Alice Reyes

Also known as: Founder of Ballet Philippines · Alice Reyes-Delos Santos (in formal citations)

Definition

Alice Reyes (born 1942) is a Filipino dancer, choreographer, and company director who was named National Artist of the Philippines for Dance in 2014. She founded the dance company that became Ballet Philippines at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1969 and served as its longtime artistic director, building the country’s flagship institution for modern and contemporary dance. Her choreography — including Filipino-themed productions such as Rama Hari — fused classical technique, modern dance, and Filipino narrative, professionalizing dance as a career path in the Philippines. (Wikipedia — Alice Reyes, Wikipedia — Cultural Center of the Philippines)

Identities

Source Type	Identity
Wikipedia	Alice Reyes
Wikidata	Alice Reyes (Q8521755)
DBpedia	N/A
ProductOntology	N/A
Wiktionary	N/A
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)	N/A
MeSH	N/A
NCBI Taxonomy	N/A
AGROVOC	N/A
Google Scholar	Alice Reyes Ballet Philippines choreographer Filipino contemporary dance National Artist
ConceptNet	N/A
OpenCyc	N/A

Also Known As

Founder of Ballet Philippines
Alice Reyes-Delos Santos (in formal citations)

Examples and Analogies

Company-builder comparison: What Martha Graham’s company was to American modern dance, Reyes’s CCP dance company became to the Philippines — a repertory institution that trained several generations of dancers and choreographers.
Fusion analogy: Her Rama Hari works like a Filipino West Side Story: an ancient Indian epic retold through ballet, modern dance, and original Filipino musical score for a popular audience.

Usage Scenarios

1. Professional Dance Training

Ballet Philippines’s school lineage and CCP summer workshops use her syllabus of classical-modern fusion as the backbone of dancer formation.

2. Filipino Repertory Building

Companies revival-staging her Filipino full-lengths to anchor nationalist programming during Independence Day and National Arts Month seasons.

3. Arts Management Case Studies

Her model of a state-supported repertory company with subscription seasons is taught as the template for sustaining a Filipino dance institution.

Strategies

Pair classical ballet exams with her modern-dance vocabulary so Filipino dancers develop the hybrid technique her repertory demands
Document choreography through Labanotation and video to preserve her full-length works beyond their original casts
Sustain cross-disciplinary commissions (composers, designers, writers) as she did, keeping dance connected to the wider Filipino arts scene

Security and Safety Measures

Company classes follow progressive warm-up and injury-screening protocols, a professionalization Reyes institutionalized
Child performers in her story ballets operate under CCP safeguarding and labor rules for minors
Stages and studios maintain sprung-floor and rigging standards for the acrobatic demands of contemporary repertory

Historical Context

Born in Manila on October 14, 1942, Reyes trained in ballet and modern dance in the Philippines and abroad, and danced with companies in Canada and the United States before returning home. In 1969, with dancer Eddie Elejar and CCP support, she launched a summer dance workshop that grew into the CCP Dance Company, later renamed Ballet Philippines, which she led through its formative decades. Her choreographic catalog — from the pop-inflected dances of the early years to full-length Filipino works such as Rama Hari, created with composer Ryan Cayabyab — defined the company’s identity and seeded Filipino theater dance. After years of teaching and directing abroad and at home, she was conferred the National Artist Award for Dance in 2014, and she continues to be active in Philippine dance as a director and mentor.

Challenges and Controversies

Sustainability of State-Supported Dance

Ballet Philippines has repeatedly faced funding crises, reigniting debates over how far the state and the CCP should underwrite repertory dance companies that Reyes’s generation built.

Authorship and Revival Rights

Disputes over who may restage her choreography after changing artistic managements have highlighted the weak legal protection of dance as authorship in the Philippines.