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Standing
ovation! Their audience rose to applaud and cheer in an
unusual tribute. A vivid and flashing program! The
famed Bayanihan dancers held a sophisticated audience
spellbound now swirling through the wild tempestuous figures
of an Igorot dancer, now moving with infinite grace and
delicacy through royal ceremonial rites
ASSOCIATED PRESS, 1959
The
Bayanihan (roughly meaning togetherness in Tagalog)
Philippine Dance Company opened on Broadway to critical
cheers. The dancers, many of them in their teens,
showed a simple, unsophisticated enthusiasm that kindled a
sense of joy in the audience.
TIME,
1959
The surprise
hit on Broadway last week was neither a musical nor a play
but an enchanting group of college students dancers from the
Philippines who opened a U.S. tour at New York's Winter
Garden. Compared with this engaging, graceful, and
disciplined group, the dancers in the brightest Broadway
musical seems pale indeed.
NEWSWEEK,
1959
Bayanihan is one of the newest examples of an ethnic dance
culture which has gone beyond simple preservation and into
creative growth. They are professionals all, but they see,
somehow, rather like neighbors and one loves them on sight.
The costumes are stunning, the music is fascinating but the
performers are, to put is succinctly, irresistible.
WALTER
TERRY NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUTE, 1959
Glimpse of Philippine Culture, says the programmed. It
was very much more than that. It was, this, in this
century of anxiety, the most spontaneous expression of joie
de vivre that we have ever witnessed. A song to the
praise of life in paradise on those heavenly islands.
With a peal of the gong, some dancing and a smile, the true
happiness of man emerged from darkness.
M.R. MOLENHOEK,
CETTE SEMAINE, 1958
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