Dance Practice
August 10, 2001

      Surprisingly enough, as dim-witted and ungraceful as I am, I've become one of them. But don't let me fool you. I'm nowhere, and I mean nowhere even close to performing like the lowest-trained dancer of their kind. I'm just there, bumming around, spending my time away from boredom, hoping that the strenuous exercise and occasional stage performances will help me in whatever I do in the near inconceivable future. And after a year's worth of training, I think it's due time to write a little something about what I've seen, tried and experienced within the hidden scenarios of the dance company.

      Now quite honestly there's a lot to say about the dance troupe, but to keep it simple, I'll try to base this paper on my own humble perspectives. Let's start with an average day of rehearsals. I arrive at around 5 or 6 p.m. depending on my semester's schedule and my stomach's current contents. Trust me, you do not want to try practicing on an empty or full stomach. Based on my own experiences, the results of such behavior vary from being mildly disorienting to downright disgusting. Anyway, the dance hall is usually swarmed by a considerable number of training personnel by the time I arrive. I'm usually late for the initial rounds of stretching so I make up for the time lost by pretending to double my efforts with my warm-up exercises in the background. Our instructress notices my tardiness (sometimes) and orders me to get in line like the rest of the peons under her supervision.

      Before I continue, let me enumerate the three major divisions of dancers within the company. There's the PG (Performing Group) which compose of members who've actually performed abroad, know most of the dances by heart and thus, have the right to laugh at the pitiful mistakes the other groups make. The TG (Training Group) are those members who've managed to move a step higher from the much-mocked-at beginner's group. These dancers have performed on various occasions (primarily due to the absence of one or more PG dancers), and are constantly at odds with their predecessors, the PGs, due to many irrelevant yet sometimes interesting reasons. Some of these members actually deserve this mediocre rank of being a TG… but there are others, like myself, who've been promoted to the position merely because the senior staff didn't know where else to put those dancers who've trained forever but still don't know jackshit. Lastly, there's the Beginners (Retard's.. err Newbie Group), a collection of newly ordained neophytes trying to learn the basics of our way of dancing - they usually provide an apt means of entertainment for both the TG and PG dancers. Whether they do it intentionally or accidentally though is of no significant consequence since they'll probably get laughed at anyway. I'm classified as a member of the TG despite my total lack of skill and grace. My colleagues of the same level are 3 to 5 years younger than me, making me the eldest, hence the most inflexible in the category. I told them that if they started the 'Kuya'-this and 'Kuya'-that attitude on me, blood would spill rather quickly.

      Now going back to the rehearsals, the first set of exercises revolve on stretching the entire body to its absolute limit. This means, when the trainer says touch your toes, you not only use your fingers to touch your toes but in addition, make sure that your head touches your knees as well. When the trainer says to bend backward, you don't just recline your neck but rather bend entirely from the waist - and in some instances, the backward bending involves touching the floor in the process. After that comes a series of ballet exercises which compose of numerous slow squats, leg extensions, splits and kicks, coupled with routine dance procedures known as sway balances. Believe me, just looking at them do the exercises is tiring enough… how much more when I'm required to follow and learn them as well? Ever try holding your left foot while standing on your right, with both legs unbent? Do you know what it's like to lie on your belly, stretching your neck backwards just to reach one of your toes? Ever try making turns at speeds that raging typhoons would envy? I bet not. But don't worry, I can't do all that. I may never be able to, even. But the fact is, most of the other dancers can… and they do it everyday to boot! It is in theory, the total body-workout. I've tried Tae-Bo, regular push-ups and jogging exercises, even weight training, but not one of these can even begin to compare to the slow and graceful, awe-inspiring stretches seen during the dance group's warm-up. And if that's not enough, the trainer also incorporates a little bit of yoga (a.k.a. torture), floor and cardiovascular exercises to increase the dancers' endurance and stamina, much to the dancers' dismay and apparent dislike. When we're done with stretching, we take up common dance movements. These appear to be easy at first glance, but in actuality, these are really a series of hard-to-do moves. Moderate panting and sweat wiping occur during this period.

