Pinoy ballet star returns home to culture shock

After 20 years performing on the European stage, leading Filipino dancer Augustus Damian has returned home to helm the national ballet — and to experience culture shock.

Augustus Damian was principal dancer for some of Germany’s most prestigious ballet companies before quitting to become the artistic director of Ballet Philippines, but the differences have left him aghast.

"In Europe dancers are paid reasonably well... they really don’t have to worry about much at all. Here, dancers exist," says the soft-spoken dancer over coffee at a cafe opposite the Cultural Center of the Philippines on Manila Bay where the ballet performs and rehearses.

"If I have learned anything since returning it is how much I took for granted while away.

"You have to remember that when I left Ferdinand Marcos was still president... I still have a lot of reassimilating to do," he says with a broad smile.

Marcos, whose regime was marked by massive corruption, was deposed in 1986 following a popular revolt. But successive presidents have failed to solve the country’s problems of huge poverty and a gaping rich-poor chasm.

That ballet dancers in the Philippines earn a relative pittance reflects the sorry state of the country’s debt-ridden economy where over half the population lives on less than two dollars a day according to the World Bank.

Estimates vary but it is often said that 95 percent of the country’s wealth is held by a couple of dozen large families.

Although the arts are well patronized by the rich it is still largely a hand-to-mouth existence for most of the performers. The Ballet Philippines is putting on four shows this year for a fraction of the budget many overseas companies spend on a single show.

"I would be embarrassed to say how much these dancers earn but let’s just say it is a day-to-day struggle just to live," says the 41-year-old Manila-born dancer of his new charges.

"I see them dancing in worn-out shoes because they are only allotted six pairs a year. In Germany I could get six pairs in a month. The lighting is poor and the dance floor is not the best.

"It is easy to motivate your passion when you don’t have to worry about whether you have enough money for the jeepney (mini-bus) fare. Here, dancers exist."

Damian, who took over the national ballet at the end of last year, says he had 17 dancers in March. "By the first of April we had half that many... most of those who resigned have gone to Hong Kong to work for Disneyland... you don’t have to figure out why," he says.

"But I am an optimist. I can bring on some of the dozen or so apprentices we have. There is no lack of kids wanting to dance. Our summer school program is bursting with kids... many of them boys.

"You cannot take away the enthusiasm of these young people. They want to dance but it’s not easy to have a passion for something and simply exist... there has to be more."

For Damian there was no question about his passion for dancing, but he was also lucky.

He first started to dance when he was six and by the time he was 19 Damian was dancing with the Ballet Philippines. His life changed in the summer of 1984 while dancing at one of the Ballet’s summer workshops.

"The guest teacher was Rosemary Helliwell, a ballerina with the Stuttgart Ballet," he recalls. "She was impressed with my dancing and asked if I would be interested in dancing in Europe. Of course I said yes but thought nothing of it at the time.

Within two weeks of her leaving the Philippines that year she sent Damian a letter in which she said: "I hope you are learning German because you have just been engaged as the principal male dancer with the Kiel State Theatre."

With a one-way ticket and $700 in his pocket Damian left for what was then West Germany — a country he had never seen let alone spoke its language. "But at 19 you never think of these things," he says.

"What amazed me was being given the job in the first place. The director didn’t know me nor had he seen me dance... it was all purely on Helliwell’s recommendation."

For the next 20 years Damian danced the lead roles in many of Germany’s most distinguished ballet companies to much critical acclaim. He danced in some of Europe’s finest theaters and with some of Europe’s great ballet stars such as Lynne Charles, Sylvie Guillem, Michael Dennard and Jorg Donne.

"I guess you could say I had it all and I did. But I promised myself that I would call it a day when I reached 35. That birthday came and went so I gave myself another five years before saying goodbye to the stage which I had given so much of my life to," he says.

Back in Manila, the first question people usually ask Damian is why he quit the European stage.

"My answer to that question is quite simple... it was time to go," he says. "Over the last 20 years I have had a dream run. I could not have wished for anything better. I left on a high and no, I have absolutely no regrets at all.

"Was it a hard decision to make? No, not really. I had made up my mind and I was ready. There was no emotion or tears involved.

"I did not want to be one of those people who could not say goodbye to the stage. I did not want people to whisper ‘he should have retired years ago.’"

Damian also admits he had been feeling a bit homesick.

"I had only been home for four weeks in those 20 years. I had missed so much. No only within the country but also within my own family," he says.

"I wasn’t here when my father died, something which I will always regret. I missed the marriages and the births."

But as artistic director of Ballet Philippines, Damian faces perhaps his biggest professional challenge yet.

He knows it won’t be an easy task. "But I am an optimist," he smiles.