Brilliant like her illustrious forbear, Leonor was described by Alejandro R. Roces as the greatest National Artist, having encompassed and encapsulated more areas in the cultural field than any other National Artist. Besides being the country’s most outstanding choreographer, she was a dancer, poet, playwright, visual artist, scenic and costume designer, pianist, composer and historian.
In brief, she was a genius; one might say, without the least hesitation, that the Renaissance Man in our family was a woman. When H.R. Ocampo saw Leonor’s sketches and drawings, he quickly told her, "You could have been a painter instead of a choreographer." Her theater piece "My Son, Jose Rizal" was regarded by Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero, himself a dramatist, the best play in the year it was written. For a time, Leonor held the unofficial title "Dean of Performing Arts Critics."
Her articles have been published in Dance Magazine, New York; Enciclopedia Dello Spetacolo, Rome; Grove’s Dictionary, London, and Arts of Asia. By itself, her encyclopedic coffee table book, Dances of the Emerald Isles described by the distinguished historian Teodoro Agoncillo as "A towering contribution to Philippine cultural history" can ensure Leonor a claim to fame and immortality.
Of the book, Dr. Marcelino Foronda, president of the Philippine National Historical Society, wrote: "Deeply perceptive and perspicacious, the author provides the interlocking historical, political, social and economic contexts so necessary in the understanding of Philippine dance. Leonor has proven herself not only the country’s most eminent choreographer but also a cultural historian of the first order."
As a student graduating at 19 with a BSE degree summa cum laude at St. Scholastica’s College, she was already choreographing trail-blazers and trend-setters. After Fr. Joseph Murly, SJ, had seen Leonor’s "Circling the Globe" (1939), he wrote the budding choreographer (who had designed the sets and costumes herself): "There is no doubt at all of your ability to present each national dance at its most colorful. I liked best the Chinese, the Mexican, the Maria Clara, the last as beautiful a spectacle as I have ever seen here."
Leonor’s Noli Dance Suite, consisting of "Maria Clara and the Leper", "Asalto for Maria Clara" among others, was the first choreography to themes from Rizal’s novel.
For the first time, Leonor wove together the dances of the rice cycle – the planting, transplanting, cutting, threshing, pounding and winnowing of rice – and the Tinikling into a streamlined, continuous, artistic whole. In the original folk dances, farmers are merely imitating the tikling bird; in Leonor’s version, the farmers catch the tikling bird between the poles; the tikling bird’s movements are lighter, swifter, more bird-like.
When Leonor danced her stylized version of "The Bird and the Planters" in New York (while she was taking up Speech and Drama at Columbia U. then), William Mott, International House director, used to say to Leonor, "I never breathe while you do that finale." Haze Muller, of NY’s American Museum of Natural History, wrote her: "The memory of your exquisite dancing stays before my eyes. You were like a spirit of the dance, your feet barely touching the floor."
When Leonor was only 16, she had already proven what a remarkable dancer she was while providing the intermission number of a piano recital. As a Roman soldier with a plumed helmet in "War Dance", she went off to battle, fought valiantly, got wounded and had a moving death scene. "War Dance", done sur les pointes, so impressed the audience that they kept clamoring for a "repeat" in what was probably the most sustained applause I had heard in my life. It stopped only when the piano had been pushed back on the stage, thereby precluding an encore.
The American choreographer Agnes de Mille asserted that the folk dance, per se, is not art. Leonor revolutionized the Philippine folk dance movement by stylizing the folk dances, imbuing them with emotional and dramatic content, elevating them to a creative level and transmuting them into art. As Nick Joaquin pointed out: "The period of research is dominated by Francisca Reyes; the era of stylization, and of creative growth and development, is of course the era of Leonor Orosa who took the folk dance into the theater." She thus left a legacy for choreographers to follow.
With no financial support from the government, and equipped only with grit, determination and unwavering faith in her creative talent, Leonor took the Filipinescas Dance Company on five highly acclaimed world tours covering North and South America, Europe, Mexico, Russia, Asia and Hawaii. "Filipinescas: Philippine Life, Legend and Lore in Dance," variously described as "an epic," "a saga," "a synthesis of history, legend and tradition" received rave reviews.
Here are but a few samples. Irving Hoffman, Broadway critic: "Superb." Wolfgang Schubert, disciple of modern dance pioneer Mary Wigman: "Filipinescas can compare with any dance company in the world. The genius of its creator has been transferred to the dancers." Alla Bocharnikova, Moscow ballet critic: "Poetic to the highest degree; so much soul, yet simple, as all great things are simple." Erick Pierstorff, Oslo critic: "I have never seen another program where the spirit of a people has found such a manifold dramatic expression in dance." Robert Chaveau Vasconcel, described by the encyclopedia Espasa as ‘one of the masters of sculpture’: "I have never been so moved since I saw the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in Paris in 1909." Sergei Evelinov, director of the Tchaikovsky Hall, Moscow: "Tres magnifique. Great art, very original."
Two words had no place in Leonor’s uncompromising vocabulary. "Puede na."