Don Quixote in CCP

Ballet Philippines staged 'Don Quixote' in the CCP Main Theatre. My mom wanted to see it and asked me if I wanted to join her. I thought a shot of culture would be good LOL and I have always been impressed with ballet dancers so I decided to watch it too.

The night started off poorly though in that we didn't realize it coincided with Taylor Swift's concert in MOA. Don Quixote was scheduled to start at 8pm and we left Makati at around 6:40pm. That would normally give us more than enough time to get to CCP and even have some food before the show started, but the hordes of people heading to MOA caused major traffic in the metro. We got to the main theater at around 8:10pm and I was really worried that they wouldn't let us in until the second act but thankfully that wasn't the case. As it turns out, dozens of other people were also late - a lot of them arriving up to several minutes after we did - so we missed just a few minutes but still got to see most of the first act.

Thankfully, it was only a few minutes that we missed. As I entered the theater, I was greeted by a brilliant set filled with dancers dressed in vibrant, striking colors. What is truly amazing about ballet dancers is their supreme ability to appear so light and effortless on stage despite the fact that what they do takes incredible strength and effort; how those women manage to dance en pointe is beyond me! The ballet is an interpretation of the novel by Miguel De Cervantes, and its lead characters are the young lovers Kitri and Basilio. Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza are supporting roles (in fact, these two characters don't dance at all). The final grand pas de deux of the two lead characters is utterly spectacular and after seeing it, I can understand why it is one of the most popular duets in ballet history.

One of the reasons why my mom wanted to see this ballet was because it was headlined by Candice Adea, who recently brought pride to the Philippines by winning a silver medal in the 2010 International Ballet Competition. Candice wasn't performing on the night we caught the ballet though. I did think that her alternate, Katherine Trofeo, did a stellar job, together with Jean Marc Cordero who played Basilio. Since my mom didn't get to see Candice Adea perform, I will be checking up on other Ballet Philippines performances. Hopefully I can bring my mom to see another ballet headlined by Candice.