Rosalia Merino-santos: Unsung Progenitor, Architect of Modern Philippine Dance
The roaring ‘20s was all about the Charleston, the Fox Trot, Texas Tommy, Black Bottom, Shimmy, and the Brazilian Samba. For all intents and purposes, it was an adventurous mix and time when jazz, flappers, and every manner of person that loved dance helped change cultural norms.
It was a time when commercially-driven entertainment was introduced and rather famously scattered throughout the world until it reached our shores.
In this time, Rosalia Merino was born and it is her journey, punctuated by discoveries and growing wonder, that very aptly guided how she quietly wielded her grace to shape contemporary Filipino dance as it is known today.
Years after her family had moved to the United States so that her father, Gonzalo Merino, could work at the Bureau of Plant and Industry, Rosalia came home with music and movement already seeded into her very young soul.
She was four, and understandably mesmerized by the sight of ballerinas moving, seemingly floating, turning, and elegantly balanced as she and her mother, Enriqueta Ramos Merino, passed by a ballet studio in downtown Manila.
To say that ballet made an impression on her would have been too tame a word.
As design would have it, Rosalia eventually studied ballet under the exacting tutelage of Luva Adameit at the Cosmopolitan Ballet and Dancing School, where she became Adameit’s assistant after receiving her own diploma for dance technique at thirteen years old. Adameit’s baby ballerina had come into her own, a name for Philippine ballet.
After Adameit, Rosalia learned from a slew of teachers
whose standards can very well be said to have inspired in her the spirit to mold a new generation of dancers. Among these distinguished teachers are Ricardo Casell, Trudl Dubsky-zipper (creative dance), Conchita Sotelo (Spanish dances), Martha Graham, Louis Horst, Hanya Holm, Jose Limon and Charles Weidman (modern dance), and Harold Kreutzberg and Mary Wigman (expressive dance), and finally, National Artist for Dance (1973), Francisca Reyesaquino (Philippine Folk dances).
After studying in Philippine Women’s University (1950), she took her master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin (1952), where she studied with Margaret H’doubler and became a member of Orchesis, a student organization that gave her an outlet for experimental dances. In 1959, she received a Fulbright Scholarship.
“Dance as an art form is an expression of an individual, or a country, or a group, ideal, feeling, values. There you can see their character and how far they have developed in their culture and science. It all comes out in dance,” Rosalia said in an interview for CCP. “If I went into choreography, it was because there was something I wanted to share.”
To paraphrase her own words, she had become more interested in the process of education. Something had to come out of all this.
This was evident on her return as she founded the
Far Eastern University (FEU) Experimental Dance Troupe and brought to Manila what is dubbed as the best lecturedemonstration of dance, and especially one that featured experimentations in folk themes.
It was a seminal work. Of Cocks and Kings (1958), was described by critic, Morli Dharam, as remarkable. Based on the story penned by Filipino author, essayist, dramatist, and National Artist for Literature (2003), Alejandro Roces, the adaptation “revealed fertile possibilities—its dynamism, its tendency for oblique expression, its rich overtones for symbolism and many-layered meanings,” Dharam enthused.
“In that manner, the legend becomes a true dance-drama, evoking the universal sentiments of love and hate and avarice and horror and awe, but all within a unique Philippine context—a contribution from us to the world’s treasury of dance dramas.”
Rosalia’s other notable works include What is Dance?, an experimental dance workshop (1958), Fanfare (1958), which was a dance of pure movements, Feminine Gender (1958), Portrait of the Filipino as seen through Philippine Songs and Folk Dance (1959) which was presented by the Far Eastern University dance troupe when they toured Europe, Ugaling Filipino (1963), and Halina’t Maglaro (1971) for Ballet Philippines.
In 1978, she was recognized by the Ballet Federation of the Philippines for her contributions as a teacher and choreographer. In 1981, she received the Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award from the city of Manila and, in 1994, the Gawad CCP para sa Sining for her unparalleled contributions to the development and introduction of modern dance in the Philippines and the growing appreciation for the same.
Essentially, the Gawad awardee, dancer, and choreographer, is accurately an unsung architect and a progenitor of Philippine dance. Her overall exercise and immersion in folk dances, ballet, and modern dance, honed her ability to shape the minds, hearts, and practice of students who have, in their own right, gathered acclaim for themselves over the years while seeding in many others the love and appreciation for dance as an art form.
And how best to honor a living hero and legend? Legacy.
The portrait of this unsung artist is best painted by the achievement of her dance progeny. Indeed, her efforts have recently been celebrated in FEU.
In 2019, Rosalia, now a nonagenarian, came home to FEU a recipient of a tribute, especially produced to honor her, as produced by her contemporaries, students, and a new generation of dancers that recognized her unmatched passion for dance, and her dedication to the university and subsequently, what can also be called our dance diaspora. A video of this tribute is featured here: https:// fb.watch/4s5bddosrl/.
In 2019, Rosalia, now a nonagenarian, came home to FEU a recipient of a tribute, especially produced to honor her, as produced by her contemporaries, students, and a new generation of dancers that recognized her unmatched passion for dance, and her dedication to the university and subsequently, what can also be called our dance diaspora. A video of this tribute is featured here: https:// fb.watch/4s5bddosrl/.
Unsung progenitor that she is, Rosalia Merino-santos has lived a grace-filled life, and it is right to recognize that it is her vision that has shaped the landscape for all of modern Philippine dance.