THE THEATER OF DANCE
With a body of work that defies easy categorization, the Daloy Dance Company has emerged after their first year as an exciting contemporary dance company that is as mercurial as their name implies
With a body of work that defies easy categorization, the Daloy Dance Company has emerged after their first year as an exciting contemporary dance company that is as mercurial as their name implies
At last May’s Karnabal Festival, I got to catch Daloy Dance Company’s two performances: Unearthing by Ea Torrado and Inter/ act by Delphine Buencamino. The two works-in-progress continue to showcase the fledgling dance company’s predilections toward Dance Theater and move further away from the conventional idea of what contemporary dancing is expected to be. Unafraid to explore awkward shapes or deal with simplistic narratives, the Daloy Dance Company presses forward in their offering of a very different kind of contemporary dance show for the Filipino audience.
I call them fledgling because they only recently celebrated their one year anniversary as a company, and talking with founder and artistic director, Ea, she happily exclaims that “it is a very exciting time for us.” The company is comprised of dancers from different backgrounds and Ea wants to develop their individual sense of artistry and their voices and by doing so, has managed to build a body of work that makes them hard to easily categorize. “This is the time to not set our style or our voice,” she says.
I first saw them perform at last year’s The Imaganarium, a festival of the absurd, where they performed Dysmorphilia. The show is an exploration of the body and selfimage and it was a profound and moving expression of equal parts self-loathing and empowerment. I then caught their performance of the twin-billed Canton atbp at the Fringe Festival last February where they explored the duality of society—how it can be oppressive (in the piece Canton) and how it can also be supportive (in the piece Himalaya). Unlike Dysmorphilia, Canton atbp is the more accessible work, featuring lyrical choreography that is more what people expect contemporary dance pieces to be.
With such a wide range of expressions that they can explore, I immediately asked if the country is ready for Dance Theater and the kind of work that the company seems more inclined to pursue. “I think the Philippines is ready for it,” replies Ea. “That’s why the next pro- grams that we have are for audience development. We have this thing we call Tanghalan Talakay where we are going to be performing excerpts of a full length production or worksin-progress or new solos and, after which, we have a talk back with the audience. “
“People are ready but we need to open up discussions some more so that contemporary dance doesn’t just give the audience a feeling. It can become more than that. It opens up a conversation; it opens up a discourse.”
This constant shift in artistic expression seems very appropriate for the company. “Daloy,” after all, means flow. “Daloy is constant change,” explains Ea. “It’s important for the work to change as the person changes. It is grounded on balance and the only way to be balanced is to be truthful.”
Truth and honesty are important to Ea Torrado, which probably explains her personal interest and exploration with improvisations. “At the heart of improvisation, it’s anti-performance, which means when you do it, you do it for yourself. You are not performing movements that have to look beautiful, that have to conform to a standard of beauty or aesthetics. It connects me to a deeper sense of myself,” Ea says.
After a successful first year of establishing themselves as a company to watch out for, their second year is focused on audience development and will focus on the core members’ training to become a stronger ensemble as they have major works coming up later in the year.
“We have three very exciting male choreographers in the company right now,” says Ea. “We have Al Garcia, who went to choreo-lab in Malaysia in June. He’s choreographing for us in December. We also have Jared Luna, who studied for two years his Masters in Dance Choreography. And we have Ronelson Yadao, a former Ballet Philippines dancer and he is going to make a new work for Daloy. The title of the show will be called Three-Way and each one will be choreographing a 30-minute work each for the company. And in February next year, we are sure that Paul Hickman, Australianbased choreographer and dancer, is making work for Daloy.”
As the company is training extensively for these major shows at the end of the year, it has recently announced the return of its dance school, beginning July 8, at the studio in Erehwon Arts Center, and it has a daily schedule of classes of many different styles like Contemporary, Ballet (for kids and adults), Creative Movement, and Contemporary Hip Hop, among others.
People are ready but we need to open up discussions some more so that contemporary dance doesn’t just give the audience a feeling. It can become more than that. It opens up a conversation; it opens up a discourse. —Ea Torrado