By Michele T. Logarta
Ballet Manila company artist Joan Emery Sia relishes the tragic and the sad when it comes to ballets. She favors Swan Lake, Giselle, Romeo and Juliet and La Bayadere over the happy and lively ballets.
“As dancers, we know our strengths and weaknesses. My strength is lyrical adagios. I’m not bravura… I cannot do Kitri of Don Quixote to save my life or anyone else’s. I like sad, sad ballets.”
Sia professes that she just can’t “get” Le Corsai
re, Don Quixote and ballets that are lighthearted and exciting because they are “too happy!”
She admits to being occasionally dramatic, on a personal level. The thing about her, she says, is that she is always conflicted. And scared, she adds with a laugh.
“Sometimes, I want to give up and I just think, am I being stupid or brave, staying longer than I should?”
It’s always a roller coaster, she says about her life as a dancer. “The lows,” she continues, drawing an imaginary graph in the air with her finger, “are so many, and your highs, so little.” But those, and she lets out a tiny beep for the highs with finger pointing high in the air, are what makes it all matter. “That little peak there makes it all worth it.”
She has had several peaks in her dancer’s life.
Last year, she was among the crop of new and promising ballerinas Ballet Manila introduced in its production of Romeo and Juliet. She, along with Katherine Barkman and Abigail Oliveiro, debuted as Juliet. Also in 2015, in the Asian Grand Prix (AGP) International Ballet Competition in Hong Kong, she was a bronze medalist in the Senior Division and in the Pas de Deux Division. In 2013, she was a silver medalist in AGP’s Pas de Deux Division and in 2010, a finalist in the National Music Competition for Young Artists (NAMCYA). She has danced the female lead in BM’s contemporary crowd-pleasers, Arachnida and MAZN.
Another peak in her career was playing the lead last June in Giselle during Dance.MNL: The Philippine Dance Festival, a bi-annual event that aims to unite the local dance community and showcase the best of Philippine dance. For the first time, the country’s leading ballet companies – Ballet Manila, Ballet Philippines and Philippine Ballet Theater –collaborated on a full-length production.
It was not the first time she got to play Giselle. What made it extra special was that it was a tribute to dance icon Felicitas “Tita” Radaic, teacher of Ballet Manila founder Lisa Macuja-Elizalde and countless other Filipino dancers, including Sia herself. In fact, if not for Mrs. Radaic, who is known to be one of the first Filipino Giselles, Sia wouldn’t be in Manila dancing.
A native of Cagayan de Oro, Sia, 25, was a teenager when she began attending summer workshops in ballet in Manila upon the suggestion of her teacher at the local ballet studio. She attended ballet workshops with various Manila-based dance companies every year. When the yearly forays into the big city became all too frequent, her father put his foot down. And she obeyed and thought that was the end of ballet for her.
However, a call from Mrs. Radaic came, just as May was ending. Mrs. Radaic told Sia’s mother that her ballet intensive class was still open and that her daughter could still catch up. Before she (and her father) knew it, Sia was off with her sister to Manila to enroll in Mrs. Radaic’s class. Sia remembers her father telling her that it was to be her last.
But, it wasn’t. The next summer after that, she attended a Ballet Philippines workshop and that proved to be her last. She obeyed her father and went to Ateneo de Cagayan to study Management Accounting. She being a high school valedictorian, Sia said her father had high expectations that she would pursue academic excellence and a traditional career path.
After a year in college, another call from Mrs. Radaic came. “Mrs. Radaic pops up and she calls my mom and said, “What happened to your daughter? She suddenly disappeared. Wow, Mrs. Radaic remembered me… she’s got a lot of promising and talented students. I felt so inspired that she remembered me from all the way in this little province. She told my mom to bring me to Manila. She said ‘Let’s find her a college here and she can stay in the dorm of STC (St. Theresa’s College). I’ll take care of her.’ My Dad didn’t know we were plotting and scheming… he could do nothing. He was just upset… but said okay, for as long as I continued to go to school.”
Under Mrs. Radaic’s wing, Sia found herself living in Manila and attending college and ballet school at the same time. For a period of time, she even lived with Mrs. Radaic.
“She’s like a mom. Very kind. She’s very dreamy. When she teaches, she says ‘Your feet have to twinkle… your feet have to be light.’ She’s very ethereal. She’s a real ballerina. She would talk about her teacher Anita Kane.”
As a student at Mrs. Radaic’s school, she took the Royal Academy of Dancing (RAD) exams and for her recital danced Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis, in Act 2 of Giselle. At the time, she was turning 18 and had begun thinking of joining a professional ballet company.
In 2009, she joined Ballet Manila where she got the chance to become Giselle. She’s done Giselle’s Act 2 adagio many times, ever since she started competing. She did her first full-length Giselle in 2012.
“Giselle is very timeless, very old. It doesn’t have 32 fouettés, no fireworks coda where everyone is doing their turns and jumps, boom! boom!” she explains and mimics the sound of sizzling fireworks.
“It’s very simple and if you open your heart a little, you can feel it and appreciate the beauty and simplicity. I remember watching Ma’am Lis as Giselle. I am so used to seeing her as Kitri. When I saw her, I got so affected… She was very tranquil. It was the first time I saw her like that. I want to feel that way also. If I can’t feel that way about my life, I’d like to feel it while I’m dancing.”
To portray the role, she is taking Lisa’s words to heart. Lisa told her that Act 2 is the hardest “because you have to be half human, half spirit. A wili is fully evil, but Giselle is not evil because of her love. Imagine you are fighting that inner urge to kill because of love.”
Physically, the challenge is fighting one’s human instincts and nature, says Sia. “You cannot come off as human. I have to stop that instinct and be a spirit. All your movements are controlled. You cannot wobble because what would be spirit-like about that? Everything is soft and very light and that is technically hard.”
Macuja-Elizalde, who has been coaching and rehearsing Joan and another BM dancer, Katherine Barkman, for the role, concurs: “As far as stamina is concerned, they really need to be strong as the jumping seems to never end especially in the first entrance of Act 1 and the entire Act 2. There is a special way to move your arms in Giselle. You need to imagine that your arms are being blown up by wind from underneath your armpits into your elbows. I try to give them as much advice as I can with regards to timing, technique, port de bras (carriage of the arms) and line.”
Giselle is a dream role for most ballerinas. But to Sia, it has always been a role she could see herself doing. It is not a dream role, in that sense, she says. “I love the story. Ang ganda eh.”
When she received the text message informing her she had been cast as Giselle for the tribute to Mrs. Radaic, she was incredulous.
Sia believes that she is very lucky to be doing what she loves and to be given the opportunities that have come her way. She also says she’s scared, as usual.
“I’m always scared… but, not everyone gets to be an artist, give a piece of themselves to the audience. If I wasn’t here, I’d be crying. That’s what helps me get through my fear… I didn’t disobey my dad for nothing!”