MANILA, Philippines - Double celebrations are in order for prima ballerina Lisa Macuja as she crosses another milestone in her prolific, highly-successful career. Macuja — the most popular and iconic ballerina in the country — will celebrate her 45th birthday and her 25th anniversary as a professional ballerina with a thanksgiving concert on Oct. 2, 3 and 4 at the Aliw Theater.
Aptly titled Lisa@25, the two-hour extravaganza will feature excerpts from some of Macuja’s most beloved classical roles, as well as a selection of her most memorable contemporary and OPM pieces. It will be recalled that two decades ago, when ballet was mostly confined to upper-class audience watching in carpeted theater halls, Macuja broke class barriers by bringing ballet to a wider audience. Despite criticism from purists, she performed on TV variety shows, pop concerts, malls, parks, even cockpits — bringing the same kind of electrifying performance of the classics as she would onstage in the ballet capitals of the world.
“I didn’t think I was cheapening my art,” she muses in retrospect. “Popularizing what is good does not mean making it less valuable.” And popularize ballet she did. In fact, not only is Lisa Macuja a household name, she is also featured in elementary school textbooks as one of the most outstanding female artists this country has every produced.
Macuja, however, is quick to point out that she is not yet retiring. “I will continue to dance for as long as it is not painful for the audience to watch me,” she says with her usual girlish chuckle. “Seriously, I am not planning my retirement. It will come but until it does, I will use all my talent and energy to continue serving the people through my chosen art. It is wonderful to reach a stage when I no longer feel pressured. Twenty-five years of experience has paid off. These days, I am just grateful. I’ve actually exceeded my ‘shelf life’ as a dancer. Our body is our instrument and it deteriorates as we age. Every day I could still go onstage is icing on the cake. It’s just a miracle for me… and there is always room for more miracles in my life.”
Macuja’s silver anniversary concert will be timed on the weekend of her 45th birthday (Oct. 3), which makes the celebration twice as meaningful. Directed by Roxanne Lapus in collaboration with choreographer and ballet master Osias Barroso, Lisa@25 will see the celebrator dancing in practically all the numbers of this special presentation.
Performing with Macuja are Robert Seña and Gia Macuja, with British violinist Robert Atchison and of course, the entire corps of Ballet Manila.
Despite her success in dance, Macuja remains humble and unaffected. True to her mission of bringing ballet to the people (and people to the ballet), the woman who has long been dubbed Ballerina ng Bayan continues to support fellow artists through her many causes like the Artists Welfare Foundation, Inc. (where she is a board member and treasurer), as well as the many collaborative projects she mounts through her company, Ballet Manila. She also continues to give free dance concerts on weekends at Star City, where her husband Fred Elizalde built a theater that has been home to Ballet Manila over the last decade.
In her seemingly charmed life, Macuja has only one secret: Plain hard work. “Nothing was ever given to me on a silver platter,” she points out. “No one is born a ballerina. You may be gifted with the potential and the physical features to be one, but it is the years of sweating it out in every class, every rehearsal, every performance that molds you into becoming a competent dancer. Even now, I still spend many hours practising in the studio each day. You should never think you’re already good and be complacent. If I lasted this long, it’s simply because I worked very, very hard for it.”