, that rather spastic and robotic dance style imported from the U.S. But sometimes the barangay choreographer and his group are inspired to invent something original, and the results can be astonishingly beautiful, on a par with the creations of any professional dance company, here or abroad.
With what seems to be an almost universal native talent here for he arts of movement, you would think that the Philippines would be known throughout the world for excellence in dance and gymnastics, but it isn’t.
Unlike other countries like Russia, or even Rumania, there is very little government or other public support for these activities- or for any of the other arts. Even the violinists in the Philharmonic are afraid to play too loud- their strings might break, and they can’t afford to replace them!
But even unknown and unrecognized, the boys and girls in the barangays will keep on dancing. Maybe this boy, dancing here, came up from one of those groups.
He’s dancing for the Spring flowers, “Flores de Mayo”, even though there’s no Spring in the Philippines; new flowers bloom all year long.