Mary Joyce Arandia

BSBA1 - Block 4

RAMON OBUSAN
National Artist for Dance (2006) 
(June 16, 1938 – December 21, 2006)

Ramon Obusan was a dancer, choreographer, stage designer, and artistic

director. He achieved phenomenal success in Philippine dance and cultural work. * He
was also acknowledged as a researcher, archivist and documentary filmmaker who
broadened and deepened the Filipino understanding of his own cultural life and
expressions. Through the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Grop (ROFG), he had affected
cultural and diplomatic exchanges using the multifarious aspects and dimensions of the
art of dance.

Source: Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group 

Among the full-length productions he choreographed are the following:

“Vamos a Belen! Series” (1998-2004) Philippine Dances Tradition

“Noon Po sa Amin,” tableaux of Philippine History in song, drama and dance
“Obra Maestra,” a collection of Ramon Obusan’s dance masterpieces
“Unpublished Dances of the Philippines,” Series I-IV
“Water, Fire and Life, Philippine Dances and Music–A Celebration of Life
Saludo sa Sentenyal”
“Glimpses of ASEAN, Dances and Music of the ASEAN-Member Countries”
“Saplot (Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group): Philippines Costumes in Dance”

REFERENCE

https://ncca.gov.ph/about-culture-and-arts/culture-profile/national-artists-of-the-
philippines/ramon-obusan/

Francisca Reyes Aquino

National Artist for Dance (1973)
(March 9, 1899 – November 21, 1983)

Francisca Reyes Aquino is acknowledged as the Folk-Dance Pioneer. This

Bulakeña began her research on folk dances in the 1920s making trips to remote
barrios in Central and Northern Luzon. Her research on the unrecorded forms of local
celebration, ritual, and sport resulted into a 1926 thesis titled “Philippine Folk Dances
and Games,” and arranged specifically for use by teachers and playground instructors
in public and private schools.

In the 1940s, she served as supervisor of physical education at the Bureau of Education
that distributed her work and adapted the teaching of folk dancing as a medium of
making young Filipinos aware of their cultural heritage. In 1954, she received the
Republic Award of Merit given by the late Pres. Ramon Magsaysay for “outstanding
contribution toward the advancement of Filipino culture”, one among the many awards
and recognition given to her.

Her books include the following: Philippine National Dances (1946); Gymnastics for

Girls (1947); Fundamental Dance Steps and Music (1948); Foreign Folk
Dances (1949); Dances for all Occasion (1950); Playground Demonstration (1951);
and Philippine Folk Dances, Volumes I to VI.

REFERENCE

https://ncca.gov.ph/about-culture-and-arts/culture-profile/national-artists-of-the-philippines/
francisca-reyes-aquino/#:~:text=Her%20researc
ANNA PAVLOVA
From overcoming oppression,  to breaking rules, to reimagining the world or waging a
rebellion, these women of history have a story to tell. The place and time of Pavlova’s birth
could hardly have been better for a child with an innate talent for dancing. Tsarist Russia
maintained magnificent imperial schools for the performing arts. Following ballet
tradition, Pavlova learned her art from teachers who were themselves great dancers.

She graduated to the Imperial Ballet in 1899 and rose steadily through the grades to become
prima ballerina in 1906. Almost immediately, in 1907, the pattern of her life began to emerge. In
1909 the impresario Serge Diaghilev staged a historic season of Russian ballet in Paris, and
Pavlova appeared briefly with the company there and later in London. Her destiny was not, as
was theirs, to innovate but simply to show the beauties of classical ballet throughout the world.

While she was still taking leave from the Mariinsky Theatre, she danced in New York City and
London in 1910 with Mikhail Mordkin. Once she left the Imperial Ballet in 1913, her frontiers
were extended. For the rest of her life, with various partners and companies, she was a
wandering missionary for her art, giving a vast number of people their introduction to
ballet. Whatever the limitations of the rest of the company, which inevitably was largely a well-
trained, dedicated band of young disciples, Pavlova’s own performances left those who watched
them with a lasting memory of disciplined grace, poetic movement, and incarnate magic.

Pavlova’s independent tours, which began in 1914, took her to remote parts of the world. The
repertoire of Anna Pavlova’s company was in large part conventional. They danced excerpts or
adaptations of Mariinsky successes such as Don Quixote, La Fille mal gardée , The Fairy
Doll, or Giselle, of which she was an outstanding interpreter. Because she was the company’s
raison d’être, the source of its public appeal and, therefore, its financial stability, Pavlova’s
burden was extreme.

It was hardly surprising, therefore, that, by the end of her life, her technique was faltering, and
she was relying increasingly on her unique qualities of personality. Pavlova’s personal life was
undramatic apart from occasional professional headlines, as when, in 1911, she quarreled with
Mordkin.

REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anna-Pavlova
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mikhail Baryshnikov,  in full Mikhail Nikolayevich Baryshnikov, Soviet-born American
actor and ballet dancer who was the preeminent male classical dancer of the 1970s and
’80s. He subsequently became a noted dance director.
The son of Russian parents in Latvia, Baryshnikov entered Riga’s opera ballet school at age
12. The success that he achieved there convinced him to devote himself to dancing. In 1963 he
was admitted to the Vaganova ballet school the training school for the Kirov, where he was
instructed by Aleksandr Pushkin. In 1966 he joined the Kirov Ballet as a soloist without having to
serve the customary apprenticeship as a member of the corps de ballet. As the Kirov Ballet’s
premier danseur noble, Baryshnikov appeared in the leading roles in Gorianka and Vestris , two
original ballets that had been especially choreographed for him.
Baryshnikov was extremely popular with Soviet audiences, but he began to chafe at the official
restrictions that were placed upon him as an artist, particularly the prohibition on his
performance of contemporary foreign ballets.

Keystone/ZUMA Press/age fotostock

In addition to his ballet career, Baryshnikov played a leading role as dancer and actor in the
motion pictures The Turning Point , White Nights , That’s Dancing! , and Dancers .

See all videos for this article

Baryshnikov was the recipient of numerous awards, including a Kennedy Center Honor.

REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mikhail-Baryshnikov

Vaslav Nijinsky
Vaslav Nijinsky, Russian in full Vatslav Fomich Nizhniy, Russian-born ballet dancer of
almost legendary fame, celebrated for his spectacular leaps and sensitive interpretations. After
a brilliant school career, Nijinsky became a soloist at the Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, in
1907, appearing in such classical ballets as Giselle, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty. In
1909 he joined Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, and the company’s choreographer Michel
Fokine created Le Spectre de la rose, Petrushka, Schéhérazade, and other ballets expressly for
him. Nijinsky’s own works as a choreographer include L’Après-midi d’un faune and Le Sacre du
printemps.

The Nijinskys had their own dance company and performed throughout the Russian
Empire. Nijinsky’s childhood was mostly spent in the Caucasus, where he danced as a small
child with his brother Stanislav and his little sister Bronisława. At the age of eight, at the end of
August 1898, Nijinsky entered the Imperial School of Dancing in St. When he was 16 years
old, they urged him to graduate and enter the Mariinsky Theatre. Nijinsky declined, preferring to
fulfill the customary period of study.

During his school years he appeared at the Mariinsky Theatre, first as a member of the corps de
ballet, later in small parts. Nijinsky was graduated in the spring of 1907 and on July
14, 1907, joined the Mariinsky Theatre as a soloist. Among his Mariinsky partners were three
great ballerinas, Mathilde Kschessinskaya, Anna Pavlovna Pavlova, and Tamara Platonovna
Karsavina. As danseur noble, he danced the leading parts in many ballets, including
Ivanotschka, Giselle, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and Chopiniana.

From 1907 to 1911 Nijinsky danced all of the leading parts at the Mariinsky Theatre and at the
Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, where he was a guest performer. In 1909 Sergey Diaghilev, former
assistant to the administrator of the Imperial Theatres, was commissioned by the grand duke
Vladimir to organize a ballet company of the members of the Mariinsky and Bolshoi
theatres. Diaghilev decided to take the company to Paris in the spring and asked Nijinsky to join
as principal dancer. Nijinsky took Paris by storm.

The expression and beauty of his body, his featherweight lightness and steel-like strength, his
great elevation and incredible gift of rising and seeming to remain in the air, and his
extraordinary virtuosity and dramatic acting made him a genius of the ballet. From 1907 to 1912
he worked with the company’s choreographer, Michel Fokine. His later ballets were Mephisto
Valse, Variations on the Music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Les Papillons de nuit, and The
Minstrel. Until 1917 Nijinsky appeared all over Europe, in the United States, and in South
America.
REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vaslav-Nijinsky

Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire, original name Frederick Austerlitz, (born May 10,
1899, Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.—died June 22, 1987, Los Angeles, California), American
dancer onstage and in motion pictures who was best known for a number of highly
successful musical comedy films in which he starred with Ginger Rogers. He is regarded
by many as the greatest popular-music dancer of all time.
Early career
Astaire studied dancing from the age of four, and in 1906 he formed an act with his
sister, Adele, that became a popular vaudeville attraction. The two made
their Broadway debut in Over the Top (1917–18). They achieved international fame with
stage hits that included For Goodness Sake (1922), Funny Face (1927–28), and The
Band Wagon (1931–32). When Adele retired after marrying Lord Charles Cavendish in
1932, Astaire made a screen test, reportedly receiving an unencouraging verdict from
executives: “Can’t act, can’t sing. Balding. Can dance a little.” He was nevertheless cast
as a featured dancer in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer production Dancing Lady (1933),
which starred Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, and the Three Stooges.

REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fred-Astaire

Michael Flatley

Michael Flatley, (born July 16, 1958, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.), American dancer

who transformed traditional Irish dancing into a popular spectator attraction.

Flatley, whose grandmother was a champion Irish dancer, began taking dancing lessons
at age 11. His first dancing teacher told him he had started too late to achieve real
success, but Flatley persevered. When he was 17, he became the first American to win
the all-world championship in Irish dancing. He was also a Golden Gloves boxer and a
champion flute player. None of these skills, however, seemed likely to help him earn a
living, so he went to work for his father’s contracting business and performed with local
Irish dance groups in his spare time.

In the early 1980s Flatley was invited to tour with the traditional Irish musical group the
Chieftains. In this context he developed and refined the progressive style of dance that
became his trademark. He was soon recognized as a rising talent, and many awards and
honours came his way, including a National Heritage fellowship and recognition by
the National Endowment for the Arts for his contribution to dance. By the 1990s
Flatley’s reputation as a performer with incredible step-dancing skills was firmly
established.

Flatley’s big break came in 1993, when he performed at the Spirit of Mayo, an Irish
dance and music festival held in Dublin. After attracting the attention of Ireland’s
president, Mary Robinson, and dance-show producers, he was invited to create an
intermission show for the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. His
creation, Riverdance, captivated the audience. Flatley’s arms flying, he leaped across the
stage, transforming Irish dance from a tradition-bound art form that placed a premium
on discipline and control into an expressive, buoyant celebration. The jubilant response
to the seven-minute performance was overwhelming, and the producers
of Riverdance soon expanded it into a feature-length spectacle that thrilled audiences in
London and Dublin. Following a bitter creative dispute with the show’s producers,
however, Flatley was fired in October 1995. His response was to develop Lord of the
Dance, a spectacular Las Vegas-style Celtic dance show that featured Flatley at his
most flamboyant.

Though Riverdance had established Flatley as a star, Lord of the Dance turned him into

a one-man entertainment empire. Although some critics considered Lord of the
Dance to be an overblown exercise in self-indulgence and dance purists cringed at the
sequined jackets and tight pants that Flatley favoured, his talent and stage presence
were undeniable. The public response was overwhelmingly positive, and by 1997
international sales of his live video, Lord of the Dance, had passed three million copies,
and sales of the soundtrack CD that featured the music from the show approached
500,000 copies.

After leaving Lord of the Dance in 1998, Flatley introduced the equally popular
show Feet of Flames, which featured more than 100 dancers performing on a four-tiered
stage. Flatley toured with different versions of the show through 2001. He continued to
work as a creative director on new shows, and he oversaw the Lord of the
Dance franchise with its various touring troupes. In 2005 he introduced a two-act dance
production, Celtic Tiger, and toured with it for several months, but in November 2006
all future performances were canceled. Over the next several years Flatley performed
only occasionally. In 2009, however, he resurrected Feet of Flames, and the following
year he returned to Lord of the Dance. In 2015 the latter show premiered on Broadway,
with Flatley as the star. The following year he retired from dancing. His
autobiography, Lord of the Dance: My Story, was published in 2006.

REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Flatley

Isadora Duncan

Although Duncan’s birth date is generally believed to have been May 27, 1878, her
baptismal certificate, discovered in San Francisco in 1976, records the date of May
26, 1877. Duncan was one of four children brought up in genteel poverty by their mother, a
music teacher. As a child she rejected the rigidity of the classic ballet and based her dancing on
more natural rhythms and movements, an approach she later used consciously in her
interpretations of the works of such great composers as Brahms, Wagner, and
Beethoven. Patrick Campbell, she was invited to appear at the private receptions of London’s
leading hostesses, where her dancing, distinguished by a complete freedom of
movement, enraptured those who were familiar only with the conventional forms of the
ballet, which was then in a period of decay.
It was not long before the phenomenon of a young woman dancing barefoot, as scantily clad as
a woodland nymph, crowded theatres and concert halls throughout Europe. During her
controversial first tour of Russia in 1905, Duncan made a deep impression on the
choreographer Michel Fokine and on the art critic Serge Diaghilev, who as impresario was soon
to lead a resurgence of ballet throughout western Europe. Duncan toured widely, and at one
time or another she founded dance schools in Germany, Russia, and the United States, though
none of these survived. Her private life, quite as much as her art, kept her name in the
headlines owing to her constant defiance of social taboos.

There followed an unhappy period with Yesenin in Europe, where his increasing mental
instability turned him against her. Her autobiography, My Life, was published in 1927. Isadora
Duncan was acclaimed by the foremost musicians, artists, and writers of her day, but she was
often an object of attack by the less broad-minded.

REFEENCE

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Isadora-Duncan