Choreographed by BP Artistic Director Mikhail Martynyuk, with a libretto by Sheree Chua and original score by Ronald Vincenzo Khaw de Leon, PAGLALAKBAY explores movement in its many forms: migration, dance, emotion, and the enduring motion of culture across generations.
“Migration is often framed as displacement, but my mother showed me that movement can also be expansion… a widening of self without losing origin,” Chua reflects. “This ballet becomes both historical and intimate—a narrative of seafaring peoples, and a tribute to the woman who taught me how to move through the world.”
Martynyuk’s choreographic vocabulary echoes the terrain of Batanes: grounded footwork resisting wind; tilting bodies leaning into invisible currents; hands functioning like tools, echoing gestures of sailors. Classical technique forms the skeleton, but the island landscape becomes the language.
“Batanes is wind, rocks, and ocean. As the scenery changes, the quality of movement changes,” Martynyuk explains. “The choreography becomes the narrator.”
Landscape, Wind, and Memory: The Visual World of Paglalakbay
For visual artist and production designer Leeroy New, the artistic process began far from the stage. Before creating any designs, New and his team, including assistant designer Arvie Santos, traveled to Batanes in search of the land’s atmosphere, materials, and elemental forces. Their goal was not to replicate Batanes literally, but to understand how its environment shapes life.
In Batanes, wind never stops moving. Grasslands shift in constant motion. Cliffs fall sharply into restless seas. Horizons extend endlessly. Experiencing these conditions firsthand allowed the design team to observe how land, weather, and daily life intertwine in a place defined by both beauty and exposure.
“We wanted the stage to move like Batanes—waves hitting rocks, wind cutting across grass, landscapes shaped by centuries of elemental force,” says New. “The land itself became our collaborator.”
Costumes also respond to movement rather than imposing form. Natural fibers ripple with the dancers’ motions, becoming metaphors for tall grasses bending in the wind or waves rolling across open water. The result is a stage environment where dancers and landscape breathe together, evoking horizons both vast and humbling.
A Ballet Born From Community
PAGLALAKBAY was shaped by BP’s Ballet Brigade outreach program in Batanes. In May 2024, more than 200 locals (elders, students, community leaders) joined BP dancers at Batanes National Science High School for a day of cultural exchange. Stories were shared, dances performed, and traditions celebrated.
This encounter became the emotional spark of the libretto and affirmed the belief that dance can bridge histories, nurture understanding, and activate cultural memory.
A Season Finale Rooted in Identity
“Ending our 56th Season with ‘PAGLALAKBAY’ was a bold investment,” says BP President Kathleen Liechtenstein. “It reflects our belief that local indigenous stories deserve the grand scale and artistic rigor of the classical stage.”
Liechtenstein hopes audiences leave with a deeper appreciation of the massive Austronesian migration of 3000 BCE—one of humanity’s great movements—and a renewed sense of pride in Filipino identity.
“Our stories are epic,” she says. “Resilient, profoundly human, and universally interconnected.”
Performance Details
“PAGLALAKBAY: The Journey of the Sea People”
April 10–12, 2026
The Theatre at Solaire
Tickets available via: www.ticketworld.com.ph, www.ballet.ph, and Solaire Box Office
About Ballet Philippines
Founded in 1969, Ballet Philippines is the country’s premier professional dance company and the first resident company of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. With over 400 works in its repertoire, BP continues to shape contemporary Filipino identity by blending classical technique with distinctly Filipino storytelling.
This season, under the theme Our Stage, The World, BP continues its mission to bring Filipino narratives to global audiences.
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