Leonor Luna Orosa-Goquingco, 87, "Mother of Philippine Theater Dance" and "Dean of Filipino Performing Arts Critics"
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http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryID=10659
National Artist for Dance (1976) Leonor Luna Orosa-Goquingco died
on July 15 due to cardiac arrest. She was 87 years old.
Known as "Trailblazer," "Mother of Philippine Theater Dance" and
"Dean of Filipino Performing Arts Critics," Orosa-Goquingco won
national and international acclaim for her brilliant pioneering
efforts in the difficult art of choreography, and was cited for
transmuting national ethnic forms into the contemporary mold of
interpretative dance.
Born on July 24, 1917, to Sixto Orosa and Severina Luna, both
noted physicians, Orosa-Goquingco’s early ballet training was
under Lilia Lopez, Epifania Rodriguez and Luva Adameit. She took
professional and teachers’ courses at the Ballet Russe de Monte
Carlo under the tutelage of Hilda Butsoca, Thalia Mara, Anatole
Vilzak and Madame Ludmilla. She was the only dancer on the First
Cultural Mission to Japan in 1939 at age 17. In 1940 she created
The Elements, the first ballet choreographed by a Filipino to
commissioned music, and a year later, choreographed the first
Philippine Folkloric ballet, "Trend: Return to the Native." After
WWII, she organized the Philippine Ballet and in 1958, founded
the Filipinescas Dance Company. Her other works include: Vinta!,
Noli Dance Suite, Morolandia, Festival in Maguindanao, Eons Ago:
The Creation, Filipinescas: Philippine Life, Legend, and Lore in
Dance, and Miner’s Song.
Her books, under the pen name Cristina Luna, had been published
by the Philippine Cultural Foundation and Philippine periodicals,
by Arts of Asia (Hong Kong), Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo
(Italy) and Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians. She was
the author of a history of Philippine dance, Dances of the
Emerald Isles (1980), and of the popular one-act play, Her Son,
Jose Rizal. She was the honorary chair of the Association of
Ballet Academies of the Philippines, founding member of the
Philippine Ballet Theater (PBT), a Zontian and a performing arts
critic/columnist of the Manila Bulletin (Arts and Mind). Among
the many honors she received were the Patnubay ng Sining at
Kalinangan Award (1961 and 1964), Rizal Centennial Award (1962),
Republic Cultural Heritage Award (1964), Presidential Award of
Merit (1970), Tandang Sora Award (1975) and the Columbia
University Alumni Association Award (1975). She was proclaimed
National Artist for Dance on March 27, 1976.
Orosa-Goquingco is survived by her three children, Rachelle,
Regina and Benjie and sisters, music critic/columnist, Rosalinda
Orosa and Helen Orosa del Rosario.
Necrological services for Leonor Orosa-Goquingco will be held on
Friday, July 22 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines Main
Theater. Her remains will be cremated and interment will be at
the Libingan ng mga Bayani.
--
It's a big old goofy world. - John Prine