ARTEPINAS: SIGNATURE

Sunday, November 11, 2007

SIGNATURE

Signature features works that have the respective dance artist's undeniable stamp - dance with a highly personal artistic vision.

Dates: Nov. 17 and 18, 2007 8:00 pm

Venue: Dance Forum

Featured dancer/choreographers:

Myra Beltran, Paul Morales, Ava Maureeen Villanueva, Herbert Alvarez

Nina Hayuma Habulan, Jethro Pioquinto, Elena Laniog, John Philip Martir

In celebration of performance venue Dance Forum’s instrumental role in defining independent dance practice in the Philippines, Signature will be staged there on Nov. 17 and 18.

To be showcased are contemporary dance artists Myra Beltran and Paul Morales in signature pieces as well as the works of the winners of the recently concluded Wi_fi Body Festival's New Choreographers Competition, the first choreography competition for the solo-duet form in the Philippines.

An alternative, intimate and open-air performance venue, Dance Forum was founded by Beltran in 1995. She is a leading figure in Philippine independent dance, conceptualizing and leading the World Dance Alliance-Philippine s Choreographers' Network in the groundbreaking Contemporary Dance Map Series and the Wi_fi Body Festival at the Cultural Center of the Philippines that has supported choreographers and dancers in the independent contemporary dance scene in the Philippines.

Ten years ago, Dance Forum opened publicly, said Beltran. At that time, independent dance practice in the Philippines necessarily had to be contemporary in approach and aesthetic. The direction has subsequently developed in many branching streams, but the idea of the solo dance, and all its political implications in the history of dance, is an important step in any ground-breaking dance movement. We want to celebrate and commemorate that idea all over again.