      After what seems to have taken an hour's worth of perspiration, the trainer allows a five-minute recess before the real dance exercises actually begin. I cannot begin to stress how important water is when coming to practice. Without it, one would literally fall apart in the middle of one of the faster dances. So during this limited recess, all dancers regardless of their rank and title, swarm to their little coves (small chairs scattered on the un-danceable corners of the hall) hoping to drown themselves with as much H20 as humanely possible. I used to depend on my sister to bring a bottle of mineral water or two, but after numerous instances of her and/or the bottles not showing up, I've now taken the initiative (a rare occurrence, believe me) to bring my own drinking sources. If you're thinking of joining the company and are currently reading this, don't say you weren't warned. Comfort here is truly non-existent, and resisting instruction is undeniably futile.

      The routine after the break is that the instructor picks a series of dances to practice on and then these dances take precedence on the hall for the duration of the entire evening session. It's really a form of death-sentencing for certain people on their respective dances. I mean, when they schedule Kadang to be one of the major dances for the night, my knees lose their bearing and start shaking rapidly. I'll get to describing Kadang in awhile. For now, be content to know that if you're an aspiring beginner and are first introduced to the Kadang, your first thought would be, 'I can do that.' And then, 10 minutes later, after actually trying it, your second and more permanent thought becomes, "Am I insured?"

      The dances begin abruptly and end only if one of two conditions are met: either (a.) the trainer becomes mildly content with the way the dance was practiced or (b.) he/she sees that the current dancers have no hope whatsoever in learning the dance. Now with regards to the current batch of TGs and beginners (again, myself included), (b.) happens more frequently than (a.). And to be honest, condition (a.) hardly happens at all. I guess that's to be expected when the existing population of trainees don't meet the standards of the dance group's previous eras of impeccable perfection. Different people call for different times, yes? Or is it, difficult people call for different times? Bah, who cares. The important thing is I shed some light on our daily dance routines. But in order to do that, it's imperative that I describe some of the dances for you to picture what benefits (read: suffering) we gain from our everyday toil.

      Dances are divided into four main categories. Ethnic, Spanish, Rural and World Folk Dances. Ethnic dances are serious, heavily-accented dances that require skill and a sense of grandeur while being performed. Screw up here and the directress will inevitably cut off your head. Most of her masterpiece choreographies are ethnic, and thus, prized greatly. Spanish dances, meanwhile, are elegant and well-defined. When done correctly, a feat hardly accomplished nowadays due to lack of PGs, the dances bring its audience back to colonial Philippines where senor and senoras gallantly display themselves before a crowd. Rural dances, on the other hand, portray the special euphoric activities of the common Filipino. In other words, if you do something horribly wrong by accident, you can always reason that it was a planned part of the show. Screwing up here will not warrant the wrath of the instructors during practice. I know very little about World Folk Dancing so I won't comment on it in fear of saying something wrong. I don't know half of the dances from each category but I do know of some of the major ones. Dances are, more often than not, defined by the different sexes who actually dance them. There are girl-only dances, guy-only dances and girl-guy-dances. I'm a guy, hence I won't be able to comment much on the opposite gender's practice sessions. Although judging from the looks of their faces, I can sometimes tell that they won't be telling their grandchildren about that particular episode in their lives. So from this general summary and my limited observations, we'll begin our in-depth analysis on some of the practiced spectacles of the unnamed cultural dance company. Minors should not attempt any of the activities described in the next few paragraphs. If they do, they'll end up being child prodigies or, more likely, seriously injured ones.

