Bravo, Bayanihan Dance Company!

Here's something to fatten your Filipino heart. Something to be proud of more than Pacquiao's victory last Sunday.

No fanfare to triumphant Bayanihan dance troupe


MANILA, Philippines -- No lavish airport honors awaited the victorious Bayanihan Dance Company, which took plum honors from the World Folk Dance Festival in Spain, when the troupe arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Tuesday on the heels of triumphant boxing champions Manny Pacquiao and Bernabe Concepcion.


The 27-person delegation, including seven musicians and 16 dancers, casually walked with other passengers into the terminal where they were met with sampaguita garlands by Department of Tourism personnel.


The multi-awarded 50-year-old Bayanihan was declared “absolute winner,” or the grand champion of the World Folk Dance Festival’s 22nd competition last Saturday, besting delegations from 50 countries of Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas.


The troupe’s entry was an eight-minute dance narrative called “The Voyage for Love and Peace,” which told the tale of star-crossed lovers through several famous Philippine folk dances in the Bayanihan repertoire, including the singkil and the kuntao. They won the nod of the judges from Spain, Australia, Argentina, the Netherlands and Wales.


“We depicted the voyage for love and peace. We weaved the dances together with the story,” said the company’s executive director Suzie Benitez.


“We said we wanted to tell the story of the Philippines, we wanted them to see our culture, but we also wanted to win. And so when they called us the grand champion, we were all feeling so high, and so proud, and the sprinkling of Filipinos who were there were all crying with us,” she said.