By Michele T. Logarta
Choreographer Martin Lawrance is never still, even while seated. Every so often, he taps his feet, snaps his fingers, waves his hands and arms, contorts his torso and twists and turns his shoulders to a beat only he can hear. There’s music in this man and anybody near him can almost hear it when he moves.
Lawrance is here in Manila to choreograph Rebel for Ballet Manila. It’s his second work for BM and also the second biggest of his career, he says.
He was handpicked by BM founder and artistic director Lisa Macuja-Elizalde to choreograph her vision of a modern-day Spartacus. Martin describes Rebel as a real passion for Lisa. “After she saw Misfit or Maverick which I did for BM, she said, ‘You’re the person I want to do this.’ She saw something in my choreography that connected her vision to Spartacus.”
Rebel has been a dream of the prima ballerina for the past five years. It takes inspiration from Aram Khatchaturian’s Spartacus which she first saw in Moscow when the Bolshoi Ballet presented a version of Yuro Grigorovich with ballet star Irek Mukhamedov in the title role.
Macuja-Elizalde’s dream first took the form of a pas de deux (a “choreographic miniature” as she calls it) by Augusto “Bam” Damian that had her in the role of Spartacus’ lady love Phrygia opposite Rudy de Dios as Spartacus.
“My dream for BM to mount a full contemporary version of this classic hero’s journey has found fruition in the most perfect timing and occasion possible – celebrating the 30th anniversary of People Power. After years of waiting for the right collaborator, choreographer Martin Lawrance is a godsend… he agreed to see my initial concept of a full-length ballet based on Spartacus but deriving characters from the historic EDSA Revolution. The discussion went seamlessly well. We chatted over a glass of white wine and then shook hands. We were on the way!”
And in many conversations over Skype in the past few months, Rebel finally took a more definite form and shape. The cast of characters will be led by Ferdinand, Imelda, Benigno, Cory, Inang Bayan (to be played by Lisa) and Juan, the Filipino common man. Forty-six dancers will support the main cast.
“They are amazing dancers, just amazing,” Lawrance raves.
Rebel weaves the story of the EDSA Revolution with the story of Spartacus. Lawrance says that the two stories are parallel. “I always have three thoughts in my mind when choreographing Rebel. One is the story of Spartacus, a slave and underdog, the story of Jesus, and then the story of Ninoy and Cory toppling the dictatorship of the Marcoses. In Spartacus, you have Crassus the emperor and his concubine and Spartacus the slave and Phrygia, the love of his life. He had to choose between her and doing something to change things. Ninoy was taken away to prison, went to America and then decided to come back to the Philippines. He sacrificed his love of Cory to come back. But, this is more than just a love story.”
In Rebel, Lawrance says, he is trying to show how people came together to make a change. “It’s the power of community that matters. I am not being political. I am not a historian. I think the story is clear but to tell it word for word would be boring. This is not a history lesson at school.”
Three weeks away from showtime, Lawrance isn’t finished yet with Rebel. “It’s normal,” he says. “I like dance to be clean and polished but if it’s too clean and polished then there’s no life and no heart in that. I need the raw edges.”
He doesn’t seem fazed that time is running short but he confesses to waking up in the middle of the night in a panic. He still has 20 minutes to wrap up the ballet and decisions have yet to be made about the music.
Rebel will use the music of Spartacus by Khatchaturian and other Filipino songs that have become iconic anthems of the EDSA Revolution. Audiences will not hear Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree. “In Britain, that song is played at weddings. I couldn’t possibly choreograph to that!” says Lawrance.
He believes he’s chosen the best parts of the Khatchaturian score for Rebel and that Gerard Salonga, who will conduct the ABS-CBN Orchestra live for the show, also thinks so.
“We are going to be using songs like Pilipinas Kong Mahal, Bayan Ko and a medley of Feelings and Dahil sa Iyo and a surprise number,” he notes.
Lawrance reveals that he still has to make a decision about another song and whether they’d include it in Rebel. “The big challenge for me from the very beginning was the music. It’s not music I would choose to choreograph. But it’s music that Lisa loves. You just do it and you find your way around things. Choreography is about solving problems. It’s about collaboration.”
Lawrance began dancing in his teens when he opted for vocational school instead of pursuing the A-levels, the qualification needed to enter the university in Britain. He joined the Leicester Youth Dance Theater and then trained at Coventry Centre for the Performing Arts and the London Contemporary Dance School. In 1995, he joined the Richard Alston Dance company where, as of 2015, he holds the title of associate choreographer.
Lawrance has had a long association with Alston. “I learned about music from him. When I was growing up, I never had music.”
Born to deaf parents, Lawrance says sign language was his first language, even before he learned to speak. “We didn’t have a radio player. Because they (his parents) couldn’t hear music.” Except for the occasional squabbling among his siblings, his home, he recalls, was a very quiet one.
Lawrance learned to be a musical choreographer from Alston. “He is innately musical. Musicality comes from inside. Dance and music go together. I’ve seen lots of works where there’s no connection to an amazing piece of music. That could be a choice or just stupidity!”
He moved from dancing to choreography when he decided he didn’t want to be the “older one” onstage but it also came at a time when his bones “started cracking.” “I danced with Richard from 1995 to 2007 and in that time I had two knee operations.”
Lawrance isn’t interested in starting up his own dance company. “I like working for Richard’s company and I like working with different companies.”
Ballet Manila is the first Asian dance company he has worked with. He observes that Filipino dancers are very different from British dancers. “There’s a spirit there I have never seen before in a company,” he says about BM. ” I think Lisa has an eye for dancers… and that is what makes BM really special. It’s like a big family.”
He and the dancers are having a good time working on Rebel. “It’s all about challenging and encouraging them. If you have the dancers on board with you, you want them to be part of the process. It’s not just them doing what you tell them to do. Dancing is so joyous… that puts a spring in the dancers’ step,” says Lawrance.
And, Rebel, he promises, will be epic.