      Let's start with Ethnic Dances. The Singkil, Binaylan, Palayok and Ifugao dances come into mind whenever the trainers declare the night to be for ethnic performances. Singkil is a dance that involves 8 bamboo clappers, 8 fan dancers, one princess and someone carrying a stupid umbrella that weighs a bloody ton. The dance is divided into 3 parts. The first part is a normal average-paced rendition of clapping two pairs of two-inch wide bamboo tubes while the princess makes a series of feet-mesmerizing steps in between those two pairs. She deftly crosses and passes through the bamboos as if they don't exist, as if they aren't being clapped hard and fast enough to make her toes bleed and swell for days. The audience usually loves this and starts clapping hard after the first bout ends. But it gets better. Singkil II incorporates a faster beat, a more delicate arrangement of all 8 clappers clapping their wooden appendages like warring blades, and has fan-dancers dazzling the crowd with their display of movements. The audience starts cheering louder after the second part concludes. Little do they realize that in a span of a few seconds, they'll be on their feet raving like crazed ecstatic fans. Because quite honestly, Singkil III is a sight worth spending a small fortune on. You don't believe? OK. Imagine three layers of thick bamboo tubes paired and piled on top of each other. Now imagine all six bamboos moving in unison at three times the speed of Singkil I while the princess goes through the many holes and layers of the sexagon bamboo arrangement. The words that come out of audiences are usually ones that relay a mind-boggling, amazing and beyond spectacular event. It is, put simply, beauty in motion.

      Practicing this is difficult since my fingers often become the subject of the two bamboos I have to clap. One tiny slip usually means a swelling finger. One major slip entails a broken one. So don't ask how many slips I've made because I certainly won't be able to count them. The bamboos are heavy. When placed and piled on top of each other, they become heavier. Woe is the pair which lies at the bottom layer of Singkil III for they will bear the weight of four other bamboos whose bearers have little, sometimes even no concern for those under them. Add this to the pounding sensation of the weight of the bamboos coupled with the clappers downward momentum and you'll get pissed off clappers at the bottom layer. Oh woe is me.

      But I think that my soreness is puny and insignificant compared to what the girls have to undergo. Binaylan is an all-girl dance that, I think, requires one not to have a backbone in order to perform. The dancers have to bend 60 degrees backwards while doing all kinds of hand movements. It's painful watching professionals do it. But It's even more wrenching when watching would-be dancers (TG and Beginners) try it. I don't think my spinal cord would approve of being a part of that dance. So whenever the TG girls do it, I take pity on their backbones. But not on them. (; They don't suffer from the many repetitions of the Ifugao Festival Dance us guys have to endure.

      It's hard to describe the Ifugao dance. It's supposed to be a portrayal of a fast eagle in flight, so it's pretty hard to explain how the movements are made. But if you combine jogging, stretching, bending and twisting for four minutes, you'll get some idea of what the dance is about. To point out a side-effect, I remember not being able to move my upper body the day after my first session trying to learn the dance.

      Another ethnic dance of significant importance is the Palayok. Ever see one of those big brown clay pots your grandparents use to boil stuff? Yes, those heavy things that are now used as ancient antique pottery in cultural museums. Imagine 8 of those pots on top of your bloody head. Imagine brisk walking with those 8 pots and you'll have a remote idea of what Palayok training is all about. If your neck isn't strong enough, you'll probably break it… or at least some of those pots which will more than likely fall on you if you miss a moment's concentration. Only girls dance this, so us guys are granted the esteemed honor of sweeping the debris of fallen pots whenever such accidents occur. We sweep regularly nowadays.

      There are many other Ethnic dances, but to iterate every one of them would result in too many damn pages. So I'll stick to the more popular dances in each category. Next off is Spanish Philippines. Compared to Rural and Ethnic dances, these are relatively easy. It requires more grace than it does stamina and strength. Sadly, I'm not a very graceful dancer so even the easiest of the easiest of these dances prove to become too much off a hassle for me. The only dances that I know here are Manton de Manila, something that involves clapping and stomping for guys, Jota Cavitena, a dance with castanettes, and Rigodon de Honor, a form of ramp modeling our grandparents would gaze at awe on. PGs label Spanish dances as beauty dances since they don't require too much skill and practice. Humbug. I scoff at such a statement; the main reason being that I lack the skill and practice it so deftly requires. There are many other Spanish dances, but I won't bore you with them. They're not as exciting as the next bunch categorized under Rural Philippines.

