CONTEMPORARY PHILIPPINE NATIONAL ARTISTS IN DANCE
techniques. Originally a playwright for adult
1. Leonor Orosa Goquingco
She was the only dancer on the First Cultural Mission
to Japan. That same year, she produced Circling the
Globe, and a year later, Dance Panorama.
In 1940 she created The Elements, the first ballet
choreographed by a Filipino to commissioned music,
and Sports, featuring cheerleaders, a tennis match,
and a basketball game.
A year later, she choreographed the first Philippine
folkloric ballet, Trend: Return to the Native. After
World War II, she organized the Philippine Ballet
where she brought to life Maria Clara, the leper, Sisa,
Elias, and Salome-all characters in Rizal 's novel Noli
Me Tangere (Touch Me Not).
In 1958 she founded the Filipinesca Dance Company.
Orosa-Goquingco was inclined not only to classical
ballet but also to Indian and Spanish, as well as
modern, dance. She is noted for her courage in
breaking traditions in dance despite public
indifference.
Her other important works
include Vinta, Morolandia (choreographed in
1938), Festival in Maguindanao (depicting a Muslim
royal wedding), Eons Ago: The Creation (depicting
Philippine legends of the creation of the world and of
the first man and woman), Filipinescas: Philippine Life,
Legend, and Lore in Dance, and Miner's Song.
Inevitably her innovations revolutionized the folk
dances. The Bird and the Planters is the first weaving
together of the various rice-planting sequences,
climaxed by a new version of the tinikling where the
dancer personifies the tikling bird. It was the first to
utilize bamboo poles to catch the bird, the first to use
a double-time finale and breathtakingly rapid turns
while the dancer hops in and out of the bamboo poles.
Orosa-Goquingco's Tribal, about the death of a
warrior, is the first dance composition in the Mountain
Province-dance style. Other works along the same line
are "Ang Antipos" (The Flagellant), "Salubong ",
(Meeting), "Pabasa" (Reading of the Pasyon)--
all dance sequences celebrating Philippine lenten
practices. Philippine games such as palo sebo,
sipa, and juego de anillo were depicted in Easter
SundayFiesta. Orosa-Goquingco is also remembered
for her transmutation into dance theater of the
cockfight, the asalto, and the fiestas.
2. Amelia Lapeña Bonifacio
A Filipino playwright, puppeteer, and
educator known as the "Grande Dame of
Southeast Asian Children’s Theatre."
She was recognized in 2018 as a National
Artist of the Philippines for Theater - a
conferment which represents the Philippine
state's highest recognition for artists.
As a young faculty member, she helped
establish the Speech and Drama Department
of the University of the Philippines -
Diliman in 1959 and taught subjects like
History of the Theatre and Fundamentals of
Speech in the early 1960s until she moved
back to the Department of English and
Comparative Literature.
She contributed significant efforts to the
advancement and refinement of the study
and practice of theater arts in the Philippines.
In 1976, Lapeña-Bonifacio published Anim na
Dulang Pilipino Para Sa Mga Bata, with six-
year-old daughter supplying illustrations and
also influenced by traditional Asian theater
audiences, she has since then written and
directed many other plays for children, most
of them based on Asian folktales. In 1977,
Lapeña-Bonifacio was invited by the
University of the Philippines Department of
Speech and Drama to present one of her
plays.
She wrote and directed Abadeja: Ang Ating
Sinderela, a puppet play based on
a Visayan folktale about the Cinderella-like
Abadeja. With December shows at the
Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater, Abadeja was
performed in cooperation with Dulaang UP
and UP Repertory Company.
3. Frances Reyes Aquino
the legendary "Mother of Philippine
Dancing," was born in Lolomboy, Bocaue, in
the Philippine Province of Bulacan, on March
9, 1899. Francisca began her search for folk
dances to use in classes while a Student
Assistant in Physical Education. She travelled
to remote barrios (rural communities) in
Central and Northern Luzon. She quickly saw
that, with further impact of Western culture,
many dances would be lost or extensively
modified. She continued gathering folk
dances, songs, and games for her master's
thesis at the University of the Philippines in
1926. She revised her work in 1927, and
published it as Philippine Folk Dances and
Games. In this and later collections, the great
diversity of dance type, tempo, and music
reflected a many-faceted Filipino character.
4. Ramon Arevalo Obusan
He was a Filipino dancer, choreographer,
stage designer and artistic director.
Obusan is credited for his work in promoting
Philippine traditional dance and cultural
work. He is also an acclaimed archivist,
researcher and documentary filmmaker who
focused on Philippine culture.
He also founded Ramon Obusan Folkloric
Group in 1971. Among the awards Obusan
received was the Patnubay ng Kalinangan
award by the City of Manila in 1992, the
Gawad CCP Para sa Sining award in 1993 and
the prestigious National Artist of the
Philippines for dance in May 2006.
Obusan is credited for his work in promoting
Philippine traditional dance and cultural
work.
5. Alice Garcia Reyes
She is a Filipina dancer, choreographer,
teacher, director and producer. The
organizer of Ballet Philippines, she received
last June 20, 2014 from President Aquino the
highest award in the Arts, National Artist of
the Philippines.
She was chiefly responsible in popularizing
contemporary dance as she organized Ballet
Philippines and staged the first modern
dance concert at the Cultural Center of the
Philippines Main Theater on February, 1970.
She is best known for "Bungkos Suite",
"Carmen", "Carmina Burana", "Romeo and
 Juliet", "Rama Hari", "Cinderella"—all
nuanced with Filipino culture, gesture and
grace. Ballet Philippines, which she created in
1969 with the help of Eddie Elejar and the
Cultural Center of the Philippines, had
produced over 500 choreographic works.
Her major works are Amada (1969)At a
Maranaw Gathering(1970) Itim-Asu (1971)
Tales of the Manuvu (1977) Rama Hari (1980)
Bayanihan Remembered (1987).

6. Lucrecia Faustino Reyes-Urtula

She was a Filipino choreographer, theater
director, teacher, author, and researcher on
ethnic dance.
She was the founding director of the
Bayanihan Philippine National Folk Dance
Company and was named National Artist of
the Philippines for dance in 1988.
She replied her findings to project a new
example of an ethnic dance culture that goes
beyond simple preservation and into creative
growth.
She had been choreographed suites of
mountain dances, Spanish-influenced
dances, Muslim Pageants and festivals,
regional variations and dances of the
countryside for the Bayanihan Philippine
Dance Company of which she was the dance
director.
Among the widely acclaimed dances she had
staged were the following: Singkil, a
Bayanihan signature number based on a
Maranao epic poem; Vinta, a dance
honouring Filipino sailing prowess; Tagbili, a
tale of tribal conflict; Pagdiwata, a four-day
harvest festival condensed into asix-minute
breath-taking spectacle; Salisid, a mountain
wedding dance; Ida, Banga and Aires de
Verbena.