Ba Ilet
Charming Ethnics
By CLIVE BARNES
THE big, yawning difference between amateur and profes- sional performers is usually one of relaxation—and this is even more marked with singers and dancers than with actors. Pro- fessionals are only tense when they want to be, amateurs are tense even at their most apparently spontaneous. Now the Philippine Dance Company, Bayanihan, currently playing at the Palace Theatre; are exclusively amateur—university students on vaca- tion for the most part. Yet they give the impression of being so refreshingly relaxed that if someone from the audience popped over the orchestra pit to join in, they would hardly bat an almond- curved eyelid. This is part, and a large part, of that attractiveness to which London has capitu- lated.
This Philippine dance troupe was first formed last year for appearances at Brussels World Fair, and now it has come directly to London on the wings of its more recent hit-season on Broadway. Such success with sophisticated audiences is pre- dictable and inevitable, for in addition to their relaxed naturalness these Filipinos have a quaint charm that appeals to the tourist beneath our skins. You can hardly watch them without your hands itching to get at the Leica. After a time all this might have begun to cloy, but before the first stirrings of boredom have had time to become isolated, the show shrewdly comes to an end.
Physically these fifty or so youngsters are dazzling. The girls are small-boned, like birds, with chirpy little Oriental-American faces, un- lined, trustingly brown-eyed, yet strangely aloof. They move with a kittenish dignity, sometimes playful, sometimes secretive, that is feminine rather than womanly. Compared with these nubile, Siamese cats, the smooth-skinned men are a good deal less interesting, but they have an eagerness to please and attractive grins. You cannot dance a step without giving away your character to the world, and obviously these are good and happy people. Happiness colours their dancing just as pride does the Spaniards', or strength the Rus- sians'. Although this gives the Filipinos a charac- teristic way of dancing, there seems little in the way of a distinctive Filipino dance style, nor of a genuine art-form, such as the Japanese have in Kabuki. I am no anthropologist, yet. I could not help feeling there was something a little too pat about all the various ethnic strains in•this Philip- pine dance programme. I suspect, perhaps cyni- cally, that a few of the folk dances were rather more indigenous to the University of Manila than to the life of the ordinary people.
The three major strains in their dancing—the aboriginal tribal, the Arabic-Moslem and the Spanish colonial, each commemorating a phase of Filipino history—appear to be completely independent of one another, except, of course, in that they are all seen as different reflections from the same mirror, the Filipino personality. In addition to these there are the contemporary regional folk dances, extroverted and cheerful, giving the impression that whatever it was in the past Coca-Cola is now the national drink.
All their dancing—except the seemingly aca- demic excursions into primitivism—is open- hearted and sunny, and exclusively pitched on this one emotional level. The steps are themselves simple but always produced with perfect en- semble, and occasionally surprising virtuosity. The celebrated Tinikling, the Filipinos' one well- known 'characteristic' dance, provides a perfect example. Couples skip in and out of two bamboo poles as these are swiftly clapped together, nearly, but never quite, cutting them off at ankle level.. There is a marvellous dexterity and co-ordination here, even though the actual steps are almost naive in their simplicity. The quasi-Spanish dancing and the Oriental style are, as would be expected, slightly more demanding, although even with these, ease, balance and grace are obviously the prized qualities. Costumes and lighting are uni- formly excellent, the music, ranging from one- nostrilled nose flutes to mandolins, is evocative, and as a production the only mistake is in not placing the slightly better first half, second.
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