      The infamous Kadang is the forebearer of this category. It's a fast all-guy dance of thick bamboo stilts. Stilts, whose ledges are as high as my chest, and are incredibly hard to control when you're actually on them. The first thing one is supposed to learn when dancing this is balance; both feet strongly glued to the ledges, both hands gripped firmly on the top. After a few months of falling flat on my ass, toes and in one instance, my crotch area, I am now able to get on those damned things without looking like a complete idiot. The next thing to be learned, or so I'm told, is to balance yourself on only one leg, constantly bouncing on the stilt while you're doing it. I can do this remarkable feat for an average number of 30 seconds. After that, gravity takes over and I hope that the nearby hospital has a good doctor ready. But if you think those two exercises are hard, wait till you hear of the advanced ones. Balancing on one leg while the other makes a 90 degree side extension on the air, running like the wind, twirling and catching one stilt like a baton while bouncing on the other… like Singkil, it's imperative that you see it in order to believe it.

      I've seriously tried my best to ignore learning this one dance. But alas, not even I, as master of beguiling and subversion techniques, can mislead the supervision of the instructors. My dancer friends, instead of supporting my notion to be removed from the horror that is Kadang, tell me there's nothing to worry about because I'm completely insured. They really help me feel much safer and make me more interested to learn - (if you read closely enough, you'll be able to cut through the sarcastic tension of the previous statement with a knife). If I got a peso for every time they told me that dancing it was easier than it looked, I'd be rich enough to buy the company and remove the stupid dance from the program entirely. They'll all probably hate me afterwards, but what's their hatred compared to my foot injuries, right? (;

      The Tinikling, another rural dance, is the first dance that I was privy to perform on stage. It's quite popular so I don't think I have to describe it. The main differences of our version and all others is that the speed of clapping the bamboos is much much much faster, and the clappers actually have to do exhibition stunts with their poles before the dance really begins. What exhibitions, you ask? Well, it's hard to describe all the jumping and canoodling, so I'll just describe the after-effects. After my first performance, my feet ached from so many bruises and wounds that no amount of bandaging could hide those swollen objects that I once called my feet. Walking became pretty hard after that. Running, impossible. If they told me to do the Kadang after that, I would have bloody well fainted. But now, after a year of training, I can pretty much do some of the stunts without screwing up too much.

      Of course there are a whole lot more dances, but we usually just practice three to five different dances on an average session. The more mistakes incurred in one dance, the more time spent mastering it. Hence, when I'm required to attempt the Kadang, us guys spend a great deal of time trying to get it right while the girls enjoy the extended break of sitting and mocking. At around 7:30 or 8:30, we're finally given permission to retire and go home to our soft beds and warm baths. This is the point in time wherein I start licking my wounds and cover my newly acquired bruises. We fix up the hall, make sure it's still decent to look at for the next day's session, and then eventually just disperse to yonder homes.

      So why haven't I quit yet, you ask? If the dances are so hard to do, why do I persist? If practicing makes my body feel like a needle's pin-cushion, why do I even practice? I'm not required to do it, right? I can quit anytime I bloody want and no one would give a damn or complain. So why do it? Why endure all the anguish in learning something I probably will never master? Where's the logic there? Those questions are probably plaguing your head right now so I'll make my answer simple and easy to understand: I like it.

      I enjoy the feel of challenging my physique. I enjoy laughing at my mistakes while hoping that someday I won't make them anymore. I enjoy the group's company. I take pleasure in trying to learn, even though I don't. All the sweat, blood and stress fall short of the feeling of knowing that despite my shortcomings, I'm still there: surviving, dancing, and practicing. And once I finally learn what they're trying to teach, a future bound to happen if I have my way, I'll be proud to say that I learned it despite my incapacity to do so.

      The dance group once traveled abroad many times, showing off the many beautiful dances of our country with first-class expertise. Today, most of the performers, the PGs, are leaving in search for that horrid thing adults call jobs. Suckers. Thus, the training of new dancers to take their place now occupies most of our instructors' time. Generation Next of the many past generations is now starting to bear fruit. Whether we match up to our predecessors, or their predecessors, or the many other batches that have gone before us is questionable and probably unattainable. But one thing remains absolutely certain.

      Dances may falter,
      People will come and go,
      Skill levels will always change,
      I will always screw up, but…
      Practice never will.